How to Fit a Large Program into a Small Machine (Zork, Z-Machine, ZIL) (1999)
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Submission timeline
2007–2026One slot for every year since HN launched. Height is that year's peak points; orange marks a 100+ point or 50+ comment breakout. Select a bar to open its strongest thread.
First comments on top threads
HN comment orderMany of you have on-the-fly code compression in your pocket. When I worked in their R&D dept, I developed a feature for Qualcomm's modem chips that allowed the code to be shipped in compressed form. I wrote a custom paging handler that could fetch and decompress pages on-the-fly. It started with just code and RO data. Then we added RW compression, which meant our handler now had to re-compress evicted pages of RW data that been modified. I came up…
I've always been fascinated by Zork despite coming of age decades after its release. Reminded of it a few years back through The Digital Antiquarian, I wrote a C# implementation of the Z-Machine (https://github.com/raegwolf/zmachine). Seeing how so much could be achieved with so little memory was eye opening.
The first top-level comment from each of the four biggest threads, in HN’s own order. Excerpts are shortened; open a comment for full context.
- Breakout years
- 2
- Total points
- 278
- Total comments
- 74
100+ points or 50+ comments
reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking
reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking
Every submission
| Date | Title as submitted | By | Points | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017-04-07 | How to fit a large program into a small machine (1980) | deanmen | 3 | 0 |
| 2017-08-23 | How to Fit a Large Program in a Small Machine | pmoriarty | 2 | 0 |
| 2018-08-25 | How to Fit a Large Program into a Small Machine (1999)First breakout · Best thread | tosh | 148 | 35 |
| 2023-10-13 | How to Fit a Large Program into a Small Machine (Zork, Z-Machine, ZIL) (1999)Latest 20+ point return | peter_d_sherman | 125 | 39 |