Git is an interpreter for the Glulx virtual machine. The current release is version 1.2.4, dated 2 April 2009.
It's also available at the IF archive, in programming/glulx/interpreters/git, along with ready-to-run copies for various operating systems (currently just Windows and PocketPC).
Git is freeware. For more information, see the copyright section in the README file, inside the zipfile.
Git's main goal in life is to be fast. It's about five times faster than Glulxe, and about twice as fast as Frotz (using the same Inform source compiled for the Z-machine). It also tries to be reasonably careful with memory: it's possible to trade speed off against memory by changing the sizes of Git's internal buffers.
I wrote Git because I want people to be able to write huge games or try out complicated algorithms without worrying about how fast their games are going to run. I want to play City of Secrets on a Palm without having to wait ten seconds between each prompt.
Currently, Git only works on Unix, Windows and PocketPC, but I'm very interested in getting it to work on other platforms. If you want to do a new port, I'd love to hear from you. My e-mail address is in the README file.
Andrew Plotkin invented Glulx, so obviously Git wouldn't exist without him. I also reused some code from his Glulxe interpreter (glkop.c and search.c), which saved me a lot of time and let me concentrate on the more interesting stuff.
Many thanks are due to John Cater, who not only persuaded me to use source control, but let me use his own CVS server. John also provided lots of useful advice and encouragement, as did Sean Barrett.
Thanks also to Joe Mason, Adam Thornton, Simon Baldwin and Joonas Pihlaja who were among the first to try it out and complain that it wasn't working. Finally, thanks to the valiant porters -- Brian Kelley for WinGit, and Stark Springs for PocketPC Git.
-- Iain Merrick
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