History
The Apple II is one of the longest lived computing platforms in history, which, when looking at the list, really says something about its remarkable staying power. Along with the Commodore PET and the TRS-80 Model I, the Apple II was part of the original personal computing trinity of 1977, but unlike them retained its powerhouse reputation well into the 1980s. Even when it was overpowered by the Atari 800 and dramatically underpriced by the Commodore 64, the Apple II platform’s solid foundation, architectural flexibility, and expandability allowed it to remain commercially viable until production finally stopped in late 1993. In its more than 15 years on the market—a miracle by technological standards—it witnessed the rise and fall of dozens of determined and worthy competitors. In short, the Apple II’s impact on the computer and videogame industries is difficult to overstate.
The Apple II commanded such loyalty, in fact, that Apple itself seemed reluctant to tamper much with the formula. The IIGS, for instance, was a more capable, backwards-compatible model introduced in late 1986. Initially a sales success, the IIGS was hamstrung by Apple’s decision to limit its technology—ostensibly to avoid competition with their new line of Macintosh computers. Within a few years, enthusiasm for the IIGS waned from both Apple and consumers, and the company’s focus shifted back to the original core technology found in the Apple IIe Platinum, the last model off the production line in November 1993. Speaking of the Macintosh, it was the Apple II platform’s remarkable consistency that bought Apple the years it needed to build the Macintosh brand, which was in turn the bridge to unprecedented commercial success with the iPod and iOS platforms. Indeed, it’s hard to imagine what the tech industry would look like today if the Apple II had remained a “crazy” dream of its eccentric designers.
The tale of the Apple II begins with two Steves from Sunnyvale, California. The first was Steve “Woz” Wozniak, a talented, socially awkward, but unflappably sincere engineer specializing in calculators at Hewlett-Packard (HP). He couldn’t have been a starker contrast to the other Steve, Jobs, the quintessential free-spirited hippy with remarkable charisma. Woz, five years older than Jobs, had been introduced to him by a mutual acquaintance, when Jobs was still in high school in Cupertino, California. The two computer wizards became fast, if unlikely friends, engaging in constant pranks and making money selling “blue boxes,” illegal devices used by “phreakers”—phone system hackers—to steal free long-distance calls and eavesdrop on private conversations.
Jobs became Atari’s 40th employee in 1974, serving the innovative young company as a willful, but unremarkable hourly technician. However, he soon left Atari for a year-long hiatus to India, returning to work with a shaved head and traditional Indian garb. It was the type of wild, ballsy, and utterly unpredictable behavior that would help cement Jobs’ reputation as a true eccentric. Whenever Jobs took into his head to do something, he’d do it—regardless of the consequences or what other people thought.
Airheart from the AppleWin emulator.
Airheart (1986, Broderbund)
After several unfinished attempts at creating a worthy follow-up to Choplifter, Dan Gorlin finally completed Airheart, which put the player in control of a jet-propelled circular raft in order to gather items and battle water-born obstacles and enemies. Gorlin leveraged the Apple IIe Enhanced’s double hi-res graphics and 128K of memory to deliver a high-speed, visually rich arcade adventure.
Atari had scored big with its arcade version of Pong, and was soon to repeat its success with its famous play-at-home version. Jobs, hired back on at Atari as a night-shift engineer, was asked to create a prototype for a single-player, vertical Pong variant called Breakout.
The goal of Breakout is to clear rows of blocks at the top of the screen by bouncing a ball off a small, movable paddle at the bottom. It’s a fun game that many people still enjoy in various incarnations today. However, at the time, the technology required to create a Breakout machine was too costly to make it profitable to manufacture, so Atari needed a seriously streamlined design. Faced with this daunting engineering challenge, Jobs sought the help of his old friend Woz.
Rumor has it that this is exactly what some combination of Nolan Bushnell, Steve Bristow, and Al Alcorn wanted Jobs to do. The team at Atari had witnessed Woz’s impressive self-built home Pong clone, but failed to woo him away from HP. Nevertheless, Woz was a fan of both Atari arcade games and engineering challenges, so he came to his friend’s rescue. He completed the bulk of the work in only four days, with an efficient design that used far fewer chips than any other Atari arcade game at the time. Atari’s engineers were pleased and gave Jobs a nice payout and bonus—most of which he famously kept for himself.1 Breakout become another smash hit for Atari, even though the company had to compromise somewhat on Woz’s design by adding more chips (Woz’s design was actually more efficient than the company could successfully manufacture).
After years of hardware hacking and his two dalliances in videogames, Woz was inspired by Don Lancaster’s TV Typewriter design and the recent availability of the inexpensive MOS 6502 microprocessor to begin work on a television computer terminal. He realized that one major stumbling block for the nascent home computer industry was the lack of a cheap and effective means of displaying output. Computer hobbyists could either content themselves with a row of flashing LEDs or ante up the big bucks for a video or text terminal. Neither solution was particularly desirable.
