Daily Apple

Kegs IIgs Emulator

Posted on by dailyapple — No Comments ↓

My Android tablet is a fairly inexpensive one.  It is an iRulu 7″.  The package contained the tablet, a carrying case that has a small keyboard that plugs into the micro USB slot and a charger.  I normally don’t use the keyboard because most of the stuff on the tablet is based on the touch screen.  I do keep the tablet in this folder to protect it.  The whole thing is compact enough I can stick it in my inside coat pocket when I go out (about 5″x8″x1″).

The Emulator can be used on it with the touch screen.  It can also be used with a small keyboard that you can plug into it.  I was headed to bed last night and remembered the keyboard, so I quickly tried it out and it works pretty well.  Makes it like a mini Apple II.

I haven’t yet attempted to upload or download disk images for Kegs.  I did figure out that by going into the system folder on the 32MB hard drive image and double clicking on P8 I can get it rebooted into ProDos 8 and work with AppleSoft.

This at least lets me play with any AppleSoft ideas I might come up with.

Posted in Apple //gs, Emulation, Programming Tagged with: , , ,

Kegs IIgs Emulator

Posted on by dailyapple — 2 Comments ↓

Today, I was looking on Google Play for an Apple II Emulator for my Android Tablet.  I was thinking, if I had an emulator I could keep on puttering with Apple II stuff in my spare time when away from home.

What I found was the Kegs IIgs Emulator.  It has been ported to Android and emulates an Apple IIgs.  I downloaded it and have started to play with it.  To me it is quite an anomaly.  I don’t mean it doesn’t work or anything.  Actually, just the opposite, it seems to work fine.  The thing is, I’ve only seen a real Apple IIgs once in person about 25 years ago, for about 10 minutes.

So in order to use it I’m going to have to learn about the IIgs and how it works.

 

Posted in Apple //gs, Emulation Tagged with: ,

Lemonade Stand

Posted on by dailyapple — No Comments ↓

I have been going through old Basic games in past posts.  I’ve also been studying Pascal, Kyan Pascal in particular.  I wanted to do something in Pascal and needed a small project.

Lemonade Stand is such a program.  The problem I have had working with these old programs is figuring out what the original programmer was doing.  If you look at some of the games that I have been looking at, they are writing really amazing code.  They are writing programs to run on as many computers as possible, with small amounts of memory.

I think this time I’ll start from scratch more or less.  I’m going to use the concept of the Lemonade Stand and build the program in modules.

The basic concept is you want to sell Lemonade and make a profit.

I thought I would start out selling Lemonade made from a store brand mix.  As you play on, the ability to sell a brand name mix and later fresh made Lemonade could become an option.

Additionally, I would start with 9 oz cups and later offer 7 oz cups as an option.  Advertising would consist of posters small (11″x14″) and large (22″x28″).

One thing I did was look up prices for the lemonade mixes, poster board and paper cups.  I want to use current real world prices.

My goal is to create a playable game that is clearly documented in the code.  Where Lemonade Stand is usually a fairly small game I should not run into memory problems or the need to compact the code.

I’m only going to post about Lemonade Stand on an infrequent basis as I make real progress.

 

 

 

Posted in Apple //c, Apple IIe, Programming Tagged with: , , ,

Name That Game

Posted on by dailyapple — No Comments ↓

A couple of days ago I dropped off some stuff at the Good Will Store and swung around the electronics area like I usually do when I get a chance.

I found a UPS in the box with all the paperwork for $13.  I took a chance and picked it up.  When I took it out of the box and looked it over I found it was the same model as one I have had for a couple of years, an APC ES 350.  The one I had, was the center of a wiring mess behind my TV.  Everything plugged into it using two power strips.  I planned to put the new one in, plugged into a separate outlet and split the load up and remove the two power strips.

The problem with this is finding a time when the TV is not in use.  Today I was home alone and had a chance to dig into it.  It was also a good time to listen to the Open Apple podcast.  I started some time ago listening to them and I was listening to one, #6 from July 15, 2011.  About 15 minutes in I realize I’m going to have to disconnect the internet in order to finish my project.  I stopped the podcast and downloaded it and was listening to that when my daughter came in and was working on her smart phone.

Towards the end of the podcast they play Name That Game, where they play a snippet of sound from an Apple II game an you have to guess the name of the game.  They played the snippet and she gets excited because she knew the game.  She had me play the next podcast to see if she was right.  She was, it was Hard Hat Mack, which she and her younger sister both played on my Apple //c.

By putting in the new UPS and rearranging what was plugged in where, I eliminated the two power strips that I had been using.  Everything is plugged into a surge protected outlet, and I have the UPS for the modem, router and phone (more than 22 minutes from past history).  I now have UPS for the TV, cable box and blu-ray player, which although not enough to watch for long, may let us finish the scene on a show or movie.

I’ve been a big believer in surge protectors since we lost power and the only computer not plugged into one died when the power came back on.

