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/vr/ - Retro Games

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File: 100 KB, 983x904, apple ii plus.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
4643186 No.4643186 [Reply] [Original]

How do I into Apple II? What are the essential games?

>> No.4643295

Most of its games are available in better formats elsewhere, but if you want to that badly, get a //e on Fleabay with a CF floppy emulator.

https://www.bigmessowires.com/floppy-emu/

Until then, you can play single load games by loading them into the cassette port via your PC's audio out jack.

>> No.4643304

>>4643186
GOOGLE EXISTS

>> No.4644196
File: 158 KB, 1200x508, NTZEQ0Q0RjVFMTYxNTE0RTQwMjE6NTRlMzJmMzg3NDFjMjEyNzBjMGQ4YTEwYTQ3YmE0NTg6Ojo6OjA=.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
4644196

>>4643186
>How do I into Apple II
You're in luck!

If you have a real Apple II/II+/IIe/IIgs, then NOW is you final and last chance to get the CFFA3000 card.

http://dreher.net/?s=projects/CFforAppleII&c=projects/CFforAppleII/main.php

The guy who makes them literally won't make them anymore, and the last batch is back in stock after almost two years of waiting. Selling fast.

The CFFA3000 (Compact Flash For Apple), allows you to store/download disk images (from the internet) on USB sticks and CF cards, and use them directly on an Apple II. The card can emulate Hard Drive images (up to 2GB), and floppy drive images at the same time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2q113bbwR5A

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seIf-_o5SdQ

I myself have wanted this card for many years, and have lucked into finally getting one on this final run. No more need for real floppy drives, or SCSI cards and real spinning hard drives! It is also very fast, even for floppy drive usage.

After these are gone, the option you have for emulating floppy disks is the FloppyEMU from BMOW. Which is a nice little alternative, but the speed is limited to original speed of real floppy drives. It also requires a (hard to find) Liron card if you wish to do hard drive emulation on an Apple IIe (no extra cards required for the Apple IIgs).
It also can't do Floppy drive and Hard drive emulation at the same time. You have to select one or the other and the restart the computer.

>> No.4644214

apple II sucks!

>> No.4644309

>>4644196
>Which is a nice little alternative, but the speed is limited to original speed of real floppy drives.
Apple II disk drives really aren't that slow unless you use DOS 3.3 (which is not very well optimized). Most games also have custom routines for super-fast disk access.

>> No.4644848 [DELETED] 

You probably just want a IIe, they're common and cheap. The II+ is more expensive and rarer since there aren't as many of those around and they're not as reliable due to the higher chip count and heat output. A IIgs is useless without expensive ricing. Original IIs are collectors' items, nobody actually plays with them.

>> No.4644872

You probably just want a 128k IIe, they're common, cheap, and will run about 90% of Apple II software. The II+ is more expensive and rarer since there aren't as many of those around and they're not as reliable due to the higher chip count and heat output. A IIgs is useless without expensive ricing. Original IIs are collectors' items, nobody actually plays with them.

The only difference between the IIe and //e is the latter having a 65C02 CPU but hardly anything actually needs it.

>> No.4645592

what is the best Apple GS emulator?

>> No.4645629
File: 52 KB, 550x393, appleiic.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
4645629

>>4644872
Also strongly consider a IIc. IME they are some of the easiest ones to find, take up less space than the original, come with a free floppy drive and have several of the most popular expansion options for the IIe built in.

>> No.4646159

>>4645629
If considering an Apple IIc: the FloppyEmu from BMOW is definitely a must these days.
Also make sure to get the ROM upgraded if you get one with the original "255" version ROM. The original "255" ROM cannot do Hard Drives through the floppy port. Every other version of ROM for that computer can do HD support through the floppy port.

>> No.4646258

>>4644872
>The II+ is more expensive and rarer since there aren't as many of those around and
They can't do lowercase letters without modding.

