Streck

Here's my list of personal favorites that I posted a couple of years ago. They're rather obscure, but they're easy to get the hang of and I think they're some of the best games the Apple II has to offer. Chrono Warrior This is a pretty ambitious game, combining different types of gameplay with a fun time-travel story. In the first level, you scramble around a prehistoric mountain collecting pieces of your time-gate. In the second, you race chariots at a Roman circus. In the third... well, I can't spoil the whole thing, can I? Ankh You're an abstract geometric entity navigating through an abstract geometric world, avoiding abstract geometric enemies and solving logic puzzles. The environment is unique and unforgettable. Flip Out My sister and I spent many spiteful hours on this game where all you do is mess with your opponent. The object is to get all your balls to the bottom first - and if you fail to do so before running out, you get to use your opponent's! Definitely play with another human if you can, as the AI is rather weak. Frenzy A simple game of evasion, but it makes fantastic use of the Apple II's unique audio, with some truly unsettling voice samples and gameplay. Paipec Catch the stuff that falls from the sky, using your four stacked platforms - but if you miss, you lose a platform and have less vertical surface area with which to catch something on the side. Just like Kaboom! for the Atari 2600, if you ever played that. Straightforward, nerve-wracking, and utterly addictive.

Its multiplier is locked, and the 440LX motherboard it's in is stuck at 66 MHz FSB. So there's not much, if anything, I can do to overclock it. But it's one of the Celerons that Intel forgot to thoroughly gimp, and it's better than the P2-333 that was in there originally. It came from an old Compaq Deskpro I had sitting around. I thought, why not?

Emphasis mine. This is really the heart of it. With '90s PCs, you don't have a single, named product like a Commodore 64 or TRS-80. Instead, you have a collection of named components that combine to form a single node of nostalgia. And believe me, it's just as "classic" as the '80s microcomputers that dominate discussion here, with just as much powerful nostalgia. If you need proof, just check out these subsections of the DOSBox forums: http://vogons.zetafl...db6d60b7f26ca4c http://vogons.zetafl...db6d60b7f26ca4c There's a thriving subculture of retro-PC enthusiasts, myself among them, who delight in recreating pre-millennial systems. 3dfx, Aureal, Gravis - these names carry as much weight there as Applied Engineering and Beagle Bros. do here. In fact, I recently finished my own PC project, a Dell Dimension XPS D333 heavily enhanced to be a late-90's gaming powerhouse (Voodoo2 SLI, SB Live!, P2-333 replaced by Celeron-500, Windows 98). It runs everything from Half-Life to Deus Ex like a champ and I couldn't be happier. Well, maybe if I could get EAX to work with System Shock 2 without a noticeable performance hit... There's a tendency among the '80s flavor of retrocomputing enthusiasts to view the '90s with disdain, and I think it's (1) based mostly on emotion and (2) sorely misguided. The '90s were perhaps less fundamental for driving computing forward than previous decades (and then only in certain ways), but they were no less important, and no less iconic.

In the rarified world of programming games, Silas Warner's RobotWar is a classic. Using a stripped-down language, you constructed primitive AIs to battle other primitive AIs. Computer Gaming World sponsored tournaments where readers would submit their creations to the arena. One fellow is interested in kicking off another tournament right now! I know there are at least a few programmers among AtariAge's community of retrocomputing enthusiasts, so I thought I would relay his message from comp.sys.apple2: I'd love to see something like this happen.

*duplicate post, sorry!*

Asimov is my very favorite archive, despite its shortcomings, because its contents are mirrored and copied and distributed absolutely everywhere. It's the only place where I know that when I upload something, it will spread across the Internet and be granted pseudo-immortality.

What? Is it any more ridiculous than "Best-looking classic computers"?

On comp.sys.apple2 last summer there was a thread about exceptionally good-looking floppy disks. Here are some of the examples posted. Got any more? It's a bit sad that there's almost no room for this sort of artistry anymore in today's teeny-tiny storage media (like those SanDisk flash drives that are smaller than the USB interface to which they're attached).

