This weekend, I actually left the house to see live music that wasn’t Nonagon. Thanks to John H., I got offered to see The Jesus Lizard at Metro. The Jesus Lizard is one of those bands that, during the nineties, I saw at least half-a-dozen times. Their music basically became the blueprint for much of the stuff we wrote in Der Lugomen. The band has reunited with its original line-up (technically, its second line-up since they had a drum machine on the first EP) and been playing shows since this summer. It was a pretty good show despite the fact that Yow had injured himself the night before and had to sing from a bar stool for most of the evening. His normal position is horizontally, thrashing about and body surfing over the audience. The crowd was typically wild. I managed to avoid the fray by just pinning myself against the stage barrier for most of the show. The opening band, Triclops, was awful. Truly, truly awful. Derivative, overly long and indistinguishable music fronted by a douche-bag singer who relied on an effects rack in lieu of any real talent. The comparisons to Jars of Clay were very much in order.
There’s my head in the foreground. This picture was stolen from some stranger’s Flickr site. They must have been standing behind me the whole night.
This weekend I played through No One Lives Forever again to see if it still holds up. I have long considered this to be one of the best games I have ever played. The graphics haven’t aged very well—they are comparable to what you would see in a Nintendo DS game these days—however, the story, game play, music and humor all are as fresh today as they were back when the game was released, and, despite the their simplicity, the visuals still have their moments such as the Bond-style credit sequence complete with a dancing Cate Archer. Plus, I will never get tired of the incredibly catchy soundtrack music. I would love to see a NOLF 3 one of these days. I may even be up for buying one of those nerdy “who the hell buys these things” collectors’ editions.
I just finished watching all six episodes of AMC’s remake of The Prisoner and I guess I shouldn’t have expected much. How could you possibly redo one of the most unique and thought provoking television series without disappointing those of us who idolize the original? After seeing some early teaser featurettes on AMC’s Web site I started to get high hopes for this. I mean, Gandalf as No. 2! And look at this awesome still:
Jesus is about to get crushed by a gargantuan pilates ball! If this series had consisted entirely of No. 6 being chased by rovers I would have been satisfied. Instead we get a confusing mess of mumbled dialog, uninformative flashbacks, more mumbled dialog and 3 or 4 schmaltzy love story plot lines. The rovers have about 15 seconds of total screen time over the course of the entire mini-series.
The original series was full of humor, suspense and sci-fi imagination. No. 6 was always playing a cat-and-mouse battle of wits with his caretakers—never knowing who he could trust. I always thought the key theme of the original was its defense of individualism. No. 6 had a mind of his own and nothing was going to take that away.
The new series starts off completely off-base by opening with No. 6 suffering from amnesia, with no idea who he is or what he believes. So, for pretty much the whole series, six is dazed and confused, with no real sense of purpose as he aimlessly stumbles about The Village. The series lingers too much boring side plots like the inane drama between No. 2 and his annoying son. The other villagers are treated in a far too sympathetic light. Where’s the paranoia? You’d think the writers would have a lot to address in this post 9/11 world regarding individualism and privacy.
If anything, this remake has made me appreciate the original that much more. And really, if you need a more modernized version of The Prisoner, you would be better off just watching Lost.
Although I tend to not promote these reviews to the front page, I have been semi-regularly posting mini music reviews of all my CDs as I go through my collection alphabetically. Check them out! This is a continuation of a project I started nearly two years ago on the previous version of this site… I have too many CDs.
I recently have been on a bit of an Apple II retro-computing kick. There was so much great software for the Apple 2 and I have many-a-fond memories of games like Karateka, Star Blazer and Ultima. In the early eighties my dad bought a Apple ][+ and this is where I learned the ins and outs of programming. In fact, I have posted a few of my better creations on this very web site (check out Dippy Golf and Malfunction).
I still own an Apple IIgs—the last of the Apple 2 computers before Apple went all Macintoshy—and Apple’s direct competitor to the Commodore Amiga. It’s fun to fire it up every now and again and listen to those 5.25″ drives grind away. What’s great about playing around with a twenty year old computer is that all that software that looked so cool, expensive and unattainable back in the day is now widely available for download on the Internet.
Disk Images and Emulators
The ultimate resource for all things Apple //e and earlier is Asimov FTP Archive. From here you can find just about every piece of software ever created for the Apple II in disk image format (usually a .DSK, .PO or .NIB file). Be warned, even though most of the companies that created this software are long gone, downloading old “Abandoned” software is still a legal gray area and there’s always a chance, albeit quite slim, that you may get in trouble for this.
