The Z-Machine Standards Document

Version 1.0

22nd June 1997

two misprints corrected, 9th August

resources appendix updated and discovery added to header table, 4th September

• Preface
• Overview of Z-machine architecture

• 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

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

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

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

• 16. Font 3 and character graphics

• 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