UnQuill

UnQuill
Interpreter, Utility
Translate/play Quill games
[[File:|class=ifwiki-infobox-image]]
Link	Home page
Developer	John Elliott
Format	Other
Interaction style
Systems	Windows, Linux, MS-DOS
System details
Latest version	0.16.0 / 30 August 2024
Status	Stable
Implements
Uses
Used by	Spatterlight
License	GPL2+
Notes	For games written with The Quill.
Browse 0 games written with UnQuill
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UnQuill is a tool by John Elliott to dump, convert, or play games originally written with The Quill.

Originally for CP/M (supported until 0.9.0), UnQuill now runs on Windows and MS-DOS can be compiled for other systems such as Unix/Linux.

It reads a Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, or Commodore 64 memory snapshot of a Quilled game and can:

• Dump the game text and data (in text or XML formats);
• Convert to a playable Z-code file;
• Convert to Inform 6 source code;
• Play the game interactively.

Other tools

The author has written some other tools doing similar jobs for similar formats.

Included in the UnQuill distribution:

• unqbbc or uqbbc, to dump game data from the (somewhat different) BBC Micro version of The Quill (from a BeebEm snapshot).
• qdblist, qdb2txt, and txt2qdb, for working with the (rare) separate "QDB" format used by a CP/M version of The Quill.
• advlist, adv2txt, and txt2adv, for working with files from AdventureWriter, a PC derivative of The Quill.

Downloadable from the UnQuill web page:

• UnPLAD, which dumps the contents of some early ZX81/Spectrum games from Artic Computing which used an engine similar to Ken Reed's Adventure II engine (archive) (which inspired The Quill). (For example, Inca Curse.)
• UnPhipps, which dumps the contents of ZX81 games written using the engine described by Trevor Toms in The ZX81 Pocket Book (1981), published by Phipps Associates. (Relevant text here.) (For example, Greedy Gulch.)
• UnGAC, to dump game data from Graphic Adventure Creator games for the Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, or Commodore 64.

Links

• Quill for CP/M file format, IntFiction forum thread started 12-Sep-2023.