Ultima 7, an RPG from the early 1990's, still has a huge following. But, being a DOS game with a very nonstandard memory manager, it is difficult to run it on the latest computers. Exult is a project to create an Ultima 7 game engine that runs on modern operating systems, capable of using the data and graphics files that come with the game.
Exult is written in C++ and runs on, at least, Linux, Mac OS X and Windows using the SDL library to make porting to other platforms relatively easy. The current version supports all of "Ultima 7: The Black Gate" and "Ultima 7 part 2: The Serpent Isle", allowing you to finish both games. This is only possible due to the work done by other fans who have decoded the various Ultima 7 data files, especially Gary Thompson, Maxim Shatskih, Jakob Schonberg, and Wouter Dijkslag.
Exult aims to let those people who own Ultima 7 (copyright 1993) play the game on modern hardware, in as close to (or perhaps even surpassing) its original splendor as is possible. You need to own "Ultima 7: The Black Gate" and/or "Ultima 7: Serpent Isle" and optionally the add-ons (not required to run) in order to use Exult, and we encourage you to buy a legal copy.