From the forum issue 122

[kiwimike]

For me, it was Prince of Persia - which came out first on the Apple ][.

I grew up in New Zealand too, and had friends with Apple ]['s, as well as friends with C64, Spectrums, Master Systems, NES's and PCs, so we got to experience everything going around at the time.

The Apple II was never really much of an arcade powerhouse

I completely disagree with that, I'm assuming you didn't actually know much about them to make that sort of a comment - To name a few: Threshold, Lode Runner, Robotron, Choplifter, Karateka, Battlezone, Night Mission Pinball, Hard Hat Mack. You don't have talent like Jordan Mechner, Warren Schwader, John Romero, Bill Budge and Nasir Gebelli developing for a platform and not have a whole slew of great arcade games.

I totally forgot about the great version of Robotron, and various Pinballs. AND of course Prince of Persia was an Apple II game in it's origin. Like Lode Runner that's seen so many formats, its forgotten over time

[Mancman]

First time I ever played Elite was on my mates dad's apple 2. Don't need to explain here how great Elite was and still is!

[kiwimike]

I think it's also worth noting the Apple II is impressive in regard to it's age in comparison to the other eight bits it's compared to. Considering when it came out, it held it's own against later machines well IMO.

[ncf1]

Absolutely Mike. They still had those things in our high schools well into the 90's, even when I left high school - who knows maybe they still have them, lol. But I remember an occasion, I saw it in the local newspaper, where some kids apparently broke into the computer labs in order to steal some computers. What they didn't realize, and couldn't beat was the steel cord that connected them altogether.. so you had this train of Apple II's half hanging out the window and half still inside the room!

Not only that, by that time you couldnt sell one for $20... nowadays you'd get a bit more but at the time I was left scratching my head thinking "...why?". The thieves had no idea, just obviously equated "computers = big money"!

[Matt_B]

I think it's also worth noting the Apple II is impressive in regard to it's age in comparison to the other eight bits it's compared to. Considering when it came out, it held it's own against later machines well IMO.

Considering the price it sold for, it bloody well ought to have. It was something like $2600 for a 48K machine at launch and I remember when the Apple IIe - the cost-reduced model - launched in 1983 it was still an eye watering $1395.

[AmigaJay]

I think it's also worth noting the Apple II is impressive in regard to it's age in comparison to the other eight bits it's compared to. Considering when it came out, it held it's own against later machines well IMO.

Considering the price it sold for, it bloody well ought to have. It was something like $2600 for a 48K machine at launch and I remember when the Apple IIe - the cost-reduced model - launched in 1983 it was still an eye watering $1395.

Exactly, good point... people who think expensive hardware like X68000, Neo-Geo, high spec PCs and then say wow they were powerful for the time...yeah but so were workstations and silicon graphic machines! You have to put things in comparison, you don't compare a retro ford anglia with a rolls royce and say the latter is better just because it is! Compare apples with apples....literally

[kiwimike]

Fair point, to a degree...but the point is how well a 1977 machine held it's own and how well it performed vs some later models rather than it's pricepoint.
Yes it was expensive though, of course. But we are still comparing eight bit computers.
That said I could never have afforded one myself!

[Matt_B]

Fair point, to a degree...but the point is how well a 1977 machine held it's own and how well it performed vs some later models rather than it's pricepoint.
Yes it was expensive though, of course. But we are still comparing eight bit computers.
That said I could never have afforded one myself!

Yeah, I'd say that it was the sort of machine your friend's dad had in their office rather than your they would have in their bedroom. Mind you, the families I knew with them still had a ton of games as well as the obligatory copies of AppleWriter and VisiCalc.

[smilertoo]

The favourite game i actually played on an Apple2 would be pacman; My favourite game ported from the Apple2 would be Lode Runner.

[kiwimike]

Yeah, I'd say that it was the sort of machine your friend's dad had in their office rather than your they would have in their bedroom. Mind you, the families I knew with them still had a ton of games as well as the obligatory copies of AppleWriter and VisiCalc.[/quote]

For sure, it was a nice piece of kit...but had we not had them at school I don't think I would have never been hands on with one, don't think I knew anyone who could afford one. Even my mate from a very well off family could only muster a BBC! The rest of us were Sinclair boys, and I will always be grateful to Sir Clive, without his genius I would not have had anything!

[ncf1]

No chance we would have had one if it wasn't for my father's work effectually giving him one for 'work purposes' (yeah, like fun - all he ever did was use it to create a horse-racing program which in his estimation outputted 'winners'), but there were still quite a few kids that had them; Apple did a great job here advertising the necessity of having one in the home, especially as an aid for school. And I must say I used it for both, games and programming... err, games, but using it for schoolwork, not so much. Maybe it helped with my maths a bit though.

A couple of kids had Apple II clones.. can't say I ever actually used one. Hey, there's a nice idea for an article -- clones of systems. Did any other 8- or 16-bit systems have clones? Ive probably read about it before but have since forgotten..

[kiwimike]

No chance we would have had one if it wasn't for my father's work effectually giving him one for 'work purposes' (yeah, like fun - all he ever did was use it to create a horse-racing program which in his estimation outputted 'winners'), but there were still quite a few kids that had them; Apple did a great job here advertising the necessity of having one in the home, especially as an aid for school. And I must say I used it for both, games and programming... err, games, but using it for schoolwork, not so much. Maybe it helped with my maths a bit though.

A couple of kids had Apple II clones.. can't say I ever actually used one. Hey, there's a nice idea for an article -- clones of systems. Did any other 8- or 16-bit systems have clones? Ive probably read about it before but have since forgotten..

A guy at my sisters work in the tech labs used to have an Apple Clone ('Circle?' I think it was), he used my borrow my Apple game disks. Yeah, I'd love to see a feature on Clones in the mag

[Matt_B]

No chance we would have had one if it wasn't for my father's work effectually giving him one for 'work purposes' (yeah, like fun - all he ever did was use it to create a horse-racing program which in his estimation outputted 'winners'), but there were still quite a few kids that had them; Apple did a great job here advertising the necessity of having one in the home, especially as an aid for school. And I must say I used it for both, games and programming... err, games, but using it for schoolwork, not so much. Maybe it helped with my maths a bit though.

Hats off to Apple's marketing department there.

The educational market was mostly sewn up by Acorn here, so well off parents tended to get their children the BBC Micro.

A couple of kids had Apple II clones.. can't say I ever actually used one. Hey, there's a nice idea for an article -- clones of systems. Did any other 8- or 16-bit systems have clones? Ive probably read about it before but have since forgotten..

There are literally dozens of different Spectrum clones out there. The Enterprise and SAM Coupe are quasi-compatible with the help of the Spectrum ROM. And Timex licensed the design to make semi-compatible machines for the North American, Portuguese and Polish markets.

Microdigital made unlicensed clones in Brazil. Most of the action was in Eastern Europe though, particularly Russia, where it became a popular project to reverse engineer the Spectrum. Two of the most well known ones were the Hobbit, widely used as an educational machine, and the Pentagon which still has a very active scene today.

Anyway, back to the original topic, have we run out of Apple II games yet? There must be someone else who's played one.

[kiwimike]

Anyway, back to the original topic, have we run out of Apple II games yet? There must be someone else who's played one.

I will have to google a bit, try and jog my memory about some old faves. Last time I was on a Apple II was 1984 I think

[Timothy Lumsden]

someone brought theirs to the computer club at the local library once, but I'd be lying if I said I remember what games I got a brief go on. It was probably Prince of Persia (though someone here mentioned Lode Runner and it could have easily been that).