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Aug 27, 2018 at 14:56
Excellent article discussing the bytecode used to fit text adventure games on early PCs with tiny RAM: https://mud.co.uk/richard/htflpism.htm ZIL was lisp-inspired, heavily optimised string storage (5.5 bytes per character!) and had some fun opcodes that were very specific to text games.
Richard A. Bartle: How to Fit a Large Program in a Small Machine

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I bring you a message about a language that has been at the birth of many others, but almost no one knows it. A rumor of a graphical environment offering options like no other, but almost no one using it. I also bring information about a virtual machine supporting reflection almost to infinity, reaching almost half of the operating power of C in numerical calculations in its time, yet today forgotten.
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The Matter protocol is excellent for puns. "Does it Matter? It doesn't Matter."