With so many disparate Apple II websites and archives, one idea that's been kicking around in my head lately is a Googlesque site whose only content is a searchable database of all those resources. It would make it as easy as possible to determine where a particular disk image, piece of documentation, magazine scan, etc. was located. In lieu of a comprehensive Atarimania-style site, I figure this is the next best thing (and maybe, in some ways, actually better). You'd have just a very simple search box, and after inputting your query, it would spit back at you the site(s) on which your thing was available. For example, something like this: Apple II Resource Search Oregon Trail___________ (SEARCH) (X) Disk image ( ) Documentation ( ) Magazine scan ( ) Other Then your search results would look like this: Your search "Oregon Trail" returned the following matches: Virtual Apple II http://www.virtualap...org/2listO.html MECC Software Repository http://mecc.applearc.../mecc-a157.html What Is The Apple IIGS? http://www.whatisthe...he-oregon-trail Asimov FTP (click here to go to Asimov, or here for a Web-based mirror) ./images/disk_utils/cracking/the_saltine/Oregon Trail A.dsk ./images/disk_utils/cracking/the_saltine/Oregon Trail B.dsk ./images/educational/mecc/Oregon Trail (Disk 1 of 2).dsk ./images/educational/mecc/Oregon Trail (Disk 2 of 2).dsk ./images/pd_collections/misc/165 - Games (oregon trail).dsk.gz ./images/games/file_based/WildWest-Alamo-GodRush-WestwardHo-OregonTrail.dsk

Mind sending them to Asimov toooooo?

Dunno how many of you visit comp.sys.apple2, so...

You can find a disk of the Nibble One-Two Line Contest at Asimov: "Nibble Magazine One-Two Line Contest Collection.dsk" in /pub/apple_II/images/magazines/nibble Found it in a random box of disks I got off eBay a few years ago, during an orgy of disk-imaging. Such disk collections don't seem to show up nearly as often now.

Located! Thanks to Herr Backenköhl​er and Monsieur Vignau from comp.sys.apple2 for, respectively, supplying the original disks and cracking/imaging them. Another important piece of Apple II history is preserved. EasyWriter (Cap\'n Software - John Draper - 1979).zip

This was the very first word processor for the Apple II, written by none other than John "Captain Crunch" Draper. http://www.webcrunchers.com/stories/easywriter.html You'd think something like this would have already been archived, but surprisingly, it hasn't been! So I was wondering if any of you fine folks might have it in your possession and would be willing to image it, or have it imaged. From what I've been able to determine, it came on a 13-sector disk, and may have included some kind of copy protection - but these are solvable problems. (The recent Microzine effort has renewed my drive to image certain titles that have long eluded me.)

? The "first-person" bit makes me think of either , or , but that might be going back too far. They all unzip fine for me. *shrug* They're also available on the Asimov FTP archive, in /pub/apple_II/images/educational/microzine/. The visuals you're describing sound a lot like . It's not an RPG though.

Just FYI, further Microzines are available here: http://www.brutaldeluxe.fr/public/scholastic_microzine/ Who knows what other games these may help people identify. One of the Apple II community's best deprotectors has joined in the Microzine archive effort! http://groups.google.com/group/comp.sys.apple2/browse_frm/thread/1359c8a6a59be51e?hl=en# BTW, as far as emulators go, AppleWin seems to be the definitive emulator for Windows.

History Mystery, on Microzine #18, is available for download here: http://www.rulecity.com/apple2/microzine/ Found from these threads on the Virtual Apple II forums: http://virtualapple.org/support/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=716 http://virtualapple.org/support/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=713 http://virtualapple.org/support/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=72 Cheers!

Those sound like the old DLM math games, maybe. #2 reminds me of Alien Addition. Go to the Asimov archive and search the site index for "DLM" - there should be two disk images there. This one I can answer with 100% certainty. It's Speedway Classic, also at Asimov. Make sure you get this particular image, since their other one doesn't work: Speedway Classic (WORKING copy) (Actioncraft - 1984) (Jean Laffite crack).dsk The Incredible Laboratory, by Sunburst Communications? To the people looking for History Mystery on Microzine #18 - there is a disk image of it on Megaupload. However, it seems to be bad. It's labeled as "uncracked", but the disk must have been resistant to even nibble-copying (since the image is a .nib and unbootable). I nevertheless attempted the crack described in issues #53 and #63 of Hardcore Computist, but I couldn't get a sector editor to read the image at all.

I work at a company that offers a proprietary suite of software on a remote-hosted basis: massive farms of Windows servers running Citrix, through which our products can be accessed. Windows, Citrix, and our software are the three main upgrade points we run into every few years. The additional functionality that's afforded by the new versions is enough by itself to justify our rapid upgrade cycle, but we're also quite fortunate in that we have a very, very thorough testing environment that alleviates most issues in advance. It's the only way to do things in an industry where technology speeds ahead as quickly as it does, but I try to stay conscious of the fact that most companies and other organizations aren't big enough to have those kinds of resources available. A friend of mine was using a Windows XP machine of about 2006 vintage up until a month ago, when its RAID controller failed. He'd been wanting to get back into PC gaming for some time, so instead of fixing that computer, I spec'ed out a new one for him on Newegg and watched him assemble his very first homebuilt. Luckily, we had a decent budget to work with (~$1500, since that's what his wife's iMac G5 cost), so I was able to set him up with quality components, and he's gained some valuable experience that will help him troubleshoot should anything go wrong. I know only a few tech enthusiasts, but I know many more "regular" folks, and for the most part they care about one thing: their data. Photos, documents, e-mail, whatever. To them, their computer is merely a vehicle for that data, a utility with as much sentimental value as a gas main or water faucet. They only care about upgrading when it breaks, or when it can no longer effectively do what they want. My mother has been using the same P4 1.4 GHz machine running Windows XP for the past six years, but my father upgraded to a new dual-core Dell running Windows 7 because he decided he wanted to get into photo and video editing. My friend's wife has been using her iMac G5 without complaint since 2005. As far as I can tell, for most consumers, necessity is the ultimate dictator and everything else is the domain of obsessives like ourselves.

