[z-machine] Small contribution to the ZMachine specs

[David Anderson]

Hi,

I just subscribed, so I guess we'll have a quick introduction. I'm
David Anderson, and together with Ben Collins-Sussman (say hi Ben!),
we recently started writing a Z-Machine implementation.  We've been
fans of interactive fiction for a while now, and decided to combine
this with our software skills, for various reasons.

We called our project ZVM, and it is basically an attempt to write a
clear, well documented open source Z-Machine in python.  It is also
intended to be a "pure" machine, in that it implements only the
machine; no imposed graphical interface, and no external dependencies.
The project's website is at http://www.red-bean.com/trac/zvm .

It's still fairly young (ie. not actually working), but we're getting
there, thanks to the specs!  However, during our reading of these
specs, we came across a section which is, in our opinion, not
optimally phrased.

http://www.inform-fiction.org/zmachine/standards/z1point0/sect12.html#four

The section in question is the one regarding object property tables,
section 12.4.1 . In that, the format of the size byte is described in
fairly obscure wording, when it is in fact very similar to the format
described in the next section.

Attached is a patch in which we propose a rewording of section 12.4.1,
to make the structure of the property size byte more explicit and
consistent with context.

Regards, (and thanks for all the fish!)
David Anderson & Ben Collins-Sussman