The Z-Machine Standards Document

Version 1.1

24 February 2014

• Preface
• Overview of Z-machine architecture

Fundamentals

• 1. The memory map
• 2. Numbers and arithmetic
• 3. How text and characters are encoded
• 4. How instructions are encoded
• 5. How routines are encoded
• 6. The game state: storage and routine calls

Input/Output

• 7. Output streams and file handling
• 8. The screen model
• 9. Sound effects
• 10. Input streams and devices

Tables

• 11. The format of the header
• 12. The object table
• 13. The dictionary and lexical analysis

Instruction Set

• 14. Complete table of opcodes (with Inform assembly syntax)
• 15. Dictionary of opcodes

An Unusual Font

• 16. Font 3 and character graphics

Appendices

• A. Error messages and debugging
• B. Conventional contents of the header
• C. Resources available (with WWW links)
• D. A short history of the Z-machine
• E. Statistics
• F. Canonical story files

Related standards documents

• Quetzal: a common format for saved-game files
• Blorb: An IF Resource Collection Format Standard
• The Treaty of Babel: Software and a standard for IF bibliography