I was wondering if you guys have ever seen or heard of this disk.
Many years ago I was given all the disks from two people I knew who were selling or have lost their Apple ii stuff.
One particular game was interesting in that the sound that came out of my iie was incredible.
It was an introduction to the game: EDIT: the corrected things it says are here:
Delta One Niner! Mayday! We are lost behind jupiter! Roger, this is Delta One Niner. We have you
on radar we are go on hyperspace!
The voice was perfectly clear and it had enough distinctiveness that you knew that it was not a synthesized voice but a recording of some kind of someone's real voice.
After the computer said this, there was a sound of a lead guitar before it ended.
Before the speech there was another sound (notes) not too impressive but it went along with the stuff that came afterwards.
Now remember, this is not an Apple ii midi card hooked up to a Roland MT-32 or anything of the sort.
This was not Ultima V.
And it was not a mockingboard card of ANY kind.
It came out of the speaker of my Apple iie directly.
Perhaps someone has heard of this game or could theorize as to what the programmers possibly did to give this extraordinary sound to a iie.
Let's talk about this because I think it's noteworthy. More evidence that the Apple II was more advanced than anyone thought.
The disk has been found:
It is called, "The Halley Project"
You can download it here:
http://www.virtualapple.org/halleyprojectdisk.html
Back when I was a teenager...
I bought this game from B. Dalton on my way home one evening from work. It was on sale, and I had some extra money after picking up my usual Apple magazines. I didn't boot it up right away -- I had things to do, and iirc I even had a date later that evening. I just recall that it was pretty late when I got home. It was well after midnight. My mother was already asleep and I should have turned in myself but the game was right there... waiting.
I plopped down in front of the Apple IIe and turned it on... while I waited for the game to start, I leaned back in my chair a little and glanced through the manual when THE LOUDEST, MOST STARTLING INTRO EVER *BLASTED* out of my stereo speakers (I had a Mockingboard, with the speaker output ran through it). I half jumped up and out of the chair, fell backward against my bed causing it to slide into the wall next to it. I knocked over my phone, a night stand with a lamp on it and managed to step on my cat in the process as he was trying to jet out of my room (he survived). My mother came flying out of her room with her pistol because she thought someone had broken into the house.
After all that... I found the game kinda boring.
Heh. I made a mix of that intro and the Alpha Syntauri demo record. This was prior to me getting out of Apple II things.
I wonder how much memory it took to put that quality sound out for that amount of time.
A cleaner crack is available from 4am:
http://mirrors.apple2.org.za/ftp.apple.asimov.net/images/games/simulation/The%20Halley%20Project%20(4am%20crack).dsk
http://mirrors.apple2.org.za/ftp.apple.asimov.net/images/games/simulation/The%20Halley%20Project%20(4am%20crack).txt
Edit: AF handles the parenthesis in the filenames badly; highlight a whole line at a time and paste it into your browser.
The Sirius Audex manual might have some info, as does this slide/presentation.
IIRC that Tom Snyder intro took somewhere between 26KB and 32KB.
http://www.kansasfest.org/wp-content/uploads/2007-mahon-sound.pdf
I ran that disk on Applewin and there was this screen that appears very fast. Too fast to read.
I had to use screen capture to find out what it said.
I will post it here:
ALERT
MINDSCAPE, INC.
3444 DUNDEE ROAD
NORTHBROOK, IL 60062
PLEASE WAIT-LOADING
sfahey:
That story (I hope you don't mind my saying) is totally hilarious!
WARNING: Applied Engineering will not be responsible
for shattered windows, cracks in plaster, or
government personnel mistakenly thinking an alien
attack is taking place in your neighborhood. Phasor is
equipped with volume controls. Please keep them at
the appropriate level. Thank you.
Hmmm. Maybe they weren't joking.
That's because you have enhanced disk speed on. Turn that off (to "authentic disk speed") and you'll be able to read it easily. I ran into the same problem. The inclusion of that initial screen is a testament to the fidelity of 4am's crack, too.
Is the actual game any good? Sounds intriguing. And did your cat forgive you?
It's been too long. His cat probably forgot it by now.
I have heard it... its quite impressive for vintage stuff. I am only adding this because I have been doing a lot of recording on an Apple IIe lately... 40 seconds of decent quality is apx 140 blocks (dos 3.3)... or around 35k. You can eeek out about 80 seconds within that range before quality starts to degrade heavily. If you use loops and tricks, its possible to get entire songs, hopefully I will have examples of this soon...
Replace the Left Parenthesis with %28 and the Right with %29...
MarkO