Woz had been attending regular meetings at the legendary Homebrew Computer Club, where many of the industry’s pioneers shared their ideas and passions. Inspired by this creative and highly motivated group, Woz soon demonstrated a prototype that would ultimately become the Apple Computer, known later as the Apple I, or Apple-1. Really nothing more than an elegantly-designed circuit board with a low-cost MOS 6502 microprocessor, 4KB RAM, and expansion connectors, the Apple I nevertheless laid the foundation for the juggernaut Apple II. Unfortunately for them, neither Atari, who couldn’t justify the diversion of funds, nor HP, who didn’t see the value in personal computers, showed any interest in the prototype. Nonplussed by this rejection, the two Steves formed their own company, Apple Computer, on April 1, 1976.
Captain Goodnight from the AppleWin emulator.
Captain Goodnight and the Islands of Fear (1985, Broderbund)
On a platform not known for its audiovisual prowess, Captain Goodnight and the Islands of Fear impressed with its richly cinematic, multistage gameplay. Large, detailed sprites scroll smoothly as the player attempts to guide Captain Roscoe “Buzz” Goodnight through Fear Islands’ challenging scrolling stages to destroy Doctor Maybe’s doomsday machine before it can be activated. Battle enemies on foot and from a wide variety of transports, including diverse types of aircraft, ships, vehicles, and even a tram, to achieve your ultimate goal.
Working out of Woz’s bedroom and Jobs’ garage, the two soon began production of the Apple I. The ever-persuasive Jobs negotiated with a local hobbyist computer store, the Byte Shop, for an order worth $50,000. Credit, time, and supply constraints were tight, but the Byte Shop order was met, and the computer store provided full-stroke keyboards and wooden cases to its customers to complement the circuit board. Through the Byte Shop, as well as magazine coverage and advertisements, Apple had slow, but steady growth from sales of its first computer. It was a promising start, but it’s doubtful that even Jobs predicted the scale of the success just around the corner.
The October 1976 issue of Interface Age featured the second ever magazine advertisement for the Apple I, starting prices of $666.66, which, as the story goes, was due to Woz’s fondness for repeating digits, as well as representing a one-third markup on what the Byte Shop bought each unit for. According to Woz, Apple only sold a few hundred units in its first year, but, critically, got the company’s name out there to the day’s computer clubs and magazines.
Even before they officially released the Apple I, Jobs and Woz were thinking up new features. They frequently updated the design and shared their progress with their fellow enthusiasts at the Homebrew Computer Club. The eventual result was the Apple II. Even though little time had passed since the first Apple, the new unit improved on it in nearly every way. It sported a complete molded plastic enclosure with full-stroke keyboard, external peripheral ports, and eight easily accessible internal expansion slots. Even if some might look at it today and find it clunky, at the time it was the sleekest home computer anyone had ever seen; the Ferrari of the industry.
Castle Wolfenstein from the AppleWin emulator.
Castle Wolfenstein (1981, Muse Software)
Silas Warner had a stellar year in 1981 on the Apple II, with the release of both the popular programmable robot battle game RobotWar, as well as the even more remarkable Castle Wolfenstein, which successfully merged the best of action and adventure games to create the industry’s first stealth-centric videogame classic. Set in World War II, your mission is to escape from a Nazi prison complex by sneaking past and impersonating guards, searching for critical equipment, and carefully employing lethal force (when necessary). The sophisticated control schemes and ahead-of-its-time software-based speech synthesis heighten the already intense gameplay. Its high concept sequel, Beyond Castle Wolfenstein (1984)—where you break into a secret Berlin bunker to retrieve a bomb to place near Hitler during a meeting with his senior staff—is also worth a look. Amazingly, after a long and storied development cycle, the series’ spiritual successor, id Software’s classic first-person shooter Wolfenstein 3D (1992) was successfully ported to the Apple IIGS in 1998.2
Appropriately enough, the Apple II owes many of its innovations to the Breakout game. The Apple II was clearly designed to be something special, and, as Woz recalled in the October 1986 issue of Call-APPLE Magazine, “a lot of these features that really made the Apple II stand out in its day came from a game, and the fun features that were built in were only to do one pet project, which was to program a BASIC version of Breakout and show it off at the club.” As a result of his Breakout ambitions, Woz’s design for the Apple II came to incorporate color graphics commands, circuitry for paddle controllers, and a speaker for sound. With these standard features in place, the Apple II offered technology that its rivals in 1977, the Commodore PET and Tandy TRS-80, simply couldn’t match.
An original Apple II computer, courtesy of Jonathan Zufi, Shrine of Apple, http://shrineofapple.com.
As impressive as it was, however, the Apple did suffer one very noticeable limitation: it relied on the ubiquitous but cumbersome cassette tape for data storage. The Apple II’s built-in cassette port could read and write data using any decent off-the-shelf cassette recorder, matching most other computers’ storage abilities at the time. Although cassette recorders were slow and unreliable for storing computer data, they were cheap, which made them the early standard over more reliable disk-based systems that could cost more than a computer.
Choplifter from the AppleWin emulator.
Choplifter (1982, Broderbund)
Among the most ported games of the 1980s, Choplifter first appeared on the Apple II and took optional advantage of the platform’s paddle controllers to offer what was arguably the smoothest control experience for the in-game helicopter. However you played it, Choplifter offered up the intensity and compelling rescue mechanic from Williams Electronics’ arcade classic Defender (1980) and grounded it in the reality of the days’ hostage crisis scenarios. If you like this, you may wish to try an even more sophisticated take on helicopter action with the prototypical real-time strategy (RTS) game, Rescue Raiders (1986, Sir-Tech).
