CaptainBreakout Posted September 14, 2018 Share Posted September 14, 2018 (edited) I've been doing my best to collect all the Apple ][ games published by Compute! Magazine in the 80's. This includes the type-in games listed in the main Compute! periodical magazine, the books (Compute's 1st/2nd/3rd book of Apple, Best of Apple, etc), and the specific and obscure Compute's Apple Applications magazine. I'm trying to compile all the game software titles onto DSK images. I've been doing this for awhile... the first one I completed in 2006. It's posted here. Slight tangent: It's still a challenge to find some obscure Apple ][ game software. I find this odd and interesting in how history has played out. Other platforms like the C64 and ZX Spectrum have every nook and cranny dug out and brought to light (or seem too, from my perspective), and certainly most of the popular home consoles (2600, NES) have even the most obscure prototypes and WIP projects available and documented. Anyway, the Apple ][ was bowled over a bit I think (there's some interesting theories over time as to why). At any rate, all the games here in this thread are published games, in print form, from Compute! I've had to go to somewhat great lengths to find and type-in these things over the years despite being published nationally once upon a time. I've gathered enough material to compile 4 volumes, I could use this community's help tho... I have a bunch of PDF files that haven't been typed in and I could use some help there. Do you know the rewarding feeling it is completing a type-in game from a vintage computer magazine? Please let me know. I has PDFs. First come, first serve. Go crazy. Here's what's on the first disk. Volume 1 -------- Climber 5 High Rise Heat Seeker Miami Ice Balloon Crazy Webster Leaping Larry Basketball Sam & Ed Galacticon Powerball Galaxy Defender Volume 2 to follow. Volume 3 in the works. Volume 4 needs most of the titles typed-in still, so yeah... wanna help? Typed-In Games from COMPUTE! Vol 1 (2006).dsk Edited September 14, 2018 by CaptainBreakout 5 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
magnusfalkirk Posted September 15, 2018 Share Posted September 15, 2018 Here"s a link to several Compute disks on the Apple II Asimov archive: ftp://ftp.apple.asimov.net/pub/apple_II/images/magazines/compute/ This might be duplicating what you've typed in so far, but it might save you typing in the programs. magnus 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keatah Posted September 15, 2018 Share Posted September 15, 2018 Use Ciderpress and its companion MDC to quickly look through the images. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CaptainBreakout Posted September 15, 2018 Author Share Posted September 15, 2018 Thanks! Good recommendations. I've dug through about, I donno, 80% of what I think is available for the remaining games, in terms of DSK images on FTPs. Some have turned up (like Air Rescue, coming in volume 3 or 4), but I kinda hit a wall. Finding the articles seems to be more fruitful. If you are curious, here's the remaining (known) Apple ][ games I have PDFs for. I haven't found them on any DSK image. Maybe you can ...? Spiders (Compute, Nov 1984) Things in the Dark (Compute, Dec 1984) Vulcan Mines (Compute's Apple Applications, Dec 1987) Mosquito Madness (Compute's Apple Applications, April 1988) Canyon Runner (Compute's First Book of Apple) Caves of Ice (Compute's First Book of Apple) I'm working on Canyon Runner right now. I'm surprised that there's no image of the DSK version of the book. This one is hard, since there's no proofreading MLX software for it. I'm messing with PDF readers and excel to try and get a good TXT version of it I can enter into the Apple Monitor via AppleWin. Yikes... this is a tuffy. It's a personal challenge for me tho since I remember trying to enter this one when I was a kid and being unsuccessful. I wonder if it's actually misprinted in the book. I'll get to the bottom of it if it is. The link to the book for Canyon Runner, btw, is here. Anyways, here's Volume 2!!! Volume 2 -------- Canfield Monte Carlo Witching Hour Space Caverns Laser Chess Rememory Euchre Tightrope Hex War Chain Reaction Worm of Bemer Typed-In Games from COMPUTE! Vol 2 (2016).dsk 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CaptainBreakout Posted September 21, 2018 Author Share Posted September 21, 2018 (edited) I just wanted to to announce that I was able to finally successfully type-in Canyon Runner last night. This is hands-down the hardest type-in I've ever completed. There's no proofreader, it's several pages of hex, and all the B's 8's and 0's look similar. I spent several wasted nights of my youth trying to get this one typed in. No success until last night. It took two PDF readers, Excel, a file comparison program, and one complete pass at actually hand-typing it in to build a working version. And yeah, I looked high and low for a copy on a dsk image already before I went through all this... And there doesn't seem to be one anywhere on the web. So meh... I'm thinking I'm going to release this as a stand-alone since I found some great utility to make double-hires graphics for a title screen. The game is also impossible without the instructions, so I'll have to type those in too and have it display in a basic program or a graphic. So that's the update on the project. More to come. Edited September 21, 2018 by CaptainBreakout 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
