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A new Apple II game collection


youxia

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Some months ago I half-jokingly said I'll make one, despite Apple II not being my real area of interest (at least at the time), and having some other priorities (sorry, TRS-80) but ended up having a little try, and then getting sucked right into it. Videogame archaeology can be extremely addictive, especially in regard to the very roots of videogaming genres which interest me the most.

 

The result has just been released here: https://archive.org/details/apple-ii-play-it-by-year-collection-v-0.1

 

V0.1 means it's still very much unfinished WIP, but I think the the main target has been achieved. The result is a rather comprehensive 1G1Zip collection, organised by release year.  The main remaining task will be to sift through the compilation disks looking for missing individual games, and also sorting out the Educational part (I kept it separate). That won't happen anytime soon, as I need a break from AII, but here's hoping some folks will volunteer to help with at least some bits and pieces, thus speeding up the process.

 

There is a detailed description on the archive.org's page. Any comments, and help debugging this early release would be most welcome.

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38 minutes ago, youxia said:

There is a detailed description on the archive.org's page. Any comments, and help debugging this early release would be most welcome.

I'm with you - I really enjoy mining through old games by year.  I'll grab the archive and see what, if anything, I can contribute.

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Wow, thanks for this.  I'll have to dig through this tonight.  I generally find that the sweet spot for games are from the 84-87 range with some great ones in the 88-90 years but some times they pushed the Apple too far and you got games that shouldn't have been attempted.  

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14 hours ago, tuf said:

 I'll grab the archive and see what, if anything, I can contribute.

Thanks. To recap, main things I could use help with are:

-sifting through the Compilations directory, disk by disk, and trying to find games which are not in the main by-year directories yet.

 

-sorting out the Educational directory: finding out release dates and also which one of them are actually worthwile games (this one is a bit subjective)

(Anybody can do as little or as much of the above as they feel like, but it'd be good if you could let me know if you do something, so we don't cover the same stuff.)

 

-converting .wav to .dsk - there's about 100 games which are only available in the .wav format atm - you can find them using (wav) tag. Some time ago I'd a stab at converting them using some net guide, but failed. If somebody could convert some of them, or at least give me a clear example of how it's done, it'd be great.

Also need help with other oddball formats - there are some a2r & 2mg files scattered throughout. I don't know that much about Apple formats so not sure if they can be converted or even if they are actually for Apple II.

 

-finding out release year for games from (19xx) directory. Also correcting release years from the main directories: though this would require some solid evidence. Many (most?) of the games from there have been checked out, some very thoroughly. And it's quite common that multiple sources (eg TOSEC, Moby, TanRu, games own intro-manual-cover-media) are at odds with each other.

 

-finding out non-working games, advising on which zips could use more formats (I'm not sure which one is best for real hardware btw).

13 hours ago, Tempest said:

I generally find that the sweet spot for games are from the 84-87 range with some great ones in the 88-90 years but some times they pushed the Apple too far and you got games that shouldn't have been attempted.

My favourite era would be 79-84 ish. So many trailblazing games there, and Apple II was in many cases the lead platform for them. But, sure, there's a lot of good stuff later on too.

 

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  • 1 month later...

I really like the idea of having games per release date, especially for long lifespan systems. Early games are really different to end-of-life titles.

 

What I haven't yet worked out is the way I prefer to browse them... (which I experiment with my own curated lists)

  • I like separating arcade ports in a separate folder (along with clones that are identical in gameplay), to distinguish from Apple II exclusives
  • I'd also separate any games that need saving to disk to play fully (adventures, RPGs, etc), to make it easier to preserve my saves.
  • With Ciderpress and Beautiful Boot, I've been wondering if I should make my own compilations (e.g. for games from same publisher, or games with similar gameplay)

There is no right or wrong way for this, and it's highly subjective, so I'm happy to read everybody's thoughts on your own preferences :)

Edited by Newsdee
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4 hours ago, Newsdee said:

There is no right or wrong way for this, and it's highly subjective, so I'm happy to read everybody's thoughts on your own preferences :)

Well having grown up with the system from the late 1970's til official end-of-life, through the 486 PC era, and beyond to today, I prefer a rough chronological order. At least the order in which I first played the games and/or acquired them. It doesn't have to be exact.