Luckily for Apple, Woz had more tricks up his sleeve. His next act was a design for an efficient, speedy, and relatively inexpensive 5.25-inch floppy disk drive called the Disk II, which was released in 1978 to instant and near-universal acclaim. Disks soon ejected cassettes as the storage medium of choice on Apple systems, and it would take competitors years to catch up to Apple’s decisive lead with this important storage technology.
The early disk standardization complemented the platform’s color graphics and sound, as well as its well documented and versatile architecture, making the Apple II series the preferred target of both application and game developers well into the 1980s. As a result, even though other platforms easily outsold and eventually outperformed the Apple II series, fans of these rival systems often had to settle for quick and dirty ports of games originally designed on and for the Apple II.
By 1980, the company boasted nearly 1000 employees and had outgrown several office spaces. In December, Apple Computer, Inc., successfully went public, with a valuation close to $2 billion. Several millionaires were created in the process, Jobs and Woz among them. In 1981, after an injury received in a plane crash, Woz took a leave of absence and returned only briefly before departing for good to explore educational, charitable, and other business ventures. Meanwhile, Jobs became chairman of Apple.
In 1983, Jobs appointed John Sculley, then president of Pepsi-Cola, to become president and CEO of Apple. By 1985, significant differences between Sculley and Jobs led to Jobs’ resignation. He didn’t lose much sleep over it, founding both Pixar Animation Studios and NeXT Computer shortly after. He didn’t return to Apple until 1997, when, older and wiser but still indefatigable, he began the remarkable turnaround of what had become an ailing and financially weakened company in his absence.
An early ad from the September 1979 issue of BYTE, which demonstrates Apple’s expectation of a Disk II purchase with every Apple II.
Model Highlights
What follows are some highlights of the major Apple II and related systems released in the United States:
• 1977–1980: The Apple II initially included 4KB RAM, a four-color (later six-color) display, built-in Integer BASIC, two game paddles, and one demo cassette. It was available preassembled or in kit form.
• 1979–1983: The Apple II+ (aka, II Plus) included 16–48KB RAM, six-color display, and a new BASIC from Microsoft, which established critical new base specifications for the computer line. It was also at this time that Apple allowed media equipment specialist Bell & Howell to make the only authorized clone, a black Apple II+ with special audio/video ports and a case accessible only with a screwdriver. This special Apple II+ was targeted at schools, where Apple hoped to firmly establish their platform. The strategy worked, and countless American school children received their first exposure to home computers courtesy of the Apple II+.
• 1983–1993: The Apple IIe, Apple’s most successful II-series system, helped the company capture over 15 percent of the computer market in 1984, its highest ever percentage.4 The IIe included 64KB RAM and the important capability to display both upper and lowercase characters. It eventually shipped with both DOS 3.3 and the newer ProDOS. The Enhanced IIe was released in 1985 and included many of the improvements found in the IIc. The last IIe variation, known as the Platinum because of the color of its case, included a numeric keypad and several additional minor enhancements, and was manufactured from 1987 to 1993. In the same year as the first IIe, the $10,000 (more than $22,000 in today’s dollars) next-generation Apple Lisa business system was introduced, but was unsuccessful and ultimately deprecated in favor of the Macintosh.
• 1984–1990: The compact Apple IIc was introduced with 128KB RAM and a built-in 5.25-inch floppy drive. The IIc+, whose production replaced the IIc’s, was introduced in 1988 with a faster 4 MHz processor, high-capacity RAM expansion option, and a 3.5-inch internal disk drive, which had the same 800KB capacity as the drive for the Apple IIGS. The first Apple Macintosh was released the same year for just under $2000, though the price was soon raised to just under $2500 (about $5400, adjusted).
• 1986–1992: Apple released the 16-bit Apple IIGS, the true backwards compatible successor to the original 8-bit II-series of computers. Although Apple was built on the back of the II-series, within a few years the Macintosh began to receive most of the company’s attention and resources, and by 1987 was consistently outselling its brethren.
An original Apple II+ computer, courtesy of Jonathan Zufi, Shrine of Apple, http://shrineofapple.com.
Karateka from the AppleWin emulator.
Karateka (1984, Broderbund)
With few words and even less button mashing, Karateka makes you the star of your own dramatic martial arts epic. Amazingly, even though he did it as a side project while a student at Yale University, Jordan Mechner was still able to maximize the Apple II’s modest audiovisual capabilities and required just 48K of memory and 140K of disk space to do it. To rescue the Princess Mariko from the clutches of Akuma and his evil henchman—including a trained hawk—requires well-timed punches, kicks, and blocks. Combined with Mechner’s pioneering use of rotoscoping motion capture techniques, Kareteka creates a gameplay experience quite unlike any other before or since. Avoiding the few traps and pitfalls, including showing the proper respect to the princess if you’re ever able to reach her, requires the deftness of a true master. Finally, if you’re lucky enough to play from a real disk, be sure to boot from side 2 to experience one of the greatest Easter Eggs3 in videogame history.
