Zork Trilogy freeware movement
This is somewhat emulation related because it involves a classic series of games that was ported to a great many platforms. I'd really appreciate it if you could draw your visitors attention to the movement by posting a news item.
The classic Zork Trilogy was recently listed on CNET as being in the top 10 freeware games available today. Unfortunately, the Zork Trilogy is not freeware and they had to remove the link. Classicdosgames.com has started a petition to ask Activision to revive or release the games as freeware at http://www.petitiononline.com/Zork/.
If you'd like to sign the petition, please add weight to your signature by using your real name. I encourage you to truthfully disclose your country or location in order to highlight international appeal for the Zork series and demonstrate the potential for a positive public relations move by Activision. If leaving comments, only leave positive comments and goodwill towards the recipients of the petition.
Re: Zork Trilogy freeware movement
The Zork Trilogy, like many works of interactive fiction, use an interpreter to run the games. This allowed the games to be sold for a large number of platforms, and they continue to be ported to new operating systems to this day. Writing a program to make the games play on a modern operating system is kind of like an emulator. That's the best excuse I can come up with.
As far as the failure of online petitions, I totally agree with you. Almost all petitions fail, though it never hurts to try. Since the petition now has well over 100 signatures, I have presented it to my contact in Activision's Legal Department and asked her to pass it along to Marketing. It's a longshot, but it cost me nothing to try. I want to thank everyone who signed, not that it's too late to add your name to add weight to the petition.
