Daily Apple

Retrochallenge 2015/01 (Winter Warmup)

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Retrochallenge 2015/01 starts today.  To learn more about it use the Retrochallange link under Links & Disk Images.

I’ve had a fascination with Eamon ever since I first found it, about twenty years ago.  I like the whole concept of carrying on a character from one game to another.  The fact that the game is written in Applesoft and therefor each author can use the basic structure of the original game and yet add to it as they need.

My project will be to create a text adventure for the Apple // using Eamon. I have played several Eamon games and looked at writing one of my own several times over the years. This will be a chance to finally buckle down and write one.

My last Retrochallenge project was a text adventure that I never finished, which I put on indefinite hold due only partly to some technical details. This project will be significantly smaller and hopefully more manageable.

To start off, I looked up some research pages.  They are Eamon Adventurer’s Guild Online and The Unofficial Home Page of Eamon Games, and they are also under Links & Disk Images.

Posted in Apple //c, Apple //gs, Apple IIe, Emulation, Programming, Projects, Retrochallenge Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,

No Serial Ports

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I haven’t posted in months, six months in fact.

I had a problem develop a couple of months ago with AdtPro.  It stopped recognizing the serial ports.

The problem seemed to be with Java so over time, I uninstalled Java and reinstalled it multiple times.  For some reason no matter what I tried I could not get it installed.  I am running Windows 7 64 bit on my computer.  I managed to get Java installed and it came up as 32 bit.

I posted the problem on the AdtPro support boards and David posted back within hours.  After a few notes back and forth, he pointed out that Java had to be the 64 bit version, if I was running the 64 bit version of Windows.

A little more research found a note from Microsoft which suggested the problem may lie on a corrupted user profile.  I created a temporary profile with administrative privileges and installed the 64 bit version of Java under that profile.  When I went back and tried AdtPro and there were the serial ports once again.  I got rid of the temporary profile and everything continued working fine.

 

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

Kansas Fest

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This whole week is just me wishing I was there.  I anxiously await the Kansas Fest report on csa2 each day.  Its not like being there, but as close as I can get at this time.

Warren Ernst on csa2, suggested a InCider, 30th anniversary reading club.  Apple2Online has images of all the issues of InCider magazine and he suggested each month we read the issue from 30 years ago and discuss it.  It sounded like fun to me.

 

Posted in Apple //c, Apple //gs, Apple IIe

Another No Slot Clock

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Last night I ordered another No Slot Clock chip for my Apple //e.  I had planned to buy one last fall when I got one and tried it out on my Apple //c.  This one was about 65 cents cheaper with the free shipping included.

I also ordered another 25, 5 1/4 inch diskettes, since the //e doesn’t have a 3.5 inch drive.  I’ve had the //e for many years, but not used it much. Now that I have it out I think I’ll explore the differences between it and the //c.

 

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

I’m Back

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I’m back.  I have no special reason or excuse for not posting, I just haven’t posted in a day under a month.  I signed into Daily Apple to find 2,308 comments, or more accurately spam.  After spending about twenty minutes manually deleting the first 300 I signed up for Akismet.  It kind of choked on the pile of spam but after several tries finally took care of it.  The whole process took a little over of thirty minutes.

Anyhow, suspecting my Apple //c has memory problems, I dug out my Apple //e.

If you’ve had occasion to use both a //c and a //e you will know there is quite a bit of size difference.  Mine is about 4 inches wider and 6 inches deeper.  Add to that the //e does not have an internal diskette drive, my two duodisk drives add 6 inches to the height.  After working on my little //c the //e seems huge.

I ran Master Diagnostics //e on both the regular memory and the extended memory and both times it stopped at F000-F800, just like it did on my //c.  Maybe the //c doesn’t have a memory problem.

The last game I tried on the Apple //c was Flapple Bird.  I tried it on the //e and it runs beautifully.  I don’t know why it doesn’t run on my //c but this is the same diskette that I tried on the //c and it works on the //e.  I am glad the //c may not have a memory problem as I would miss the storage capacity of the two 800K drives.

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

Flapple Bird – Memory?

