Apple ][ game server | Hacker News Reader

Apple ][ game server

asciiexpress.net

159 pointssteveb52 comments

Awesome doesn't begin to describe this! Sure it's completely useless but is a monster 10 on the cool scale. It's just perfect on so many levels...

Alas my Apple 2 has let its magic smoke escape, otherwise I'd definitely give it a try!

Way cool dude, way cool....

I've been using the Asimov FTP site, a PC, ProTerm, and a null modem cable / Super Serial Card to achieve this result.

This is amazing—so much simpler! My Apple //e sits right next to my laptop on my desk, so for me, this is giving it a whole new lease on life.

Here's a picture, just for the hell of it: https://p.twimg.com/AiV8lqjCIAICETx.jpg

I loved those Amdek monitors. Never got one for myself. Now that I am a grownup who can afford such eccentric hobbies, I got myself a pair of http://tulip-house.ddo.jp/digital/SDISK2/english.html and one http://dreher.net/?s=projects/CFforAppleII&c=projects/CF...

Worth every penny.

You mean I could put my library of software on an SD card and convince the Apple computer that it was reading from a floppy drive?

Wow.

The sdisk is not that clever - I got it for a clone that has an onboard disk II and no slot 7. For the more Apple-like I got the CFFA, which is very smart and can emulate an HDD controller and a disk II

Thanks for the tip. I emailed the CFFA guy to get on the list for the next batch.

How much did it cost? I can't see a price on his site.

I think it, complete, was about US$ 160. What really hit me was the Brazilian import tax. :-(

It hits me all the time, BTW.

Many people who work with me got their first contact with a computer in the ADSL age and never even heard a modem handshake. Two people here used cassette tapes for storing programs, I for my Apple II, the other guy with his Sinclair and, later, his MSX. Some time later I wrote a program that dumped a floppy into a cassette tape for backup.

In case you wonder what are you hearing, it's the audio modulation of a memory dump. If you pay close attention, you can distinguish between program (noise-like) strings (less noisy) and graphics (more rhythmic sounds). Try the lo-fi link for maximum vintage feel.

Dad? I need our german Apple ][ clone from the attic right now! Remember when earlier today (seriously, we did, what a coincedence!) we talked about how in the German Democratic Republic they had programming lectures on the radio and were transferring the code over the air like this? Well, someone made a website where you can play the sounds of some games like that.

São Paulo's University radio had a program like this too. On Saturday afternoons, during interviews, one of the audio channels was transmitting programs (MSX-only, sadly)

I will be trying this out when I get home tonight! My ][e is as fully functional as it was in the early 80s when I got it.

I'm glad someone remembers these games. I still have a good chunk of these games (some legit copies, others pirated via Copy II+ sector editing). Really glad Bilestoad made the list.

Wish list:

Aztec (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aztec_(video_game))

Below the Root (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Below_the_Root_(video_game))

Championship Load Runner (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Championship_Lode_Runner)

Captain Goodnight and the Islands of Fear

Conan: Hall of Volta

Nice. Anyone remember a game where essentially little paratroopers fall down from the sky and you have a cannon rotating on a turret to shoot them down? When you hit the little paratroopers they blew into little green pieces all over the screen. That was a blast.

My sister sold our Apple IIe at a yard sale for like $8.00 in the mid 90's :(

Yes - that game was called Sabotage. You could play it with keyboard, joystick, or paddle, but paddles were the best way to win.

I remember that you lost points if you just fired indiscriminately, as well.

Here's a vid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbHW66AbzHA

Brilliant! As soon as I read the name "Sabotage" I knew it was correct. Thanks for the clip. I had just a monochrome green monitor and didn't realize it also had such striking color.

By the way, (warning a shameless plug): I created an HTML5 game loosely based on my best memory of the Sabotage game. The graphics are only marginally better and I couldn't really capture the game play, but it can be tried here(works best on Chrome): http://carbwars.tapjs.com/

Wow, is that actually letting the player shoot out the parachutes?

Yes it is. IIRC, extra points for shooting the parachute, then shooting the guy who was otherwise falling to his death. Simple and classic.

So very very cool! I bought an apple iie off ebay a year and a half ago since it was the first computer I ever used and had been meaning to get some games for it but just haven't had the time. When I saw this post today I was like a kid all over! I searched frantically for a cable to plug my phone into the apple iie but ended up having to go out and buy one but it was so worth it :)

Anyway I put up a video about it as well and figured I'd share it here as well. Thanks so much for this!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_e8wYEC72I

Excellent. Thanks. I added your video to the README page. Bummer HIFI didn't work for you. Try again with max volume or a different computer. It's not your Apple II.

Oh cool, thanks :) I tried from both my phone and my netbook and it started off loading (it recognized the game name) but then spit out an ERROR and stopped. I'll try a different laptop later.

I boosted the volume of the sound files from 50% to 75%, that should hopefully solve your problem (others have it too). Check in an hour or two for v0.5 to be up with the new audio files.

Thanks again for testing.

David Beazley did something similar with his Superboard II computer.

http://dabeaz.blogspot.com/2010/08/using-python-to-encode-ca...

http://dabeaz.blogspot.com/2010/08/decoding-superboard-ii-ca...

http://dabeaz.blogspot.com/2010/09/using-telnet-to-access-my...

Pretty sweet hack, IMO

From the domain name, is it safe for me to eagerly await a port of an Ascii Express software to Linux so we can once again enjoy the pleasures of extremely low tech but completely anonymous communication, via telnet this time instead of 1200 baud modems?

Plus I desperately miss ASCII art..

For those without their own hardware, you might want to try this Apple ][ emulator, built using JS / WebGL, http://porkrind.org/a2/ . Don't forget PR#6 to load a floppy image!

