I6 and i7 and i6 questions

[nunnya_biddness]

Hello. This is my first post on this group.
I have a few I6/I7 questions.
I'm new to authoring games in Inform, and this will be my first public
release.
Here are my questions:
1. is it possible to write inform 6 source code using inform 7?
2. How hard is it (for a non-BASIC programmer) to port BASIC games to
either I6 or I7? I have plans to port either Dungeons and Dragons
(1980s, C64) or Castle Droganya (1980s, in the archive) to Z-code.
If anyone would be interested in betatesting this, just let me know
and I will send you my test release via e-male.

[Andrew Plotkin]

Here, nunnya_biddness <blind...@gmail.com> wrote:
> 1. is it possible to write inform 6 source code using inform 7?

The Mac Inform IDE lets you create an I6 project. I have a feeling
that the Windows IDE doesn't support that, but I could be remembering
wrong.

> 2. How hard is it (for a non-BASIC programmer) to port BASIC games to
> either I6 or I7? I have plans to port either Dungeons and Dragons
> (1980s, C64) or Castle Droganya (1980s, in the archive) to Z-code.

It shouldn't be hard to reimplement that sort of game in either
language. You'd be rewriting it from scratch in Inform, however, not
doing a superficial port.

--Z

--
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..."
*

[David Griffith]

Andrew Plotkin <erky...@eblong.com> wrote:
> Here, nunnya_biddness <blind...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> 1. is it possible to write inform 6 source code using inform 7?

> The Mac Inform IDE lets you create an I6 project. I have a feeling
> that the Windows IDE doesn't support that, but I could be remembering
> wrong.

>> 2. How hard is it (for a non-BASIC programmer) to port BASIC games to
>> either I6 or I7? I have plans to port either Dungeons and Dragons
>> (1980s, C64) or Castle Droganya (1980s, in the archive) to Z-code.

> It shouldn't be hard to reimplement that sort of game in either
> language. You'd be rewriting it from scratch in Inform, however, not
> doing a superficial port.

I feel it should be stressed that Inform6 and Inform7 are two completely
different languages.

--
David Griffith
davidmy...@acm.org <--- Put my last name where it belongs

[Frank Furhter]

As I remember I7 is a rule based macro language wrapped which is
preprocessed to I6 and then to Inform Assembly. The latter two can be
written inline in I7 without problems or issues.

[Andrew Plotkin]

Here, Frank Furhter <fr...@furhter.com> wrote:
>
> As I remember I7 is a rule based macro language wrapped which is
> preprocessed to I6 and then to Inform Assembly. The latter two can be
> written inline in I7 without problems or issues.

(This is a sufficiently old thread that it's fallen out of my news
server's history.)

Some of an I7 program translated line-by-line into I6 code. However, a
lot of what I7 does is higher-level than that, and can't be described
that way. Whether you can call it a "macro language" is up for debate;
it's not a term I've heard in years.

There's no such thing as "Inform assembly" per se. The I6 compiler
translates I6 code to a Z-code or Glulx game file. There's an
intermediate representation which is Z-code or Glulx assembly, but
this is normally handled internally (unless you ask for an assembly
code dump).

[Frank Furhter]

Thank you for clarity on this issue.