youxia Posted September 21, 2018 Share Posted September 21, 2018 You're doing god's work sir, plz keep it up. Type ins were part a big part of my childhood, especially those times when I didn't have any machine and tried to "read" them Later on actually doing some typing, several hours of pain and then error message because they printed it wrongly. Typing hex was a particular torture, I even devised a cardboard "visor" so it'd only show a line at a time. Heady days. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CaptainBreakout Posted September 22, 2018 Author Share Posted September 22, 2018 You're doing god's work sir, plz keep it up. Type ins were part a big part of my childhood, especially those times when I didn't have any machine and tried to "read" them Later on actually doing some typing, several hours of pain and then error message because they printed it wrongly. Typing hex was a particular torture, I even devised a cardboard "visor" so it'd only show a line at a time. Heady days. Thanks so much for the feedback. Cool stuff hearing about the visor system you created. Beats my 3x5 notecard method (slide 'er down one line at a time). I think once I came up with the bright ideas of using post-its. They'd gum up after half a column if I remember correctly. Either way it was an extra arm movement each line. It did beat the realization that I've typed in the same line 3 times. Stuff like that. It's it's own weird brand of frustration and determination. That's why this project has a mysterious appeal to me. It's turning old gears in my head that haven't moved in quite the same way since then. I'm really excited about releasing this one. I'm going to give it a proper boot screen and do something nifty with the instructions. It's amusing to me to consider that it's a pretty good possibility that I'm the only one to play this game (the Apple version at least) since the turn of the millennium. Also might be a safe bet to say less then a dozen people typed it in successfully (it really was that unforgivingly brutal). I'll post it here after I have a chance to add a boot screen and instructions. Till then... See you in the canyon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CaptainBreakout Posted September 26, 2018 Author Share Posted September 26, 2018 Here's a lost game! *fanfare* I think it made the most sense for me to reexamine the idea of making compilation DSK images. In the old days it was all about "one-filing" and condensing bunches of games onto a single piece of media. Gone are the reasons for that, since we don't even use the media anymore, moreover all the juicy bits that make the game interesting get cut... like... um... the instructions! So in the days of instant browser emulation, makes more sense to me to release these beloved magazine entries as a self-contained bootable image. As close to a game "ROM" as the Apple ][ got. I'm really tempted to do the entire 30+ Compute! Apple game type-in um... morgue, in this style. It's just a lot of time investment. And if you have input, I guess now's the time. In that spirit, I included with this disk image all the instructions for this game (which you will need, btw) all written out in Applesoft basic. Plus a bootscreen. Because bootscreens are awesome. Please, if you try this game, leave feedback. Love to hear what you think. Also, to set the mood, try to picture this as 1984, you invited a friend over, and you've got two paddles and most of the afternoon. So, enjoy CANYON RUNNER ! Canyon Runner.DSK Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CaptainBreakout Posted October 2, 2018 Author Share Posted October 2, 2018 Here's another one! (Proud of this... this also dates back before Compute implemented the proofreading program. I also fixed the save feature, which had typos in the magazine and book listing. These days people will probably use save-states, but it's nice the feature works... I remember it never did when I was a kid) Nicely, this game has well-written built-in instructions. There's a couple of cheat keys that work too. You'll have to look at the code or the original listing to find them tho. Great puzzle game if you ask me. Has the distinction of being originally written for the Apple ][, then ported over to a bunch of systems. Apparently won some awards too. Enjoy... Caves of Ice.dsk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CaptainBreakout Posted October 3, 2018 Author Share Posted October 3, 2018 (edited) Here's another one! Mosquito Madness.dsk Q_p4_act.bmp D_pp4_p4_06_FloydSteinbergF1_d1_c1_act.bmp Edited October 3, 2018 by CaptainBreakout Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Byte Knight Posted October 3, 2018 Share Posted October 3, 2018 Very cool - thanks for doing this! If it's ok with you, I'd like to put these up on my BBS in the BASIC download section where they belong! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BydoEmpire Posted October 3, 2018 Share Posted October 3, 2018 Another big thank you! I only typed in a handful of games from Compute, so while a lot of the names ring a bell i haven't actually played most of these. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CaptainBreakout Posted October 4, 2018 Author Share Posted October 4, 2018 Very cool - thanks for doing this! If it's ok with you, I'd like to put these up on my BBS in the BASIC download section where they belong! Sure! I wanted to point out that with Caves of Ice, you'll need to create a sub-directory called OLD.MAZE for the save feature to work correctly. (I just realized I didn't do that on the disk image I posted... whoops... I'm reposting it here corrected) Also, quite a few of these games are multi-file games. Not sure if that's an issue on your BBS or not, but might be worth pointing out. Very very excellent that you have a BBS running, btw. That kind of thing makes me proud of what we are doing. If you can, put the word out that any issues of Compute's Apple Applications are wanted for this project. They are hard to find, and I'm trying to integrate the instructions and bits of the articles into the disk image of these games. Please contact me if you have any users who have some of these magazines. Caves of Ice.dsk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Byte Knight Posted October 4, 2018 Share Posted October 4, 2018 Sure! Also, quite a few of these games are multi-file games. Not sure if that's an issue on your BBS or not, but might be worth pointing out. Very very excellent that you have a BBS running, btw. That kind of thing makes me proud of what we are doing. If you can, put the word out that any issues