The inside of an Apple IIe, with several of its expansion slots populated.
An Apple IIc computer, shown for its size comparison with the 5.25-inch floppy disk for SSI’s real-time strategy game Cytron Masters (1981).
Apple II Forever
Despite the famous proclamation of “Apple II Forever” during a 1984 event to unveil the Apple IIc, “forever” ended about ten years later when Apple committed themselves exclusively to the Macintosh. Nevertheless, for technology with roots as far back as 1976, the Apple II series of computers had an amazing run. Indeed, it still enjoyed a remarkably devoted fan base, and if Apple had continued to fully support it instead of lavishing its energies on the Macintosh, who knows, maybe the Apple II series would still be in production today.
One of the reasons the Apple II was so successful was that the inner workings of the hardware was made public, whereas other manufacturers treated such things as trade secrets. Another key factor was being one of the first systems for which a disk drive was an expected end-user accessory. Developers took advantage of the Disk II standard, and within a few years there was an explosion of disk software. As stated in the December 1983 issue of Electronic Games magazine, “Just about anything the acquisitive computerist might want for his or her system is available to the Apple II owner.” This was no exaggeration.
The Apple II had two major disk operating systems, DOS 3.x and ProDOS, each of which might be needed to run specific software that didn’t automatically boot. DOS 3.1 (not 1.0 due to internal versioning) was released along with the original Disk II. In 1980, DOS 3.3 was the last new version of the original DOS released. It supported increased disk capacities and a new sector format. The new format required a conversion before old disks could be used on the newer disk drive, which had an updated ROM.
Since the original Apple DOS was designed exclusively for Disk II, ProDOS was released in 1984 to make mixed disk formats and hard drives more accessible, as well as faster and more flexible. Based on the Apple III’s versatile Sophisticated Operating System (SOS), ProDOS was able to support the II-series for the entire original run of the systems and through to the present day. In 1986, with the release of ProDOS 16 1.0 on the 16-bit Apple IIGS, the original 8-bit Pro-DOS software’s name was changed to ProDOS 8 with the release of version 1.2. The last version of ProDOS 8, version 1.9, was released in 1990.
Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston created the first “killer app” for the business world with their VisiCalc spreadsheet software in 1979, but the II-series was not destined to rule the office. That honor, of course, would go to the IBM PC and its endless clones, which are discussed later in Chapter 1.6. However, Apple still enjoyed a lucrative slice of the business market well into the 1990s, with plenty of software for both professionals and casual users. If the Commodore 64 (released in 1982) was the low-cost computer for the masses, the Apple II was the more refined and tasteful computer for the classes.
The Apple II platform was ideal for the classroom because its solid Woz-constructed design elements encouraged expansion, extension, and experimentation. Its audiovisual demands were also relatively modest and it had a wide range of software development tools, which further aided the development of massive amounts of educational software. Apple would continue this tradition with the Macintosh. Even though the Mac failed to garner the market share of its older brother at its best, peaking at 12 percent in 1992, it has still enjoyed a decidedly disproportionate presence in education.
Lode Runner from the AppleWin emulator.
Lode Runner (1984, Broderbund)
Another of the many games from Broderbund worth checking out, for many gamers, Lode Runner is without peer. A brilliant combination of arcade action and puzzle-solving, Lode Runner was one of the first games to include a level editor, which added even more value to a game that already featured 150 levels. Each multiplatform level challenges the player to collect all the gold, while either avoiding or trapping pursuing guards in temporary holes. Part of the fun comes from placing said holes in just the right place at just the right time, while avoiding falling into them yourself. For an even greater challenge, check out the game’s first of many offshoots, sequels, and successors, Championship Lode Runner (1985).
However, Apple’s versatile computers were as good for gaming as productivity and educational programs. Since the Apple II was a prime platform for more than a decade, it’s hardly surprising that thousands of games were produced for it. Although a haven for strategy, role-playing, and adventure software, the Apple II’s massive game library was hardly limited to these categories. Genre-defining releases came from a full range of famous developers and publishers, including Broderbund, Electronic Arts, Infocom, Interplay, Origin, and SSI. In short, the Apple II’s influence on the videogame industry is tremendous. What these games may have lacked in audiovisual wizardry were more than made up for by their originality and innovativeness.
Mystery House (1980) by On-Line Systems (later, Sierra) was the first commercial text adventure with graphics. The company’s later Time Zone (1982) was one of the first truly epic games, spanning six double-sided disks and featuring 1500 screens to explore. Although Richard Garriott released his Akalabeth: World of Doom (1980) first, his second role-playing game, Ultima (1981), set the stage for one of the most storied franchises in gaming.
Penguin Software’s The Graphics Magician (1982), although not technically a game, was a popular graphics and animation-creation package that joined a mass of other programs helpful in making them, improving the Apple II’s cachet as a development platform. Electronic Arts’ Music Construction Set and Pinball Construction Set were both released in 1983, and brought creative development to the masses. The latter let the user create unique virtual pinball machines with drag-and-drop simplicity, and the former did the same for music composition. Also in 1983, The Learning Company produced Rocky’s Boots, an award-winning example of “edutainment” software, which combined educational and instructional content with gaming, a hallmark of the Apple II series, which was led by MECC’s legendary The Oregon Trail (various editions throughout the 1980s) and continued with the likes of Broderbund’s Where in the World is Carmen San Diego? (1985), a series that thrives to this day.