On a PC you can get these disk images running quite easily in AppleWin by just dragging the .DSK file into the program window. AppleWin is an Apple II emulator, a program that mimics the hardware of another computer in software. There are several Apple emulators out there, but this one is the best.
There is also a great resource for IIgs called What Is the Apple IIgs? In addition to being a pretty complete history of the system, they also host disk images and packaging for most of the software ever released for the IIgs. In this case the file format is the .2MG disk image format. AppleWin can’t emulate the IIgs so you will need to use another program.
Emulators for the IIgs are not nearly as good as AppleWin. There seem to be many choices if you are running OSX. However, if you are running Windows, you are a bit limited. The one that I have gotten familiar with is Kegs32 (a Geocities link… you’ve been warned)ActiveGS. It is far from perfect and can’t run everything. The developers could learn a thing or two about usability from AppleWin. Flaws aside, once you get over the initial learning curve it can do a fairly good job with several IIgs programs, especially system software.
If all this downloading is a bit much for you, the easiest way to explore Apple II software is via a browser applet/plug-in/activex widget at Virtual Apple ][.
Using Disk Images on an Actual Apple II
Running old software in emulation can be good and bad. Most of the times emulation is much faster and convenient. In the case of AppleWin you can save the state of the machine. This means you can save your game even in a program that doesn’t natively support save games. Also, you can throttle the disk speed and machine speed to make productivity software run much better than it ever ran on the actual hardware. As good as the programs look on a modern LCD-type screen, they still look better on a nice tiny tube monitor. It gives the graphics a pleasant contrasty glow.
In the case of the IIgs, no one has quite nailed the emulation as accurate as they could. For this reason, you’ll be pleased to know that you can take those disk images you grabbed off of the Web and transfer them to actual floppy disks! I was really excited when I discovered this, but my hopes were squashed when I actually tried to get files from my PC to my IIgs. It took me a very long time combing through usenet and other on-line resources to figure out just how to do it with my set up. There are a few ways to accomplish this, but many of the methods involve things like null modems and SSH. A bit too nerdy even for me. On this page I will go through my process step-by-step to show you how it’s done.
The Tools You’ll Need
Hardware requirements are one of the biggest hurdles in this process. Here is the list of things you will need to get disk images off your PC and on to your Apple 2:
An Apple IIgs with 3.5″ and 5.25″ floppy drives. If you don’t have a IIgs, I can’t help you. All of the software I use is IIgs specific, so if you only have your //e you’ll have to look elsewhere for help
A PC with 3.5″ floppy drive. Seems simple enough, except that they don’t build 3.5″ drives into PC these days. I bought a Sony USB floppy drive from NewEgg.com for around $20 and it does the job very well.
A Macintosh computer running System 9 or earlier. This is the biggie. Not many people have old Macs just lying around. Fortunately, I inherited one from my office, but you may have to troll eBay or Freecycle to find one. OS X will not cut it. System 7,8,9 supported the ProDos disk format, which is the Apple II format, and I don’t think OS X supports this (besides, most OS X Macs don’t have floppy drives either)
Lots of Blank 3.5″ or 5.25″ disks! These are getting quite hard to find nowadays, but there are still sources out on the net if you search. I have tons of 3.5″ floppies from a 32 disk backup installation of Windows 95 that I never needed to use.
Step 1: Getting Files Off Your PC
So you found a .2MG file that you want to get on your IIgs. The problem with .2mg files is that the IIgs doesn’t know what to do with them, and, in most cases, a .2MG file is larger than the 800K that can fit on a ProDos floppy. You will need to compress the .2MG file into a ShrinkIt file. ShrinkIt is the .ZIP file equivalent for the IIgs. In addition to being able to archive a group of files you can also use it to create a compressed disk image.
(What Is the Apple IIgs? used to allow you to download files in .SHK ShrinkIt format. Due to bandwidth issues, they now only offer the .2MG files. Oh well)
Never fear. There is an open-source Windows software out there than can decipher and convert all sorts of Apple ][ files and disk images: CiderPress. After installing CiderPress, run it and choose the Disk Image Converter function from the Tools menu. Simply select your .2MG file then choose ShrinkIt Disk Archive (.SDK) from the options and save your converted file. This .SDK file can now be saved to a PC formatted floppy. You will notice that this file is actually compressed and smaller in file size than the original.
Step 2: Transferring the Image to a ProDos Disk.