of Compute's Apple Applications are wanted for this project. They are hard to find, and I'm trying to integrate the instructions and bits of the articles into the disk image of these games. Please contact me if you have any users who have some of these magazines. Cool - thanks! I'll use Stuffit to shrink up the disk images for download. If you guys don't have your Apple II's online, here are some modern terminal programs to get you connected to BBS's: Zoc7 Terminal Emulator (my favorite for my MacBook) https://www.emtec.com/zoc/index.html SyncTerm BBS Terminal (PC DOS feel to it) http://syncterm.bbsdev.net MicroM8 Apple II emulator https://paleotronic.com/microm8/ -Launch Proterm and ATDT69 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CaptainBreakout Posted October 8, 2018 Author Share Posted October 8, 2018 (edited) I got Things in the Dark typed in. There must be a few typos left since the gameplay seems wrong somehow. Found out this one only works properly in Dos 3.3. I think the command is CALL 1009 that crashes it, but I'm not looking at the listing right now. If anyone wants details, let me know. The Dos 3.3 thing kinda screws up my original compilation format (I use ProDos for that), but I think I want to abandon that anyways. Might have to resort to a HRG instead of a DHRG boot screen for this one. Haven't tried displaying a DHRG in Dos 3.3 Edited October 8, 2018 by CaptainBreakout 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Usotsuki Posted October 8, 2018 Share Posted October 8, 2018 If you need some machine code, I'm game. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Byte Knight Posted October 8, 2018 Share Posted October 8, 2018 The compressed disk images along with descriptions are available in the Applesoft Basic Files download section of my BBS if anyone wants to go old school and download them directly to their Apple II's. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CaptainBreakout Posted October 11, 2018 Author Share Posted October 11, 2018 Alright! Here's another one... Big thanks to Usotsuki for the brilliant ProDOS patch. Halloween is coming... so here's a game with a fitting theme. Be the first on your block to play this in 30+ years. Instructions included too. Things in the Dark.dsk 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tanrunomad Posted October 13, 2018 Share Posted October 13, 2018 Thank you so much for doing this! I'm looking forward to checking this out soon. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
a2jer Posted October 14, 2018 Share Posted October 14, 2018 I'll add my thanks as well, CaptainBreakout! Great work! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CaptainBreakout Posted October 17, 2018 Author Share Posted October 17, 2018 Thanks for the kudos... I really appreciate it! So, after some effort- here's another! Got to love it... can't hide the fact that it's Galaxian, but done on an Apple ][ with remapped HGR text. The pacing should be familiar to those who played a lot of Apple ][... clunky if you're not used to it, but natural feeling if you had this machine. Tim Victor was really good at this stuff. Enjoy! It's got a creeping "these are spiders" feeling that shows through over the Galaxian clone. So it counts towards a Halloween game. ( Great job on the patch, Usotsuki! ) Spiders.dsk 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Usotsuki Posted October 17, 2018 Share Posted October 17, 2018 BASIC.SYSTEM has an obscure feature that lets you use the PR# and IN# to point to any location in memory provided it starts with a CLD instruction. In DOS 3.3, you did this by poking two bytes and doing a CALL 1002, BASIC.SYSTEM doesn't like that. So basically I wrote a short wedge (CLD; JMP $0300), POKEd it into an unused part of memory, and used this feature to point to the new code. Fortunately these programs don't seem to be heavily abusive of the ins and outs of BASIC, like some programs (Brick Out) do. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CaptainBreakout Posted October 25, 2018 Author Share Posted October 25, 2018 Here's another one... completing the Halloween trifecta! A simple game, but fun. A little like checkers. Two players or you vs. the Apple II. This game was previously on a compilation, but now features instructions, title and boot screens, and of course self-boot. Happy Halloween! Witching Hour, The.dsk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aunty Entity Posted October 25, 2018 Share Posted October 25, 2018 Speaking of type ins, and I know this one isn't a compute job, but did anyone ever get Formula Nibble to run? I can recall getting hold of the magazine just for this, and typing.... typing.....still typing...typing..... and the result.... crash and burn to monitor. We retyped that one a few times just in case to no avail. A Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CaptainBreakout Posted October 25, 2018 Author Share Posted October 25, 2018 Speaking of type ins, and I know this one isn't a compute job, but did anyone ever get Formula Nibble to run? I can recall getting hold of the magazine just for this, and typing.... typing.....still typing...typing..... and the result.... crash and burn to monitor. We retyped that one a few times just in case to no avail. A Interesting. I actually have that game in my emulator menu. I figured I can just post it here for you, but I tried running it and found out the zip archive is corrupt. I extracted the dsk anyway but the game bugged out, but got to the point of showing the f-1 car and steering wheel. It also said "typed in in 2005". It very well could be something I did and completely forgot about it. Weird that the file is corrupt. It's also corrupt in all my backup folders, so it must have happened a long time ago. I'm searching through the archives to see if I can find a work disk of it from back then. Do you know what issue of Nibble this game was published in? That might help. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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