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- Hello Informer!
-
- Here is version 5.5 (1502) of Graham's superb INFORM compiler. This is
- the "generic" PC version which is supposed to run on any PC (and if it
- doesn't please e-mail me the details). Please be sure to use the Inform
- 5/11 libraries with this new release.
-
- If you have a 386 or better PC then I recommend you use my PC 386 port,
- available on ftp.gmd.de, which is much better since it is free of the
- memory management problems of the generic port, and the more memory
- intensive options such as abbreviation optimization actually function.
-
- I believe that the generic port is reaching a point of no return. The
- $large option, which I recommended in version 5.4, will no longer fit in
- 580k of lower memory, which I use as an effective 'sieve' to determine
- the practicality of use of this port. To compile a game such as ADVENT,
- you will have to manually tweak the command line settings. A trial
- compilation will quickly show you what you need to do. If you do
- encounter memory overflow/allocation failures, you may get some
- corruption in the error messages. I have not tried to fix this as the
- user remedy (changing settings) is pretty obvious.
-
- Version 5.5 includes support for very large z8 games. I don't as yet
- have a test case, but my suspicion is that this will fail on the generic
- port. I'd appreciate any feedback on this topic. (I also believe a
- 'generic' version of the ZIP interpreter may possibly have problems with
- full sized v8 games. Again, a test case is lacking.)
-
- In short, I don't think the generic port has a real future. While my
- current plans are to continue to maintain it for a while, and that will
- in turn depend on whether I hear from anyone who actually uses it, I
- can't promise that the generic port will remain viable in the long term.
-
- Please send feedback and bug reports to bnewell@delphi.com, or to
- bnewell on the GobblerNet Classic Games BBS, 701-222-0429.
-
- And as always, thanks to Graham for making all of this possible. How on
- earth do you manage to do it all so well?
-
- Bob Newell
- Bismarck, North Dakota
- July 6, 1995
- (finally, a warm day after a freezing 4th of July)
-
-