Remarkable! I was recently watching this video of a card sorter in operation. The aesthetics alone are amazing (those buttons!): I have to say, I'm pleased at this thread's success. Vintage technology in the wild, still being used for its intended purpose by people who don't care how old it is, just that it works, is sort of organically fascinating. Us retro enthusiasts are outside the mainstream, with our unlikely hoards of ancient things, but out in the real world we can still find some naturally-occurring islands where time has more or less stopped. It's delightful and maybe a bit self-validating. Here are a couple of additional data points. Dartmouth College is apparently still using an Apple II Plus in labs for its lower-level physics classes: http://www.dartmouth.edu/~physics/labs/descriptions/ball.spring.html http://www.dartmouth.edu/~physics/labs/descriptions/projectile.motion.html Well, as of 2004, anyway, when those pages were last updated. Identified in the equipment list: In 2005, a researcher at the Trofimuk United Institute of Geology in Novosibirsk, Russia sent this to the ISOGEOCHEM listserv: http://list.uvm.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0512&L=ISOGEOCHEM&P=R6818 Apparently the Apple IIe was the standard controller for the MAT-251 mass spectrometer that he was using. Six days later, he fixed it the old-fashioned way: http://list.uvm.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0512&L=ISOGEOCHEM&P=R8422 It's gratifying to see that level of repair being carried out. I'd bet money on his Apple still being in use.

By which I mean non-hobbyist use. Two years ago, I was visiting a friend at a trucking company, and I snuck around and found that their accounting department was still using a Data General Eclipse for god knows what. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d4/Dg-eclipse.jpg I can't imagine that EMC (who bought DG) would still be providing support for it, but clearly it had some legacy programs that they couldn't bear to be without. What's the oldest machine you've seen in current operation? Any DEC hardware? Old-school IBM mainframes? Some backwoods store using an '80s micro for record-keeping? Here's a photo I ran across that made my eyes pop out. It's dated 2007: I'd love to know what business still has an Apple II Plus in active use. It's all the more impressive that it's a II Plus, not the more popular (and more reliable) IIe.

Awesome. I hope he was asked some worthy uber-technical questions too - I get the feeling that it's been a long time since he was seriously grilled about anything, since the level of engineering that he's famous for is kind of a lost art these days.

Honestly, I think that once the Apple II had served its purpose (in Jobs' mind), he couldn't have cared less about it. What's fascinating about him is that he doesn't have a shred of nostalgia for past achievements. He'll be thrilled to have his company popularize the next big paradigm shift in popular electronics, and will then gleefully bury it as soon as he can for the next big shift. http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:QgPhaEoL_jAJ:www.netherworld.com/~mgabrys/clock/weak5.html&hl=en&gl=us&strip=1 This paints a pretty clear picture of what Apple management's mindset was regarding the Apple II, and it actually didn't depend on Jobs' presence. It still boggles my mind that a company would devote as little attention as possible to the product that was generating most of its revenue. That's just lunacy. But if you look at other microcomputer companies from back then, they always assumed that there was no way a single product would last more than a few years. They didn't seem to understand the concept or implications of a persistent legacy architecture - one could forgive them for this, since the microcomputer industry was still extremely young, but there was a ton of precedent for it from the mainframe and minicomputer industries. Making that assumption would have been the riskier bet, though.

Yeah it is a sharp looking unit, if only the keyboard were a little more standard (or even close to being standard for that matter). Tempest But that's why it's so cool. It's like a keyboard designed by an alien or a crazy person. I'd bet they'd have even ditched QWERTY if they could get away with it. The PET 2001's keyboard also falls into that category, but the VideoBrain's looks a lot slicker.

I've never had one, but I've always thought it was one of the best-looking computers ever made, including the packaging. Everything about that keyboard is awesome except its usability. The layout, the font, the color scheme, the isolated "MASTER CONTROL" key. Awesome. And the cartridge looks like a textbook! The box design screams '70s, and in a good way. eBay Auction -- Item Number: 130496779795 This eBay auction has some more nice shots of the cartridges and packaging.