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I went to the Flapple Apple github website and downloaded the latest version.  I moved a copy through ADTPro to my Apple //c and tried that again today.

I was thinking after the last post that maybe I was having some sort of memory problem, but I had to try downloading one last time.  It didn’t work so it was time to check the computer itself.

I have an Apple //c diagnostics diskette, Master Diagnostics //c, that I downloaded from somewhere so I loaded it up and ran it. The computer seems to run okay, but maybe the problem is in an area of memory that is not used all the time.  I chose to run the RAM Tests (4) and an Auto test of Auxiliary Ram (4) and it stopped at RAM F000-F800.  I rebooted and ran it again with the same results.

That at least gives me a place to start.

 

 

 

 

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

Flapple Bird – Retry Again

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In my last post, I went back to ADTPro 1.2.8, downloaded Flapple Bird and tried running it, only to have it lock up.

Since that didn’t work, I downloaded ADTPro 2.0.0 and redownloaded Flapple Bird.  That didn’t work either.

With that result, I am stumped.  I have gone to his blog where I downloaded the game and he even has a video of it running on an Apple //c.  It won’t run on mine.

 

 

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

Flapple Bird – Retry

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The last time I had a chance to try Flapple Bird, I downloaded it using ADTPro 2.0.0 both in the 140 K image and the 800 K image and both images would boot ProDOS 8 v1.8 and stop at the title screen.

I wondered if maybe it was a problem with ADTPro 2.0.0.  I had recently upgraded to ADTPro 2.0.0 from 1.2.8 and this was the second set of diskettes that I’ve had problems with since the upgrade.  It was easier to think it was the upgrade rather than something wrong with my Apple //c.

In order to double check this I went back to ADTPro 1.2.8.  I followed the instructions for starting from bare metal and had a couple of missteps (In step 4 it says type IN#2and CTRL-A14B, but does not mention pressing return after each), but managed to get setup again with ADTPro 1.2.8.  I downloaded Flapple Bird 140 K image and tried it out, only to have it stop at the title screen for ProDOS 8 again.  I tried the 800K image again, with the same results.

This is good and bad.  I really like one of the features of the newer version of ADTPro 2.0.0 which lets you choose from a list of files when recieving rather than typing the filename you want.

On the other hand, now I don’t know why I can’t get Flapple Bird to run; or Robotron 2084 either.

 

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

Flapple Bird

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I’ve seen several postings announcing Flapple Bird, an arcade style game for the Apple II.  I looked at the posted video and was intrigued.

I downloaded it to my Linux laptop and tried it in AppleWin and liked it.  I downloaded it to my windows desktop and played it there for a while.  Now it was time to play it on my Apple //c, so I loaded up ADTPro 2.0.0 and downloaded the 140k version.  When I booted the disk it would go through the boot of ProDOS 8 version 1.8 and stop.  I tried a couple of different diskettes with exactly the same result.  I tried downloading them to the other diskette drive, again with the same result.

I tried the 800K diskette image and my first diskette had a bad spot.  Second disk downloaded OK, but stopped in the same place with the ProDos screen showing the version.

Thinking about it now, I haven’t been able to download and run any disk image since I switched from 1.2.8 to 2.0.0 so I am going to try going back to 1.2.8 and try that in the morning.

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

vintage.excited-geek

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I’ve spent the last few days working on a Macintosh project and starting a new blog and website.

The project involved my attempt to upgrade the memory in my Macintosh SE.  It has 2MB and I was going to upgrade it to 4MB.  You can read more about it at the new blog (http://www.vintage.excited-geek.com/blog/), but the short story is I was not able to upgrade the memory in the SE.  The memory will be used in a future upgrade to my Macintosh Plus, so it won’t go to waste.

The new website is where I will combine my vintage computer interests (http://www.vintage.excited-geek.com/) and doesn’t have much on it yet.

The new blog will be for combining my Macintosh and PDP 11 interests.  This blog will continue as it is.

I list my posts to twitter @dailyappleii and @vintageeg.

 

Posted in Macintosh Tagged with: ,