Daily Apple

Games and TV

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Have you ever sat down t watch TV and can’t find any thing you want to see right now?

Sometimes I have that happen with the computer.  Tonight, I wanted to play a game on my Apple //c.  I’m more familiar with the keyboard, than the Apple //e.  I only have a few games on disk, but internet access is all set to go through my desktop computer.  If I could find something, I could download it and try it out.

I went to Asimov and started looking for something to play.  Scrolling down through the directories for Action, Adventure, Board, RPG, Simulations and others.  It was just like TV, thousands of choices and nothing to play.

So if you’re in the mood to play a game, enjoy looking and let me know what you found.

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

II in a Mac

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Listening to the second episode of Open Apple, they mention an emulator for the Apple II that I had never heard of, II in a Mac.

This morning I downloaded a copy and moved it over to my Mac SE.  After unpacking it with Stuffit I started it up and it runs.

The display shows a screen, printer, modem, clock, 4 disk drives a joy stick and a keyboard.

You can make changes to the system using the menus at the top.

It comes with an assortment of 6 diskette images which seem to work well.

Just a quick look shows it supports up to 4, 5 1/4 in diskette drives or 2 and a Unidisk (3.5″ using the real internal diskette drive), or even 2 Unidisk drives if you have and external diskette drive on your Mac.

After looking at the diskette images that come with it I tried the simple step of transferring a diskette image from my PC to my Mac, but the file type is just document.  The software has instructions for transferring files and diskette images to the Mac, which I have not tried yet.

Posted in Apple IIe, Emulation, Macintosh Tagged with: , ,

Podcasts

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I spent some time,  listening to  the first two podcasts of Open Apple, while moving the links for podcasts to their own pages.

During the second episode they mention several emulators including one I had never heard of called “II in a Mac” which emulates an Apple II on a Macintosh which I’m hoping to try out soon.

 

Posted in Apple //c, Apple IIe, Connection, Macintosh Tagged with: , , ,

RetroMacCast

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After last nights post, I looked further on twitter for other podcast that might be of interest to the retro apple community.  RetroMacCast is done my James and John who both started out using Apple II’s before they moved on to the Macintosh.  They started back in December of 2006 and just posted their 306th podcast.

Their first episode starts off with an introduction of themselves and a short description of their computers.  Later in the episode they discuss the rumors of a possible upcoming iPhone.  I won’t go into any more detail about this podcast as that would take the fun out of listening for yourself.

Personally, what I like about the podcasts that I have listened to is the history, from an I was there point of view.  I’ve never sat down and listened to a podcast before the other night, now I may have an addiction.  I just Googled Apple II Podcast and there was a hand full that looked interesting right on the first page.

It looks like I may have to set up a section in my links for podcasts.

Posted in Apple IIe, Macintosh Tagged with: ,

Apple Time Warp Podcast

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I saw a reference to a new podcast about the Apple II called Apple Time Warp Podcast on A2Central last week and tonight I took the time to watch and listen to their pilot episode.

John Romero and Craig Johnston talk about the early days of the Apple II, with side references to other computers and gaming systems.

There is so much information in this first podcast you just have to listen to it twice.  I found it very interesting and am looking forward to their next podcast.

I’ve posted links for both A2Central (which for some reason, unknown even to me, I’ve neglected to post or mention) and Apple Time Warp on my links list.

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

Prince of Persia

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I’ve seen the movie and decided to try the game.  I found a copy of it on Asimov and downloaded it to my Apple //c.  I got the 800K .2mg version since I have a 3 1/2 inch drive figuring to avoid disk swapping.

One thing I figured out pretty quickly is that although you can play using the keyboard, a joystick would make it better.

 

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

Forbidden Castle

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I’ve been lost on Forbidden Castle, playing that is.  What little time I’ve had for the Apple II was spent playing the opening of Forbidden Castle and trying to get around the Ogre.

 

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

Old Games, More Asteroids Etc.

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I tried playing Asteroid in AppleWin and the screen was blurry, so I tried several different settings until I found one that worked for me,  Monochrome  (White).  Although I like Asteroid, eye hand coordination is not my strongest suit, so it only holds my attention for a short while.

Looking further in the Apple2Online games archive I found a text adventure game called Forbidden Castle.  I enjoy this type of game and the writing of this one is pretty good.  I’m used to playing Infocom games and the interface and parser of this one is different.  Learning my way around this game is already an interesting change of pace.  I haven’t played it long, but am looking forward to playing it some more.

— Mac Stuff

Since I set up my Mac SE on my desk, I’ve enjoyed having it available to play with.  I’ve found versions of both TADS and Inform that will run on it and am hoping that at some point I will reach a stage where I can put together a game of my own using one of them.

 

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

Old Games, Asteroid

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Along the lines of last nights post I was looking at some more Apple II games.  It took only a short time to find one that was interesting.

I found a copy of Asteroid on Apple2Online tonight.  It is much like the original Asteroids.  One exception is you can play using the keyboard instead of a joystick or paddles.  I played using the keyboard for awhile and am looking forward to using my paddles when I dig them out.

The keyboard commands I found fairly quickly were ‘D’ to turn left and ‘F’ to turn right.  Use the right arrow to fire and the left arrow for engines.  The space bar is for hyperspace.

I highly recommend it.

 

 

 

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

Old Games

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I’ve played computer games since the late 1970’s and the thing that is really remarkable is how addictive they can be.

Each level of technology that we run our games through has its own amount of addictiveness.  Some of the first games I ever played were from David Ahl’s book Basic Computer Games.

There were several game in here that we played on the school minicomputer, including Hamurabi.  They were all text only games but many an hour would be spent playing them.  Super Star Trek was another text only game we had.  We played and modified that game al over the place.

Apple Trek II was a variant of Star Trek and is available on Asimov.  I played it for awhile today and even though I got killed pretty quickly I’ll be back to play some more later.  It is text only graphics and kind of clunky.  If you have some free time, download a copy and give it a try.  It does take some trial and error to figure out the commands, but that is part of the fun.

 

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