 

Like my first experiences of the system were like A2-FS1, the Apple Cassette Tapes, Space Raiders, Star Cruiser, Star Blazer, AppleWrite, ASCII Express, Com-Ware, BASIC software written for the Hayes Micromodem II, Phantoms Five, Zenith, Horizon V, OO-Topos, and similar.

 

Then in the early-mid 80's Atarisoft was of interest, Robotron, Joust, Dig-Dug, especially Dig-Dug. Then after that came stuff like A.E., Buck Rogers Planet of Zoom, and more sophisticated text/graphic adventures.

 

I prefer chronological ordering because it fits right in with growing up, learning progression, other events, a coming of age.

 

4 hours ago, Newsdee said:

With Ciderpress and Beautiful Boot, I've been wondering if I should make my own compilations (e.g. for games from same publisher, or games with similar gameplay)

Surprisingly, despite the Apple II being a favorite system (tied with PC and 2600 VCS), I've not done many, if any, compilations. It's been a slow gathering of all my favorites from all of time. All into one un-organized folder.

 

Not surprising is that the ones which go into my favs folder are the ones I played as a kid. I don't believe any modern games have made it in there yet. But some utilities and tools have, like Anti-M, Passport, Pro-Sel, ProDOS 2.4.x, and others. My potpourri pile is around 100 or so titles, give or take.

 

Then there's Asimov. A catch-all. A big-ass AE Line! It's stupid easy to conduct a local search for something. If I have a title on my mind I can find it within seconds using Windows Explorer. Can easily be plugged into CiderPress or AppleWin or Copy II+, and even transferred to real hardware too.

 

It's a grand way of conducting vintage business. Everything is luxo-deluxe compared against the early days!

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9 hours ago, Newsdee said:

I really like the idea of having games per release date, especially for long lifespan systems. Early games are really different to end-of-life titles.

 

What I haven't yet worked out is the way I prefer to browse them... (which I experiment with my own curated lists)

  • I like separating arcade ports in a separate folder (along with clones that are identical in gameplay), to distinguish from Apple II exclusives
  • I'd also separate any games that need saving to disk to play fully (adventures, RPGs, etc), to make it easier to preserve my saves.
  • With Ciderpress and Beautiful Boot, I've been wondering if I should make my own compilations (e.g. for games from same publisher, or games with similar gameplay)

There is no right or wrong way for this, and it's highly subjective, so I'm happy to read everybody's thoughts on your own preferences :)

The way I sort my extensive disk collection out is by gameplay category.

 

Action

RPG

Adventure

Arcade

Puzzle

Sports

Strategy/Simulation

Trivia/Card/Board games

Other

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On 2/1/2022 at 5:10 AM, youxia said:

Any comments, and help debugging this early release would be most welcome.

I had a deeper dive into the archive and I would suggest trimming down the Asimov part at least; there are 2 huge "TABBS" dmg files (in /Public Domain/misc) which contain mostly BBS stuff taking 900 MB, and there are other large files which don't have games but scanned manuals and utilities.  Those have their place in an Apple II collection for sure... but if the intention is to make this game oriented, you could probably reduce the size in half :)

 

Perhaps you could split into two archives, one the curated list and another one the "mine" of unexplored archives...

 

Edit:  I've found many dsk versions of wav tapes in here, including the couple of color demos from the Misc folder:  \_Comp\cowgod.org (collection).zip\Apple II Cassette Software\

Edited by Newsdee
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4 hours ago, Keatah said:

Surprisingly, despite the Apple II being a favorite system (tied with PC and 2600 VCS), I've not done many, if any, compilations. It's been a slow gathering of all my favorites from all of time. All into one un-organized folder.

Yes, I understand.... my first collection was from dumping all my floppy disks about 15 years ago, I still have it as it is with one folder per batch of dumping session :) I sometimes dig to it and I'm still surprised to rediscover some games I had forgotten about, such as, recently, the original "Oregon" (without graphics) and Dynasty (a hammurabi-type game).  