Very cool. I had a flashback this fall after discovering an old book I made for some school project about programming the Apple 2. Code looked horrible (to my 2011 eyes) but with an emulator I was able to get it working. Those few old pages were the only traces left of my childhood programming.

Put the book and code up on github if anyone is interested: https://github.com/markstewart/ProgrammingIsFun

I tried to do this with my TI 99/4A and an MP3 player years ago, with no success. I suspect the conversion to MP3 wrecked the signal in ways that my ear could not detect.

I remember a couple of years ago, I was on a bus and there's an old lady sitting next to me. We had a chat, then she said that she owned a "useless old computer called Apple 2." She really wanted to get rid of it in exchange of small amount of money.

I said, "Cool, let me see what I can do, here's my email."

I was an idiot, really. I forgot that she might not know how to use email, and I didn't ask her contact.

In my Steve Jobs memorial (http://www.ericjgruber.com/blog/2011/10/thank-you-steve-jobs...), I opined about the Apple IIe and one of my favorite games growing up, Montezuma's Revenge. And sure enough, it's there.

Seeing this made me wish I could play it again. Excellent job.

http://porkrind.org/a2/?disk=montezuma_etc

http://www.virtualapple.org/montezumasrevengedisk.html

Well I know what I'm doing today. Thanks!

Wow, I just used my iPhone to stream a game over AirPlay to an Airport Express jacked into my //e. Incredible.

Before this I had to download programs through Chris Yerga's ftdi/gameport/twitter client setup. http://atomsandelectrons.com/blog/2010/04/apple-t/

Where is the hell is Oregon trail? I could have sworn that was Apple 2 maybe it was 2e.

I think it was Apple 2 as well. This was the first thing I looked for.

Sorry guys. The Apple Game Server can only stream single binary RAM-only games. Disk-based games can be streamed to disk at http://asciiexpress.net/diskserver. I added Oregon Trail.

Using the speaker of iPad/iPhone to emulate the Apple ][ cassette tape is brilliant.

So I am basically clueless on how to transfer bits via audio without data loss (doesn't noise corrupt the bits?)

Does anyone have any links or resources on how to do a 'hello world' of audio-based data transfer?

Yes, noise corrupts the bits.

"the most common cause of error is external sounds being piped into the download stream (e.g. mail alerts) and low volume" -- http://asciiexpress.net/gameserver/readme.html

There are many ways to transfer info via audio (e.g. google for modem or frequency-shift keying). The Apple Game (and Disk) Server does not use FSK however. It relies on the Apple II cassette port which is nothing more than a 1-bit digital-analog-converter. IOW, it can detect the shift from positive to negative (zero crossing). The game server WAV files encode the game @ 48K samples/second using a single 12kHz wave for the zeros and a single 8kHz wave for the ones. IOW, 4 pulses for 12kHz (2 +, 2-) and 6 pulses for the 8kHz. The Apple II has a 1023000 cycles/second clock. So I have to detect the zero crossing, chksum and write the data in 1023000/12000 ~= 85 clock cycles. As long as the audio stream is clean and perfect (something only a computer or CD player can do), then it works every time.

If you load up any of the games in Audacity (freeware waveform editor), you can actually "see" the 0's and 1's. The 0's will be thinner.

Lastly, I will be publishing an article on my blog (http://jerkwerks.com) this month with how it works and all the source code.

Back in the old days, my young friend, we had these awesome devices called modems. They translated digital data to sounds (and back) for transmission across telephone lines. I'm sure you can find a picture and complete technical details somewhere.

facepalm I sure left myself wide open to that one. fwiw your comment led me to find minimodem is exactly what I was looking for!

http://www.whence.com/minimodem/

As to the noise and data corruption:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Error_Control_Coding#Data_stora...

We think of bit's as vary precise things, but at the hardware level they are better described as ranges of values. So you could use a say X +/- 30% = 0 and Y +/- 30% = 1. Thus, if X = 100 and Y = 200, then 128 or 78 both stand for 0 and a computer would litterally not care if you sent it 98 or 115 etc.

You can also add a little redundancy in longer messages so you can tell if it's corrupted or if only a few bit's are flipped you may be able to recover. Also, devices can downgrade their bandwidth to handle some noise. Think of it like someone saying Tango when they mean T, if you hear T or ango you know they both stand for T.

You may want to check out this video. http://hackaday.com/2011/07/10/sound-card-microcontrollerpc-...

OMG, I'd almost cry of joy. One of the reason I don't use my faithful Apple //c is that it's so cumbersome to swap these floppies... but this is wonderful.

Apple removed the cassette port in the Apple //c.

If only they had known then what we know now...

Wow, my dad bought an Apple //c when I was around 4 y.o. and it was kept at home until I was ~8, but I couldn't remember seeing a cassette port. At least I'm at peace now.

Gah, you're right. Unfortunately alternative storage adapters are really hard to find (do they only exist?) for the //c.

You've upgraded my weekend - big time. Nice work!

Wow that is damn awesome.

Although, no Ultima / Ultima II in the game list :(

That was the first game I played on the Apple...

(The Bards Tale would be another great one...)

The cassette loading method is going to limit this to games that fit entirely in RAM and never access their disk once loaded. That's going to rule out a lot of games. Obviously anything that needs more than one floppy, but even a lot of games that do fit on one side are still going to want to access the disk they came on.

Nevertheless, awesome!

Would it not be possible to load a disk-writer program into ram, which prompts you to insert a blank disk, and then proceeds to buffer and write subsequent audio data onto the disk, such as a disk image?

Yes. Visit http://asciiexpress.net/diskserver. That is exactly what it does. It's in beta now. I plan to have 1000s of disk images soon.

This is 100% awesome :) Now I wish I had an apple 2 around to try it.

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