>> No.4646261

For a monitor, any TV is good enough if you just want to play games, 80 column text or applications aren't very viable without a monitor.

>> No.4646270

>>4644309
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AF-KIhNRIs

I counted about eight seconds to load the game here. On a C64, it would probably take at least 20 without a fastloader.

>> No.4646278

>>4643295
>Until then, you can play single load games by loading them into the cassette port via your PC's audio out jack.
Plus also save Applesoft BASIC programs as WAV or MP3 or whatever files.

>> No.4646282

>>4646159
I think the 255 ROM also doesn't support 3.5" drives, but I could be wrong. Although not much software can actually use them anyway, mostly just late versions of AppleWorks.

>> No.4646289

You can rice out a IIe pretty extensively with a RGB card, Liron, mouse card, and other goodies but they're hard to find and expensive while a IIgs has all of those capabilities already built-in. Also like the other guy said, there's not much benefit from a mouse or hard disk support except to run late AppleWorks.

>> No.4646352

The peak of the Apple II as an arcade game machine was in about 1982-84. After that, it was getting too old to keep up with NES scroller games so most later stuff were CRPGS and strategy games without much animation.

>> No.4646378

Tons of games have been now converted from floppy-only to hard drive install-able.

This thread is where the announcements usually happen:
https://groups.google.com/forum/m/#!topic/comp.sys.apple2/k-THYT8ziQU

It’s now possible to have quite a lot of the classics rolled into hard drive images and run from there without having to swap/flip disks.

Both the CFFA3000 and the FloppyEmu are really convenient to use with these new conversions.

>> No.4646426

The IIgs doesn't have much of any good native mode software and what is there will require an expensive CPU accelerator to get acceptable performance out of.

>> No.4646519
File: 5 KB, 960x600, Space-Rogue_03.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
4646519

>>4643186
>What are the essential games?

the AppleII version of Space Rocue is hella good. you kinda want two floppy drives for it though as disk swapping is the pits. also a joystick.

>> No.4646524

>>4646519
>Rocue
meant to type Rogue. hands are bad today

>> No.4646737

>>4646519
Just play the Amiga version instead.

>> No.4646820

>>4646737
i mean if we're going down THAT route play the DOS version, it beats the pants off all of em. OP was asking for Apple 2 games though.

>> No.4647113

One advantage the Apple II had over the C64 was that it supported two disk drives (well the C64 does as well, but almost no games used a second drive). Almost every Apple II game that came on more than one disk supported two drives. This made playing RPGs and other multiload games much more enjoyable. The Apple II also had a MUCH faster read rate for disks (not sure how it compared to a C64 with a fastloader though).

While the C64 was probably a better game machine over all, I think the Apple II wins when it came to RPGs and some of the more advanced adventure games (such as the Sierra games). Having double the memory available made more complex games possible, and helped keep the Apple II going even into the early 90's.

>> No.4647130

>>4647113
>Having double the memory available made more complex games possible, and helped keep the Apple II going even into the early 90's.

The IIe could have 128k, yes, but it's kind of negated by the fact that Apple II games are more code-dense than C64 ones due to the lack of hardware sprites and scrolling. Also of course the CPU can only access 64k at a time so you have to switch between the two RAM banks. I mean, Maniac Mansion required a 128k Apple II when the game managed to fit in 64k on the C64.

>> No.4647134

>>4647113
The Apple II has no interrupts meaning you can't play music without stopping everything. Games with background music like Dig Dug have a very warbly, staccato sound for this reason.

>> No.4647139

>>4647134
DESU there are quite a few clever workarounds for sound on the Apple II, one of which was scattering bits of code to click the speaker throughout your main code loop. If done well, you get sfx in a game practically for free. Tricks like this were also commonly used on the Atari 2600, which also lacks any interrupts.