 

Last year I put together a list of what i consider the best apple II games (highly subjective), which is mostly the games that I remember or that left a mark from magazines.

That one is more organized (and per year), I've been slowly improving it by adding games I feel are worth highlighting (e.g. early games from famous programmers).

 

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1 hour ago, Newsdee said:

I had a deeper dive into the archive and I would suggest trimming down the Asimov part at least; there are 2 huge "TABBS" dmg files (in /Public Domain/misc) which contain mostly BBS stuff taking 900 MB, and there are other large files which don't have games but scanned manuals and utilities.  Those have their place in an Apple II collection for sure... but if the intention is to make this game oriented, you could probably reduce the size in half

The whole /comp/ directory is only there in case somebody wanted to help out and do some work, and also for local searches which might yield games that haven't been sorted out yet and included into the collection proper. Sure, these big files will be the first to go, they don't really belong there, as well as all the docs (which will be released separately). Unfortunately they are often hidden within archives. I had pruned some out already before the release but not all obviously...thanks for looking.

 

Splitting is a problem because on archive.org it's either one file or bust - it won't make a torrent otherwise. Or perhaps it is possible, but I don't know how to do it. I might consider it for the next version though. Still, ~5GB is not really that much, comparing to other collections (I think latest C64 Gamebase is about 30GB, Amiga TOSEC got bloated to nearly 0.5 TB with inclusion of CDTV/CD32...) and you can always delete the /comp/ after download.

 

1 hour ago, Newsdee said:

Edit:  I've found many dsk versions of wav tapes in here, including the couple of color demos from the Misc folder:  \_Comp\cowgod.org (collection).zip\Apple II Cassette Software\

Nice find, thanks...though most of them already have dsk versions. Eventually I will have to learn how to transfer the .wavs myself, because there are nearly 200 of them, unfortunately asking about how-to yielded no response so far.

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10 hours ago, Newsdee said:

Last year I put together a list of what i consider the best apple II games (highly subjective), which is mostly the games that I remember or that left a mark from magazines.

That one is more organized (and per year), I've been slowly improving it by adding games I feel are worth highlighting (e.g. early games from famous programmers).

There were many a-times we'd be browsing stuff in the baggies in the computer store, or our own personal box of diskettes, and recognize a certain author's name; and then would immediately know this or that game was a hit and worth playing. Same thing applied to companies. A few would earn our dollars on their reputation alone.

 

The market was small enough that that held true for a long time. Basically up to when Nintendo invented real videogames.

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18 hours ago, youxia said:

Eventually I will have to learn how to transfer the .wavs myself, because there are nearly 200 of them, unfortunately asking about how-to yielded no response so far.

You can do it with Ciderpress ( https://a2ciderpress.com/ ) but I haven't yet worked out a nice way to package games that use Integer BASIC.

 

For the simple case (Applesoft BASIC), you just need a blank disk and a HELLO basic program to boot:

  • Create a new .do file in Ciderpress (DOS 3.3 140kb)
  • From the "Actions" menu of Ciderpress, select the Import Wav function
  • Select the program to import - usually it's the 2nd one (first one is some binary code)
  • Give it a relevant name e.g. COLOR for Color Demo
  • Write a text file called HELLO.txt, where you write "10 RUN COLOR"
  • In CiderPress, go again to the "Actions" menu and select the option to import a text files as BASIC, name it "HELLO"
  • Close the archive and test it with AppleWin

If it worked it will boot the file (in this case "COLOR") directly.

But if it needs Integer BASIC, you will get an error saying "LANGUAGE NOT AVAILABLE"

 

I saw somewhere a compilation disk that loads integer basic; if I find it again it could be used to house these Integer BASIC files.

Also, it's probably easier to make one compilation disk with several tape programs rather than making a disk for each one, at least initially.

Edited by Newsdee
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Thanks! I put together templates to streamline the tape conversion (attached)

  • Copy the template with the desired filename and open it in CiderPress
  • For Applesoft BASIC games, replace "FROMTAPE" by your new import
  • For Integer BASIC games, replace "GAME" by your new import

After that, disks should boot directly into the game. 