As Electronic Games magazine so aptly put it in their 1983 Buyer’s Guide, “It would be impossible to mention more than a small fraction of the hundreds of interesting games available for the Apple II computer system.” This pattern of firsts and trendsetters continued through to the end of the 1980s, and included the first ever appearances of John Madden Football (1989) from Electronic Arts and Broderbund’s action adventure Prince of Persia (1990), which was one of several games released after 1984 that took full advantage of the double hi-res graphics features available with 128KB enhanced Apple IIes, IIcs, and IIGSs, which allowed for 16 on-screen colors instead of six, as well as increased pixel density.
The IIGS Detour
By 1986, Apple’s Macintosh computer had been on the market for about two years, but its high price and monochrome graphics had so far limited its appeal to mostly professionals and a few technology enthusiasts. Meanwhile, there was still a large base of Apple II users, with the IIc and especially the IIe helping to keep the platform active and thriving. However, the new Commodore Amiga (see Chapter 2.2) and Atari ST systems far surpassed these earlier systems in many areas, including graphics and sound capabilities. Rather than introduce a low-end Macintosh into the fray, Apple decided to revitalize the II series with the IIGS, releasing it in 1986.
The IIGS was Apple’s fifth computer in the II series, and it brought significant enhancements to the standard set by the best-selling IIe, particularly in the realms of graphics and sound, with the GS in the name indeed standing for graphics and sound. Expectations were high. Michael Malone in the October 13, 1986, edition of the San Francisco Chronicle, stated, “The Apple IIGS might be called the great reconciler, for it begins to rejoin the halves of Apple that Jobs tore apart.” And indeed, at first, the unit enjoyed good sales and seemed to be holding its own against the slightly more powerful and less expensive next-generation machines from Atari and Commodore, but it soon began to lose momentum as Apple never fully committed itself to the platform’s success. By 1992, Apple had stopped manufacturing the IIGS to concentrate solely on its Macintosh line for its future market ambitions.
An Apple IIGS with a full complement of disk drives and third party trackball. The IIGS was the first Apple II series computer with a detachable keyboard.
The Bilestoad from the AppleWin emulator.
The Bilestoad (1982, Datamost)
Marc Goodman’s The Bilestoad is a one-on-one arena fighting game known for two things. The first, was the game’s amazingly sophisticated and violent combat, which allowed players to strategically target and lop off limbs. The other was the fact that this was the game nearly everyone seemed to have and love, but precious few actually bought.5 The result of this rampant piracy was Goodman’s unfortunate decision to never make another game. Controversy aside, few fighting games since have managed to capture the same type of intensity or realism, so it is a title that should still be on any videogame fan’s radar.
The IIGS debuted on September 1986 for Apple’s 10th anniversary as a company and sold for $999 without a monitor. For an extra $500, users received an analog 12-inch RGB color monitor with a built-in speaker and support for up to 640 × 400 resolution. At these prices, the IIGS’s audience was limited mostly to existing Apple fans; Atari’s and Commodore’s new systems offered more power for less money. Nevertheless, there was no shortage of loyal Apple users willing to purchase the system, and it is arguable that the platform could have remained commercially viable for several more years after it was discontinued had Apple continued to actively support it.
To help celebrate the new system, Apple shipped the first 10,000 units with Steve Wozniak’s trademark signature (“Woz”) on the front. Commodore had tried something similar with its Amiga 1000, but there the pressed-in signatures of the Amiga designers (and a paw print) were hidden under the case. The Woz signature on the IIGS illustrated just how closely Apple users associated Steve Wozniak with their favorite platform, in much the same way guitar manufacturers occasionally release signed versions of guitars designed by recognized masters such as Les Paul. Indeed, although there are certainly cheaper guitars that arguably play just as well, the raw social capital of owning a true Les Paul, like that of an Apple computer, are enough to keep demand high among certain sectors of society. There is just something unique and intangible about these products that makes them worthy of their money and affection; they are more than the sum of their parts.
Internally, the Apple IIGS is by far the most advanced of the II series, yet backward compatibility with older Apple II computers is possible thanks to a special Mega II custom chip, a variant of which was also used in the Apple IIe Card for the Macintosh LC computer. The system’s main processor, a 16-bit chip from Western Design, the 65C816,6 runs at 2.8MHz and allows the IIGS to handle up to 8MB of RAM (although most games required only 256K to 768K). The system originally shipped with 256K of RAM, although later systems came with 1MB. The graphics hardware is capable of simultaneously displaying up to 16 colors from a palette of 4096 in a resolution of 320 × 200. Other, seldom-used graphics modes allowed the IIGS to display more colors at higher resolutions, such as 16 dithered colors at 640 × 200. The sound hardware featured an Ensoniq 5503, a powerful synthesizer chip designed by Robert Yannes, the same engineer responsible for the Commodore 64’s famous SID chip.
Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar from the AppleWin emulator.
Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar (1985, Origin Systems)
Arguably the height of 8-bit computer role playing, Richard Garriott’s first entry in the “Age of Enlightenment” trilogy lived up to its own hype and the high expectations set by its earlier, more traditional predecessors that comprised the “Age of Darkness” trilogy. Unlike most role playing games that task the player with simply killing a master bad guy or collecting prized artifacts, Ultima IV’s ultimate goal is to become the people’s spiritual leader and role model by living a virtuous in-game life as various obstacles are overcome. Each in-game action contributes to the player’s character development, either positively or negatively. For those users lucky enough to own a Mockingboard, even Ultima IV’s musical score delights. Three years later, the last Ultima series game for the Apple II was released, Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny, which pushed the platform hard, improving both the graphics and sophistication of the game world, but also clearly demonstrated that the Apple II’s time as the primary development platform had reached its useful limits.
Unfortunately for Apple Computer, the musical abilities of the 5503 chip led to a long and costly lawsuit with Apple Corps, owner of Apple Records (the Beatles’ recording company). Apple Corps had settled out of court with Apple Computer back in 1978 over a trademark infringement case regarding the name. Apple Computer had then promised to stay out of the music industry, but the IIGS’s synthesizer chip seemed like a violation of that agreement to Apple Corps. The suit dragged on for years, and some historians cite it as another reason Apple decided to drop support for the platform and concentrate on the Macintosh. Regardless, these legal battles with Apple Corps over the name and market encroachment would continue to plague Apple Computer, particularly after the introduction of the iPod and iTunes in 2001, but they were finally resolved. In January 2007, Apple Computer officially changed its name to Apple Inc., then confidentially settled the trademark dispute with Apple Corps the following month.
Owners of Apple’s earlier IIe computer were offered a $500 upgrade option for their system to convert it to a IIGS. However, the IIe’s keyboard had a slightly different layout and the trade-in did not include the all-important mouse and 3.5-inch floppy drive. By the time all of these add-ons were added to the bill, it made more sense just to buy a stand-alone IIGS. Needless to say, not many IIe users took up the option to upgrade and either lived with the legacy platform’s limitations or purchased new stand-alone systems.
Like the Commodore 128 (C-128) and Radio Shack Color Computer 3 (CoCo3), the Apple IIGS is an intriguing mix of old and new. On the one hand, there was much more power at the disposal of users and developers, and the path was laid for games that were much better-looking than any previously available on the Apple II platform. On the other hand, software developers faced a quandary over whether to target the new and better system or continue to cater to the well-established body of Apple II owners.
An early Apple IIGS ad from Apple IIGS: The Buyer’s Guide, Fall 1987 issue, which emphasized Apple’s dominance in the education sector.
The IIGS’s excellent backward compatibility with the earlier Apple II family ensured access to a massive software library right from the beginning, especially since adding a 5.25-inch disk drive or two was a common practice in typical setups. However, with this compatibility came an inherited liability: only one two-button analog joystick was supported by default. For two-player games, a keyboard or mouse had to be used by the second player.
There were some 200 commercial titles released for the IIGS that took advantage of its improved graphics and sound capabilities. Many of these games were ports of popular Amiga or Atari ST titles, such as Cinemaware’s King of Chicago (1988) and Defender of the Crown (1988), and FTL’s Dungeon Master (1989). Sports games were well represented by Epyx (Winter Games, 1987; World Games, 1987), Accolade (Hardball!, 1987; Fast Break, 1989), Electronic Arts (Skate or Die!, 1988), and Melbourne House (John Elway’s Quarterback, 1990). Both Sierra On-Line (King’s Quest I, 1987; Space Quest II, 1988) and ICOM Simulations (Shadowgate, 1989; Uninvited, 1989; Deja Vu II, 1989) offered their successful graphical adventure games for the platform. There were also many arcade ports, such as Taito’s Arkanoid II (1988), and Mindscape’s Gauntlet (1988) and Paperboy (1988). Suffice it to say, even though it didn’t have the software depth of other computers, all the common genres of videogames were well represented on the system.
Compared to the original Apple II, there are precious few games that help define the capabilities of the IIGS. Some of the best known are Electronic Arts’ The Immortal (1990), PBI Software’s platform exclusive Tower of Myraglen (1987) and Alien Mind (1988), Sandcastle Productions’ Zany Golf (1988), California Dreams’ Tunnels of Armageddon (1989), and Naughty Dog’s Dream Zone (1988), which was similar to Tass Times in Tonetown, a popular hybrid adventure game published in 1986 by Activision, who was also the first major publisher to debut its titles on the platform, including Paintworks Plus, The Music Studio, the classic tile-matching game Shanghai, and the suspenseful Hacker II: The Doomsday Papers. By 1990, third-party software support dwindled down to a trickle in favor of Amiga and PC compatible EGA formats.
The Apple II Community Then and Now
The Apple II platform has a rich and unparalleled history of magazine and newsletter support, with everything from classic multiplatform publications, like Byte and Interface Age, to Apple-specific titles, like Call-APPLE and Nibble. Apple fans loved reading about their favorite platforms and supported the best magazines and newsletters well into the 1990s. In fact, one such publication, Juiced.GS, which was launched in 1999, continues publishing new issues to this day!
