Some MUDs used a very cool trick to avoid this, called “copyover” or “hotboot”. It’s an idiom that lets a stateful server replace itself while retaining its PID and open connections. It seemed like magic back then: you recompiled the server, sent the right command, everything froze for a few seconds, and (if you were lucky) it came back to life running the latest code.

This site is my attempt to collect every single version of each Infocom game, both source code and compiled game files.

Also:

• The Infocom Files
• Historical Source