Play Zork on Mac OS X!

If you are a freak like me, you drool at the thought of replaying the classics like the Infocom Zork series that you played as a kid on systems like the Commodore 64 I had. As you can see from my previous post, I downloaded the Zork series and some interpreters to be able to play it on Mac OS X (I also installed the Zork games on my Clie PDA, but determined that it’s just not as fun typing all that on a thumb keyboard).

I got it all working on my Mac and am having so much fun avoiding grues, that I thought I’d give my quick and easy steps to get up and running with Zork I, II, and III (as well as any other ZCode games) on OS X. (For you non-Mac folk, take a look at the list of interpreters for something that will work on your system).

  1. Download Zoom, the OS X Z-Machine, and copy the app to where ever you keep games on your system. I chose Zoom because it appears to be one of the best for OS X, and the interface is designed for Cocoa.
  2. Download the Zork zip images. Grab the main .zips. Don’t bother with the Mac images (they are for Classic OS). All you are really looking for is the data files.
  3. Uncompress the zip files. In the DATA directory of each game you will find a ZORK#.DAT (such as ZORK1.DAT for Zork I). Drag those files somewhere where you want to run them from.
  4. Rename the extension of each .DAT file to .z3. So for Zork I, you will rename ZORK1.DAT to ZORK1.z3 so that Zoom will recognize the file.
  5. Run Zoom, and open each .z3 file once, and they will then be listed in Zoom for any time you want to play! You will also be able to double click on the .z3 files to automatically launch the game as well.

And you are done! Go download the package material and when you get stuck, download the appropriate InvisiClues maps. Enjoy those masterpieces! When you get through with the Zork series, you can do a Google search for ZCode to find even more games.

7 Responses to “Play Zork on Mac OS X!”

  1. I followed your instructions and have Zork 1,2, and 3 on my Mac. I also have Hunt the Wumpus. :) How sweet! Thanks for this find. Now where are those old maps?

    Desiree said this on January 31st, 2004 at 6:24 am

  2. Awesome, thanks

    mat said this on March 13th, 2004 at 2:11 am

  3. Wonderful! Works just as you said. Thanks!

    Mike said this on October 6th, 2006 at 9:13 am

  4. Yay… Zork again. Haven’t been able to do this in years, even though I own Lost Treasures. Can I follow the same procedure with any of the games that have .dat files?

    Carmen said this on January 3rd, 2007 at 10:37 pm

  5. many thanks, I’ve introduced my 7 y.o. son to Zork and he is completely hooked (and has even forgotten The Football Manager for a while!)

    L.T. said this on February 12th, 2007 at 8:50 am

  6. These are terrific; I’ve been wanting to play the Zorks again for a long time. Is there any chance the other Infocom games are going to become available?

    m.w. said this on April 9th, 2007 at 2:13 pm

  7. Awesome! Thanks for showing us such an easy way to play Zork!

    Britt said this on May 9th, 2007 at 11:18 am