Posted in Posts, Programming Tagged with:

Retro Fever

Posted on by dailyapple — No Comments ↓

Following comp.sys.apple2, I saw another announcement from the creator of Lamb Chops, which I mentioned in November.  He has released a new game called Retro Fever.  It is an arcade style game along the lines of Lamb Chops.

I’ve posted a link for the diskette image as well as his games page for more information about both games.

 

Posted in Apple //c, Apple IIe, Games Tagged with: , ,

Pascal Progress

Posted on by dailyapple — No Comments ↓

One of the benefits of having worked with Pascal before is it comes back to you.

I have worked through the basics of the program structure, constants, variables and creating formulas.  I’ve also worked through getting input, writing output and formatting data on the screen.

Of course pretty soon I’m going to reach the point where I’m in new territory and I’m going to slow down.  Until then I am going to cruise along and review what I can.

 

Posted in Apple //c, Apple IIe, Programming Tagged with: , , , , , ,

Pascal Progress

Posted on by dailyapple — No Comments ↓

When last I thought about relearning Pascal, I was just going to jump in, in a half hazard manner.  This time around I’m going to take the time to plug on through using the three books I have.

I’ve been working through the Kyan Pascal Manual working through the sections on the editor and the compiler.

I’ve started on the tutorial section and it is going fairly well.

 

Posted in Apple //c, Apple IIe, Programming Tagged with: , , , , ,

Relearning Kyan Pascal

Posted on by dailyapple — No Comments ↓

Now that I have a working diskette, I’m going to relearn Pascal, in specific Kyan Pascal.

I have a little Pascal background, but it was mostly a very long time ago and I was not very advanced.  I started learning it in high school when we got a copy of Omsi Pascal for our PDP 11/70 minicomputer.  Years later I took a class using Turbo Pascal 5.0 on IBM PC compatibles.

Last May, I was going to start relearning Pascal, but got sidetracked.  I bought two books, Pascal User Manual and Report and Oh! Pascal! which I will use along with the Kyan Pascal Manual.

(I wrote this yesterday and forgot to post it.)

 

Posted in Apple //c, Apple IIe, Programming Tagged with: , , ,

Backups? Nope! (Part 2)

Posted on by dailyapple — No Comments ↓

This morning I started over and created a new Kyan Pascal diskette.

I booted AppleWin using the diskette I started the other day and then went into settings and chose to use another blank diskette as a second hard drive.  I used the filer utilities to change the prefix of the second hard drive to /PROFILE and then exited the filer utilities.

From here I followed the directions in the Kyan Pascal manual, Getting Started, Configuring Kyan Pascal.  I used case 3, Mass Storage System, and case A for 80 column IIe or IIc.

Once the /PROFILE diskette was created this way, I inserted the no slot clock diskette.  I exited the KIX environment to /NO.SLOT.CLOCK (path name for no slot clock diskette) and installed the no slot clock system.

Once I had a working diskette image I moved it back to the Apple //c to work with, using ADTPro.

—

Side note:  In AppleWin, the help file under clock says it emulates a no slot clock, further explaining the no slot clock is a Dallas Smart Watch DS1216.  The version of AppleWin I am using is AppleWin 1.23.0.0 dated July 15, 2013.  I say this in the interest of full disclosure.  I just noticed this today, but wrote about the no slot clock back in October of 2013.

Posted in Apple //c, Apple IIe, Programming Tagged with: , , , , , ,

Backups? Nope! (Part 1)

Posted on by dailyapple — No Comments ↓

Backups are important.  When you don’t have one they are really important.

I went to use Kyan Pascal, which I had set up on a 3 1/5″ diskette and my diskette didn’t work.  Did I have a backup?  Nope!  When I’m done setting up a new one, I’ll make a backup that’s for sure.

I went to create another, but didn’t have enough 5 1/4″ diskettes to download Kyan Pascal.

OK, so I’ll build the diskette using AppleWin.  I copied a  blank 3 1/2″ diskette to my PC using ADTPro.  AppleWin wouldn’t boot without ProDos on the diskette.  On the //c I could eject the 3 1/2″ diskette and boot off the 5 1/4″ and then reinsert the diskette and start copying the files I needed.  AppleWin treats a 3 1/2″ diskette as a hard drive (Slot 7) and wants to boot from it if it is connected.

Back to the Apple //c and copy PRODOS and BASIC.SYSTEM over to the blank diskette.  Then I copied the now bootable diskette to my PC to continue building my Kyan Pascal diskette.

Since I have the No Slot Clock in my Apple //c now, I figured I would add support for that.  I booted up the 3 1/2″ diskette and then manually rebooted the No Slot Clock Utilities 1.4 diskette (PR#6) and choose to install the No Slot Clock drivers (NS.CLOCK.SYSTEM)

This gives me a basic bootable 3 1/2″ diskette, so I’m going to stop here and make a copy of the diskette for future projects.

 

 

Posted in Apple //c, Apple IIe, Programming Tagged with: , , , , , ,