This next step is simple, but is dependent on you having access to an older Macintosh computer running System 7, 8 or 9. If you are lucky enough to have one of these machines, you can simply insert your PC formatted floppy in the drive and drag the .SDK file on to your desktop. Then format a ProDos floppy (either on the Mac or your IIgs) and insert it into your Mac’s floppy drive. Next, drag the .SDK file from your Mac desktop on to this ProDos floppy. Now your disk image is ready to make its way to your IIgs via good old fashioned sneaker net.
Step 3: Creating and Actual Disk from the Disk Image
Now, the rest of the action will take place on your Apple IIgs. Boot up your IIgs System disk. The essential piece of software that you will need is GS ShrinkIt. ShrinkIt is a common compression format on the Apple 2. If you don’t already have GS ShrinkIt for your ][gs, getting it up and running can be a bit of a challenge. I was lucky to have it already from back in the day, but if you need it, I’d suggest reading this page from the Apple II Csa2 FAQ.
Run GS ShrinkIt and select OPEN ARCHIVE from the FILE menu. Now insert your disk with the .SDK file on it and open the file. You may need to check the “Show All Files” radio button in order to find the file. If all went well, you should be able to open the file and see the contents of the compressed .SDK file.
Have a blank 3.5″ floppy ready and click the Extract button. Insert your floppy and follow the prompts to select the drive in which your blank disk resides. You will then have to wait while the computer grinds away and copies your disk image to the floppy. If all goes well you should now have a working copy of the software which you downloaded off the Internet. Have fun!
UPDATE: I no longer need to follow this method. To find out why, read my post about the CFFA 3000.
This is going to be a poster for an upcoming Nonagon show. It’s based on an earlier image I made about a decade ago that I never did anything with. Hopefully I will be able to finish in a day or two so that we can get these Xeroxed off in a timely manner.
Okay. So I am one of those evil bastards that thinks health care reform is a bad thing. Apparently, the hidden motive for my position is that I want to ruin the lives of poor people—or, at least that’s what my progressive friends have told me. Fine. If that makes it easier for you to accept that there are people with opinions other than your own, more power to you.
I get a bit depressed when I hear folks go off like this. People have become so pot committed to their partisan positions that they assume that anyone with an incongruous opinion must be evil, stupid or both. Never mind that on an issue like health care we are not just talking about getting sick poor people to the doctor. We are toying with the idea of restructuring an entire industry, and, in the middle of a recession, adding massive (as in dwarfing “tiny” projects like World War II!) new government programs and expenditures. To me it’s obvious that these are bad choices, but I don’t for a second believe that the proponents of health care reform are deliberately out to destroy rich doctors, or worse destroy the U.S. economy, stifle innovation and make health care terrible for everyone (not just poor people). I honestly think that they believe they are doing the right thing, despite the fact that they are going to kill us all and sell our children into white slavery.
This is the Applied Engineering PC Transporter. It allows you to run MS-DOS applications on your Apple IIgs! It can also be used as a ~800K RAM disk. Click the following image for a closer view:
This auction includes all the items pictured above, including the following:
PC Transporter card, includes original box and manual
II GS Installation kit, includes original box and the cards an cables need to connect the PC Transporter to your Apple II GS
A 2 Bay “Transdrive” Floppy Drive for MS-DOS disks and its leaflet manual (with instructions on setting jumpers, etc.)
Original PC Transporter System disks (both the 3.5″ & 5.25″ versions)
An original IBM MS-DOS 2.0 disk and accompaning system tools disk, both are 5.25″ floppies.
Note: The MS-DOS drive spins quietly the entire time that it recognizes that there is a disk inside. This has no apparent effect on its operation, and I assume this is the correct behavior for the drive. But it’s been more than a decade since I used this with any regularity, so I don’t know for sure.
At the time of this posting, this has been completely tested and is working. Here is a video demonstration of the actual item I am selling that I recorded just before removing the parts from my GS and packing them up for this auction (or watch the annotated version with dorky stock music on YouTube):
Even though the card is leaving here in working form, I can make no guarantees as to if it will work in your machine. Therefore, I am selling this item AS IS. Please buy shipping insurance if you have any concerns. I will ship to the US only. The entire package is going to weigh somewhere between 8-10 lbs. Contact me if you have any questions. Here the link to the eBay Auction… bid early… bid often!
UPDATE: The package eventually sold for around $155! Woo hoo!
After posting Malfunction, my text adventure game for the Apple ][, I have been spending a whole bunch of time tinkering with my old Apple ][ software creations. Another one of my better creations was a golf game that I titled, Dippy Golf. This game featured nine holes which were loaded in from external graphics files and, even more impressive, was the use of audio samples of my voice! The game worked but still felt somewhat unfinished, so I decided to complete the game and post it here on the Pages of Fun!
