The word "Zork" is a nonsense word, often used by MIT 

hackers as the name for any unfinished

program until they were ready to be installed on the system. [10][2][12][13] With the game complete, in 1978
the imps renamed the game Dungeon; by this time it was popular among gamers. That year the
developers received notice from TSR Hobbies, the publishers of Dungeons and Dragons, claiming
the game violated their trademark; the name was changed back to Zork.[9][14]

Fortran port
While being developed at DM, the game's source code was protected by encrypting the files and
patching the machine's copy of ITS to not allow access to the directory containing the source
code. Digital Equipment Corporation programmer Ted Hess[15] repatched the OS to allow access to
the directory, copied the source directory to a TOPS-20 machine, and used a brute-force attack to
decrypt the files. Bob Supnik, also at DEC, used the decrypted source to create a Fortran IV port,
which allowed the game to run on the smaller PDP-11.[4][16] Supnik released his version in January
1978,[17] which was ported to many platforms. The source for these versions were taken in the era
when the original game was still known as Dungeon.[9][14] The Fortran version of Dungeon was widely
available on DEC VAXes, being one of the most popular items distributed by DECUS,[12] and
incorporated features and changes from the original muddle version. In the late 1980s the Fortran
version was extensively rewritten for VAX Fortran and became fully compatible with the last MDL
release. It has one extra joke: an impassable entrance to the Mill, a reference to DEC's Maynard,
Massachusetts headquarters. It also has a gdt command (game debugging technique, a reference
to the DDT debugger) which enables the player to move any object (including the player) to any
room. Use of gdt requires answering a random question requiring deep knowledge of the game. The
game's response to a wrong answer ("A booming voice says 'Wrong, cretin!' and you notice that you
have turned into a pile of dust") appears in many "fortune cookie" databases.
The Fortran version was also included in the distribution media for some Data General operating
systems. It was used as an acceptance test to verify that the OS had been correctly installed. Being
able to compile, link, and run the program demonstrated that all of the run-time libraries, compiler,
and link editor were installed in the correct locations.
A Fortran version was running in an IBM 370 port in the Constituyentes Atomic Center, Argentina,
around 1984.

Infocom forms
In 1979 three of the four original imps founded Infocom as a general programming firm.[9] Two other
members of the DM team, Joel Berez and Marc Blank, convinced the founders that it was possible to
sell Zork commercially on new personal computers. Such systems, however, did not support MDL,
usually did not have a Fortran compiler, and used floppy disk systems storing about 180 kB or even
using cassette tapes for storage.[4] Berez and Blank came up with the idea of creating a
new computer programming language, "Zork Implementation Language" or "ZIL", which would run
within a virtual machine known as the Z-machine. The Z-machine would be ported to various
platforms in shells known as the "Z-machine Interpreter Program" or ZIP. Using rented time on a
TOPS-20 machine, they built the first ZIP in 1979. [4]
To solve the problem of storage space, they first considered using data compression but decided to
remove sections of the game until it would fit on a floppy disk. Dave Lebling drew a circle on
the Zork map so it contained about half of the original map, about 100 or so locations including
everything above gr
ground and a large section surrounding the Round Room. The map was modified to make it more
logical and seal off exits that led to no longer-existing areas. [4] Berez became the president of
Infocom. The new game was running on TOPS-20 ZIP and a new PDP-11 version of the Z-machine
by the end of 1979. Scott Cutler created a TRS-80 version of ZIP in early 1980, and in February the
company demonstrated Zork to Personal Software (PS), the distributors of VisiCalc and likely the
first software distribution firm for microcomputers. PS agreed to distribute the game in June.

Sales begin