The Zork Anthology (1994) - findings

Established against a physical pressing read on an Apple Silicon Mac with a Pioneer BD-RW BDR-XS07U. The general method is in docs/imaging.md; this file holds what is specific to this disc.

Identity

Plain ISO 9660, volume ZORK_ANTHOLOGY, one session, one Mode 1 data track, 120295 blocks = 282,933,840 bytes of user data. DISK.ID reads “The Zork Anthology / 1.0 / ZORK”. Not a hybrid: there is no HFS side, and modern macOS mounts it directly. 94 files in three directories (root, DEMOS, MECH2); see zork-anthology-1994.ls.txt.

Redump has two pressings of this disc: disc 82144 (120295 sectors, tagged “Original, Special Edition”) matches this copy’s block count exactly; disc 80023 is a different mastering (120445 sectors, tagged “Version 1.0”).

Structure: an installer disc, and mostly not the anthology

The surprise is proportions: the five classic games this disc is named for occupy 1.3 MB of a 246 MB disc.

• ZORKANTH.RED (1,289,064 bytes) holds the entire classic anthology - Zork I, II, III, Beyond Zork, Zork Zero - as an Activision installer archive (magic bytes 52 52 01 29, “RR”). Filenames are visible in the archive (Z1.COM is the first entry). The DOS INSTALL.EXE unpacks it; the files do not exist loose on the disc.
• Most of the disc is Return to Zork demo/full data: RTZ.PRJ (47 MB), RTZCD.PRJ (43 MB), and dozens of .MMV/.PMV/.LMV movie files at root, plus RTZCD.RED/RTZCDDRV.RED installer archives.
• Demos of four products (per DEMOS/READ.ME, dated 1994-09-12): Simon the Sorcerer CD-ROM (SIMON.GME, SIMON.VOC at 34 MB), Return to Zork, MechWarrior 2: The Clans (MECH2/), and Planetfall: Floyd Strikes Back (PLANETF.IBM, 7.6 MB).

Findings

• “Planetfall: Floyd Strikes Back” is the demo’s 1994 title. The cancelled Planetfall sequel is usually referred to as Planetfall: The Search for Floyd (the title associated with the promotional planetfall.avi on the 1996 Masterpieces disc - see that disc’s notes). This disc’s READ.ME uses “Floyd Strikes Back” two years earlier, and ships a 7.6 MB PLANETF.IBM demo of it. The two discs bracket the project’s public naming history.
• The READ.ME also dates Simon the Sorcerer’s CD-ROM release as “available … in 1995” and notes Return to Zork was already out on Mac CD-ROM.
• .RED is Activision’s in-house installer archive format of this era (INSTALL.EXE/INSTALL.DAT/ITXT.* framework, “RR” magic). DRIVERS.RED and the RTZ .RED files use the same container.

Open items for this disc

• Unpack ZORKANTH.RED to enumerate the exact game builds (releases/serials) shipped, and compare against the LTOI and Masterpieces builds. Options: run INSTALL.EXE under DOSBox against the mounted ISO, or reverse the .RED container.

Resolved 2026-08-29: Redump verification. The full dump hashes byte-identical to redump.org disc 82144; see checksums.txt.