I've also included the "HELLO" basic files for each in case you want to change the name of the imported file. 

tape_conversion_templates.zip

Edited by Newsdee
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Maybe while a spreadsheet is being created for the year of the game, also include a column for what type of game it is.  I also have my games sorted by category type and would make a sort by type, very easy in a spreadsheet.

 

Here are my categories, feel free to add more:

Adventure - text
Adventure - graphics
Arcade
Board
Card
Dice and Tile
Educational
Gambling and Casino
Maze
Pacman
Pinball
Puzzles
Quests
RPGs
Shootemups
Sports
StarTrek
Tetris
Three.D
War.games
Word.Phrase
Undefined

 

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This is really great, thanks a lot guys. Now we're cooking with gas.

 

I did manage to make an import disk, replicating the "Game Playing with Basic" example. But the first other game I tried was  3-D Starfire and it has refused to cooperate. It's a "binary" file and after importing and trying to run it with BRUN I just got some gibberish.

 

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On 3/12/2022 at 10:02 AM, Keatah said:

There were many a-times we'd be browsing stuff in the baggies in the computer store, or our own personal box of diskettes, and recognize a certain author's name; and then would immediately know this or that game was a hit and worth playing. Same thing applied to companies. A few would earn our dollars on their reputation alone.

Where I grew up there were no (official) computer stores, and nobody with an Apple II at home (friends had C64 or MSX)...

 

Aside from a handful of boxed games (gifts from relatives that traveled abroad), it was all about digging into boxes of compilation diskettes that my parents got from coworkers.

It was pretty fun in retrospect because you'd never know what you would find in there.

 

It never occurred to me back then to transfer files to reorganize them, though...

Lucky Ciderpress makes this really easy (and we can also easily have one boot disk per game now)

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59 minutes ago, Newsdee said:

Where I grew up there were no (official) computer stores, and nobody with an Apple II at home (friends had C64 or MSX)...

It was variety in my town, C64, Vic-20, TRS-80 Model 1, Atari 800, Apple II. But no PETs, MSX, TRS-80 CoCo, Adam, TS-1000. I naturally gravitated toward Apple II. Even before I had one. The demographics of who had what computer was (in retrospect) interesting.

 

There were also 8086 PCs, but those deserve special mention because the fat-assed dads that had them didn't let anyone near them whatsoever. I remember that one guy (fatter than fat), who wold lumber up onto his dais and watch everything like hawk. Sitting there doing endless backup operations and zip file stuff. Nobody dared make a peep, for fear of getting thrown out.

 

Quote

Aside from a handful of boxed games (gifts from relatives that traveled abroad), it was all about digging into boxes of compilation diskettes that my parents got from coworkers.

It was pretty fun in retrospect because you'd never know what you would find in there.

It was WaReZ conferences for us. Most of our parents were too dumb to do anything with a micro. Or they were smart enough not to spend hours laboring over a checkbook balancing BASIC program - more trouble than it was worth.

 

Quote

It never occurred to me back then to transfer files to reorganize them, though...

Lucky Ciderpress makes this really easy (and we can also easily have one boot disk per game now)

We loosely categorized them back in the day. Had 10 of those Apple Software Bank vinyl binders. Still have them. It was a chore because despite the remarkable speed of the Disk II, we still had to actually copy and move stuff around, AND keep track of disk space. So only the very best of the best got organized.

 

Organization mainly was keeping like games together in a box or those binders. Not too much on the file level. We were kids, and we were exploring ways to organize. Never settled on one method. Not till modern times of PC and emulation with AppleWin.

 

Today it is so different. We can easily pack a disk to the nearest 5 sectors with speed and ease. And spit out a real floppy in 28 seconds. CiderPress, Copy II+, and AppleWin (among some other less important tools) are extraordinarily important and should be required learning for all enthusiats I say!

Edited by Keatah
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50 minutes ago, Newsdee said:

Maybe separate the wavs into a "_WavOnly" folder for now

I'd rather keep them within the by-year directories, to maintain the overall historical integrity, so you can see what was released in a given year - even if it's not possible to load them on a particular setup (it should be okay in MAME  and maybe on og hw too).

 

It's easy to filter them out though, that's why I put the (wav) tag in the names.

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