Web site: www.eblong.com/zarf/glulx/
Category: Machine Emulators
Platform: Linux
License: MIT
Interface: CLI
Wikipedia: Glulx
First release: 1999
Glulx – a portable virtual machine, like the Z-machine. Unlike the Z-machine, it uses 32-bit data and addresses, so it can handle game files up to four gigabytes long. Also unlike the Z-machine, it has native support for Glk I/O, so game files can use any capability Glk provides. However, like the Z-machine — again — you can write games in the Inform language and compile them to Glulx game files.
Glulx is a simple solution to a fairly trivial problem. We want a virtual machine which the Inform compiler can compile to, without the increasingly annoying restrictions of the Z-machine.
Glulx does this, without much fuss. All arithmetic is 32-bit (although there are opcodes to handle 8-bit and 16-bit memory access.) Input and output are handled through the Glk API (which chops out half the Z-machine opcodes, and most of the complexity of a Z-code interpreter.) Some care has been taken to make the bytecode small, but simplicity and elbow room are considered more important – bytecode is not a majority of the bulk in current Inform games.
This program can play games ending with .ulx, .gblorb, .glb, .blorb, and .blb. glulxe needs only a terminal; the optional graphics in some Glulx games can be shown by using the package gargoyle-free instead.