The popular CFFA3000 CompactFlash/USB flash drive interface plugs into slot-based Apple II systems to provide a modern-day alternative to traditional floppy disks.
There are a wide variety of websites where fans of the platform congregate and share information, which, besides the usual multi-platform sites, includes the Apple II-specific Apple II History (http://apple2history.org), Applefritter (www.applefritter.com) and What is the Apple IIGS? (www.whatisthe2gs.apple2.org.za). Similarly, Apple II fans regularly meet in person at local and international events, including the popular KansasFest (KFest), which has been held annually in Missouri since 1989, and features keynotes from platform luminaries, and new homebrew product unveilings.
While the Apple II platform does not receive the same type of homebrew software support, particularly games, that many of the other platforms do, it does receive regular new hardware releases. These include plug-in Apple II cards from Briel Computers, like the Replica 1, which is one of many clones of the Apple I, and A2MP3, which features a USB interface and allows the playing of MP3 audio files, as well as R&D Automation’s best-selling CFFA3000, with support for CompactFlash and USB flash media instead of floppy disks. These cards join a host of other newly produced memory expander, accelerator, and networking devices.
Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord from the AppleWin emulator.
Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord (1981, Sir-Tech Software)
While visually primitive and shockingly hard by today’s standards, the core turn-based dungeon crawling and combat mechanics of the first Wizardry game were so good that they’re still being mimicked to this day. Recreating the intense role-playing experience and sophistication from the pen and paper version of TSR’s Dungeons & Dragons was a task that most developers shied away from, for obvious reasons. Nevertheless, from its multicharacter, multiclass party members whose strengths and weaknesses were statistics-driven, to the monsters, magic, and treasures straight out of Fantasy 101, Wizardry proved it could be done, and done well. Just make sure you’re armed with graph paper so you can map your own progress—Wizardry offered few concessions to accessibility, just the way role-playing fans back in the day liked it.
Collecting Apple II Systems
One of the major problems facing a modern would-be Apple enthusiast is the compatibility (or rather the lack thereof) among all the various models. Many of these models have different ROM variations and other differences ranging from keyboard layout and configuration to standard RAM and expansion options. These differences range from the subtle to the extreme, so it’s worth doing some preliminary research to determine which model is right for you.
On a related note, despite aggressive legal action by Apple against unauthorized manufacturers, dozens of clone systems were produced, with varying degrees of compatibility with the original Apple II. One example is the Franklin Ace 1000, released in 1982. Annoyingly, the reset button is so poorly positioned on the keyboard that it is easy to press it accidentally—seldom a pleasant occurrence. The best clones are VTech’s Laser models. These systems are the general size of an Apple IIc, but have many of the Apple IIe’s standard expansion options and are overall highly compatible. Surprisingly, the relative obscurity of some of these clones makes them more valuable to collectors than many of the more common genuine Apple computers, so don’t expect a great value.
The Apple IIGS offers some intriguing pluses, but might not be as much fun for those that like older system styling or have no interest in IIGS-specific software. An Apple IIe Card was even released for the Macintosh LC in 1990, but that hardware configuration is a difficult mix to pull together and has its own set of disadvantages.
Luckily, the popularity of Apple II systems in both homes and schools makes it easy to find genuine Apple hardware at reasonable prices today. Nostalgic users may prefer standard Apple II systems for their highly collectible status, but the most popular choice for casual users is the Apple IIe. The popular IIe offers the best mix of compatibility and expandability, regardless of variation. Likewise, the “Enhanced” and “Platinum” were the last models based on the Apple IIe and make excellent choices. The former is closer in design to the original IIe, whereas the latter features a keyboard and styling more consistent with early Macintosh systems and the Apple IIGS.
Anyone purchasing an Apple computer should take a moment to consider memory: 48KB of RAM is sufficient for a great deal of software, but 64KB minimum is better; 128KB is optimal, since certain later games require it. Disk II and compatible disk drives are easy to come by, and unlike competing systems, a relatively high percentage of software supports the concurrent use of two. This feature eliminates much of the tedious disk swapping so common on other machines of this era.
Although some software can be found on 3.5-inch disks, 5.25-inch disks remained the standard for the life of the system. It is best to have a copy of the latest versions possible of both DOS 3.x and ProDOS, since not all software booted on its own. Another useful program, DOS.MASTER, was created in the late 1980s by Glen Bredon. DOS.MASTER enables the large base of previously ProDOS-incompatible programs written for DOS 3.3 to run under the more versatile format.
Originally, many users owned monochrome monitors, usually with green tubes. Monochrome displays are not necessarily a bad thing, since the color palette was fairly limited and could be a bit garish if the software didn’t support a favorable resolution and color depth. Many games used the Apple II’s original color scheme of purple, green, black, and white, although later games support blue and orange. Some users claim that monochrome displays make reading text easier, so if your primary interest is text adventure games, they could be a nice fit.
An even smaller percentage of games supported the higher resolutions and 16-color options available on expanded and late model systems. Despite the limited color range of most software, the II-series outputs a standard composite video signal, which allows direct connection to just about any modern TV.
Sound is generated internally from a small speaker, and there’s no way to physically control the volume level on many models. Despite the relatively primitive one-channel sound, brilliant programming techniques enabled everything from music to speech, although nothing that could match the quality of later competitive systems in either performance or range.
