The goal of the ZVM project is to write a pure-python implementation of a Z-machine, a virtual computer architecture that executes interactive fiction stories written in a special language, called Z-code.

The current goals of the project include:

* No user interface: ZVM implements only the actual Z-machine. It
  is meant to be used as the backend in other programs that
  provide a user interface.  (User interface will probably be done
  via the 'glk' API, making ZVM pluggable into existing front-ends.)

* Compatibility: ZVM will implement a Z-Machine architecture
  according to the official specification.

* Coverage: Over the years, the Z-machine architecture was revised
  and refined: 8 versions are known to exist. ZVM currently aims
  to support Z-machine versions 1 through 5.

* Programming language: ZVM is written exclusively in the Python
  programming language, as an importable code module.

* Readability: speed is not an issue when emulating a 28-year old
  virtual machine on a modern computer, so we always shoot for
  readable code over clever optimizations.

All code is covered by the BSD license, found in the LICENSE file.

Build and Test

To build this code and run the test suite, just do

$ make && make check

from the top level of the source tree.

Project contents

  README                        this file
  LICENSE                       the BSD license
  Makefile                      used to build C code
  run_tests.py                  script to run automated tests
  run_story.py                  script to execute a story file
  tests/                        automated tests for the module
  stories/                      some sample stories to interpret
  zvm/                          the actual ZVM python module
  docs/                         notes, diagrams, instructions
  cheapglk/                     the CheapGlk Glk library

A Note on C Code

Note that while ZVM itself is written exclusively in Python, it does have the ability to interoperate with Glk front-ends which have been built as shared libraries. In order for our testing suites to test this functionality, we have included a slightly modified version of Andrew Plotkin's CheapGlk library.