Gnusto

Gnusto
Interpreter
[[File:|385px|center]]
Link	Home page
Developers	Marnanel Thurman, Atul Varma, Dannii Willis, Eric Liga
Format	Z-code
Interaction style
System	Browser
System details
Latest version
Status	Unmaintained
Implements
Uses
Multimedia support
License
Notes	Note that this interpreter cannot simply be downloaded and run to play game files.
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Gnusto is a Z-machine implementation in JavaScript.

Unlike most implementations of the Z-machine, Gnusto is a compiler rather than an interpreter. It works by compiling Z-machine code into JavaScript the first time a routine is needed; then that time, and on subsequent executions, the JavaScript is simply executed. This means that Gnusto runs faster than might otherwise be expected.

Gnusto was first written in 2002 by Marnanel Thurman and Eric Liga. It began life executing on a web page. The frustrations of early browser JavaScript implementations soon became apparent, and Gnusto moved to become a Mozilla (and later Firefox) extension. By 2005, changes in Mozilla were making maintenance difficult, and the project was abandoned, only to be picked up in 2008 by Atul Varma and turned once again into a web-based environment, named Parchment. In 2009, Dannii Willis put in the work to split Gnusto development from Parchment development so that the engine could be worked on separately, and continued to maintain the engine as a separate system; however, Gnusto has since been replaced in Parchment by ZVM in ifvms.js, and since 2011 is no longer maintained. Major contributions were also made to Gnusto by Fredrik Ramsberg and Andrew Plotkin.

External links

• Github site (read-only)
• Mirror of the original Gnusto website
• LiveJournal community
• The Mozilla extension (archive)