>> No.4647148

Apple got FCC Class B certification for the Apple II, which allowed them to have expansion slots, while Commodore had Class C certification that didn't allow it. Of course if the FCC hadn't been such dicks, then Atari wouldn't have invented SIO and the same engineer who came up with that wouldn't have invented USB years later.

>> No.4647169

>>4647148
I'm not sure how valuable the Apple II's expansions slots were. I mean, realistically most people had just the basic stuff like a memory/80 column card, printer port, and disk controller, and a C64 already provided most of that functionality without any expansion cards or slots.

The Mockingboards and RGB cards were cool, but how much software even used them? Although maybe just the presence of expansion slots made the Apple II seem more like a "real" computer and that was enough.

>> No.4647173

>>4647169
They were used for stuff like controlling CNC equipment, lab equipment, and other such tasks. Plus networking.

>> No.4647183

>>4647173
Sure but again how often did normal people use an Apple II for those? I'm saying in my experience, 90% of the time when you find an Apple II somewhere, it doesn't have any cards in it beyond a printer port and a disk controller.

>> No.4647191

>>4645629
The IIc doesn't offer any expansion but I guess it probably fulfilled the needs of most average people who wanted to use AppleWorks and play games. Also although it was relatively pricey by the averages of the time, it was still cheaper than the IIe.

>> No.4647214

Graphics/sound: C64
Price: C64
Ease of setting up and using: C64
Disk drives: Apple II (although the 1541 stores more on a disk than the Disk II)
Build quality/reliability: Apple II
Expandability: Apple II
Keyboard: They're both about equal
Application software: Apple II
Games: C64 unless it's a game type that benefits from an analog joystick
Performance: C64 (the Apple II has a faster CPU but it has to do all the work for sound and graphics)

>> No.4647267

>>4647113
I remember many C64 games supporting multiple drives. I know there were games that didn't but it wasn't something I'd cry about.

>> No.4647424

>>4647267
I know some Origin games did, but they're all I can name offhand.

>> No.4647435

>>4647130
Most Apple II games that used 128k were DHGR ones. DHGR games also tend to have no or almost no sound because moving the graphics around is very CPU-intensive compared to standard HGR mode so there wouldn't be any clock cycles left to click the speaker.

>> No.4647445

>>4647435
Sierra put some of their AGI games on the Apple II but they're pretty shit--the animation runs at like 2 fps and there's no sound.

>> No.4647456
File: 299 KB, 1600x1195, 7577798656.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
4647456

>>4647445
They are. The AGI engine was really designed for 16-bit machines.

>> No.4647462

I find it odd that Sierra never put them on the C64.

>> No.4647471

>>4647462
The AGI engine wasn't suited for the C64 at all, for one thing it was too big to fit in 64k and also it was designed for a system with bitmap graphics rather than tile graphics. But another thing to consider is that Sierra were always an Apple and PC-centered company, they really really didn't care about Atari 8-bits, C64, Amiga, and whatnot. They considered them to be toys and not a "real" computer like Apple and PC hardware was.

>> No.4647573

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5Q9loiBJfs

Damn you Box Office Software!

>> No.4647576

>>4647573
And incidentally, this game illustrates how shitty that PC compatible gaming was back then

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FUwrRvnWAg

I mean, fuck. Look how choppy this is. The Apple version meanwhile manages seamless 60 fps animation on a little 1Mhz CPU with no hardware sprites.

>> No.4647617
File: 4 KB, 320x200, 57307-psycho-commodore-64-screenshot-the-first-floor-foyer.gif [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
4647617

Another Box Office "gem", Psycho--apparently based on the movie. This is such a terribly obvious Maniac Mansion ripoff. I mean, fucking look at that room. They weren't even trying to hide it.

>> No.4647651

>>4647424
wizardy, infogrames, can't name any more off hand either but there were many.

>> No.4647659

>>4647617
Based on the movies--they made two sequels to Psycho in the 80s with Anthony Perkins reprising the title role. Note that they waited until Hitchcock had crossed the River Styx to make these embarrassing films.