On II-series systems with the standard expansion slots, countless programming language and feature upgrade cards were developed, including sound boards. The most popular and best supported of these sound boards was the six-channel Mockingboard series by Sweet Micro Systems, which are coveted by today’s collectors, and could be used in pairs for a total of 12 voices, and expanded with the addition of speech chips. A few of the games that take advantage of the Mockingboard include Progame’s Lady Tut (1984) and Electronic Arts’ Adventure Construction Set (1985), each of which features enhanced music, as well as Penguin Software’s Crime Wave (1983) and Sir-Tech’s Crypt of Medea (1984), each of which make use of the optional speech chips.
Zork: The Great Underground Empire—Part I from the AppleWin emulator.
Zork: The Great Underground Empire—Part I (1980, Personal Software/Infocom)
While today’s smartphones and tablets are finally taking natural language processing mainstream, allowing us to ask our devices such profound questions as “Is that rain?,” those in the know were enjoying a surprisingly sophisticated form of the technology more than 30 years ago on their modest personal computers. In Zork, when the game displayed, “There is a small mailbox here,” you could type as one of many possible responses, “Open the mailbox,” and the game’s parser would interpret exactly what you meant, displaying: “Opening the small mailbox reveals a leaflet.” While the game was purely text-based and had a rather mundane goal of “collect the 20 treasures of Zork and install them in the trophy case,” the possibilities for creating a vivid, interactive world that had the quality of a good novel were clear. Just like with subLOGIC’s Flight Simulator (A2-FS1) from the same year, the oft-ported Zork demonstrated very early on that personal computers could be used for more than just simple videogames. While nearly all of the classic Infocom text adventures are worth checking out, their first commercial product, Zork, remains one of the best gateways to the world of interactive fiction.7
Finding boxed software is easy. Prices vary from a few dollars for arcade-style games to triple digits for the rarest and oldest role-playing games. The analog, two-button joysticks are easy to locate, with paddles less so, but both are still generally available. Except under specific circumstances, most games support only one player with a controller, so a second player must use the keyboard. In any case, most games do not assume a player has access to anything other than a keyboard, so external controls are not required.
There is one critical factor to consider when purchasing a IIGS: its ROM version. Early IIGS computers shipped with a bug-ridden ROM (ROM version 00) that renders them incompatible with most IIGS software released after 1987. Apple released a new ROM in September 1987 (ROM version 01) that fixed these problems and offered free upgrades to all current owners of existing IIGS systems. In 1989, Apple began producing IIGS systems with ROM version 3, which increased system performance, allowed for more RAM, and added several new features. However, the company did not offer free upgrades from ROM 1 to ROM 3 since doing so would have required an expensive motherboard replacement. Collectors who intend to run software on their IIGS should seek out a system equipped with ROM 1 for maximum compatibility or ROM 3 for maximum performance.
Emulation is well implemented and supported on a variety of modern platforms, including smartphones and tablets. Standouts include AppleWin and Virtual II. There are even web-browser-based emulators, such as the one at Virtual Apple (www.virtualapple.org), with a ready selection of games to try on demand for both the Apple II and IIGS.
No matter whether you choose real hardware or emulation, there are tons of classics to try out, regardless of interest or age group. As “mmphosis” related on the Applefritter website:
I recently loaded Oregon Trail using Blurry’s JACE (Apple II emulator) on my Mac. This old game entertained a ten year old for way longer than I thought they would want to be into playing a 25+ year old game when they have handheld game consoles, iPhones, a PC, a Mac… but they played the Apple II version of Oregon Trail through to the end. Go figure.
Screenshot from the AppleWin emulator, running Pinball Construction Set.
1 According to the book iWoz, Jobs only gave Woz $375, claiming Atari had only given him $750. In reality, he’d received $5,000.
2 For the full story, see http://apple2history.org/spotlight/the-long-strange-saga-of-wolfenstein-3d-on-the-apple-iigs.
3 Usually intentional hidden messages, secrets, or extra features in a videogame or other computer software. Although first popularized by Warren Robinett’s Adventure (1979) on the Atari VCS, Easter Eggs have been a part of computer history’s earliest days. in videogame history.
4 http://jeremyreimer.com/m-item.lsp?i=137. In contrast, the Atari 8-bit platform would have over 3 percent of the market, down from a high of almost 28 percent in 1980, while the Commodore 64 would also have its best year ever, with almost 40 percent market share.
5 Goodman himself puts the estimate at around 5000 copies sold. See www.dadgum.com/halcyon/BOOK/GOODMAN.HTM.
6 Since it utilized the same processor, this design made the Apple IIGS the ideal development platform for Super Nintendo (SNES) games, which are discussed in Chapter 2.5.
7 “Zork” was originally MIT hacker slang for an unfinished program. The term appeared as one of the sayings after a car crash in the 1976 Midway arcade game known as Datsun 280 Zzzap, or simply, 280-Zzzap. A port for the Bally Home Library Computer/Professional Arcade (aka, Astrocade) 280 ZZZAP/DODGEM 2001 appeared in 1981, which also featured the saying.