One of the first major additions that you will see is the snazzy splash page and loading message:
This was actually the last thing I added to the new version of the game, but I wanted to use my other upgraded piece of software, Lo-Paint 2. More about that later. The game takes several seconds to load the audio samples. Creating samples on the Apple ][ was incredibly difficult. I used a piece of software called The Voice by Muse. This application was developed in part by Silas Warner, the creator of the Castle Wolfenstein series of games.
The process of getting audio into the computer required taping myself on a cassette recorder, than plugging the recorder into the never-really-used tape data jack on the back of the Apple ][. The sound quality is awful, but this was about the best you could do on an Apple ][. You should note, that this is a golf game, so one of the samples is a naughty word. I stole the idea from an early Mac golf game which my neighbor owned.
Anyhow, on to the introduction/instructions screen:
I love that old, uppercase Apple ][ font. One of my improvements here was to center the text on the page and use a nicer prompt for a key press. After this page you proceed to the first hole:
As you can see, the graphics are in Apple 2 lo-res mode graphics. In this mode you are allowed 40×40 pixels, 16 colors and four lines of text. As crude as this image is, I believe it’s actually higher resolution than Atari 2600 golf.
The game mechanics are simple. You point in a direction then specify how hard you want to hit the ball. This was fine as a proof of concept, but didn’t provide much challenge once you memorized the best angles and swing percentages for each hole. The major 2009 update to game play was the addition of the random element of the wind. This makes the ball behavior somewhat unpredictable (like real golf for me) and can push the player into taking riskier shots in hopes of catching that breeze for a few extra pixels of distance. On some holes, like the one pictured next, it really adds to the challenge.
Without the wind, you could reliably hit to the micro-islands off the right of the screen.
All of these holes where drawn using an art tool which I programmed called Lo-Paint. In addition to my Dippy Golf updates, I also updated Lo-Paint and included it on the disk. This was a major upgrade to the tool so I consider this version 2 of the software. The interface has been completely revamped and now you can save and load lo-res images! Check out this screen shot of Lo-Paint 2 in action!
If you want to try out Lo-Paint 2 or Dippy Golf download the disk image which is attached to this post and open it up in AppleWin or your favorite Apple ][ emulator.
(Okay, Masterpiece should probably be in quotes too!) I have been on a bit of a retro computing kick this evening. I have been playing around with AppleWin, which is the best Apple ][ emulator for Windows that I know of. I played a little bit of the original Castle Wolfenstein and then decided to fire up my trusty Apple ][gs and port some of my old Applesoft programs to PC.
The process of transforming a 5.25″ floppy to a disk image is somewhat complicated, but not too bad if you have the right tools. First, I turned on my ][gs and booted the System 6 disk. I then ran the awesome program Asimov (by Ninjaforce) which can create and “burn” Apple ][ disk images. I was able to save six 5.25″ disk images onto a single 3.5″ ProDos floppy. The next step is taking this 3.5″ floppy down to my System 9 Mac which I keep stowed away in my basement. The old Mac system could read ProDos disks so I am able to pull the files off the floppy and then save them to a PC formatted 3.5″ floppy (or send them over a network, but I am not connected in my basement). I have a USB floppy drive on my PC specifically for this purpose. Once the disk images are on my PC’s hard drive (with a .dsk extension) I can boot them in AppleWin.
I spent a few hours running my old programs. Most of them are pretty stupid, but I can’t believe I wrote them as a 10 or 11 year-old. I will post some screenshots in the near future. However, sometime in my sophomore or junior year of high school I took the time to create a full text adventure called, “Malfunction.” My code was based on the code in the book Write Your Own Adventure Programs For Your Microcomputer by Usborne Computer Books. The book guided you through the creation of a haunted house game. I was taken step-by-step through the process of game design–from creating maps and puzzles to programming a text parser. This was a great book, and I’d love to see an updated, perhaps Flash actionscript oriented, version.
Now, more than 20 years later, I have decided to publish my game!
In order to play the game you will need to install an Apple 2 emulator. For windows, I use AppleWin. It’s really simple and runs near-perfectly. As for other platforms like Mac, I’m not-so-sure. Look to Google for your answers.
The game is mediocre at best, but I am pretty proud of it. I learned a ton about programming when I created this. I hope you enjoy it. Please feel free to leave me some comments about what you think.
