| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
 Compute! Programs Issues 71-75 (Apr-Aug 86).zip | 100.97 KB |
| Compute! Programs Issues 76-80 (Sep 86-Jan 87).zip | 77.98 KB |
| Compute! Programs Issues 81-85 (Feb-Jun 87).zip | 158.49 KB |
| Compute! Programs Issues 86-90 (Jul-Nov 87).zip | 110.65 KB |
Hi all,
I recently discovered that the Internet Archive has a full collection of COMPUTE! Magazine, and since I have fond memories of typing in their programs when I was a kid, I was thinking it would be nice to type in the full collection of Apple II programs so that they're preserved for the future. There's a few disks on Asimov, but nowhere near everything. So I have a few questions:
1) Would anyone else be interested in helping with this project? I've already finished a large amount, but obviously any help would be most welcome.
2) Any other forums that might be interested? This seemed to be the most active Apple II board I could find, but I'd like to reach as many people as I can -- I hope other people also have fond memories of these old type-in programs.
3) Anyone know how I can get these disks added to the Asimov archive? It would be nice to have them there.
4) Anyone know if it's possible to find copies of Compute's Apple Applications? There are a few issues of Apple Applications (#3, #5, and #6) on the Asimov archive, and one on the Internet Archive (#6 again), but I couldn't find any more than that. Also, the first Compute! Apple book is easily findable; it seems to have things that already appeared in the magazines, but I don't know if the same is true for the other books, which aren't available online.
I've attached a ZIP file with the first set of disks, which covers issues 71-75 (April-August 1986), including:
Games: Tug-a-War; Hickory, Dickory, Dock; Miami Ice; Hex War; Tightrope
Utilities: Mousify, Disk Duper, Hi-Res Graphics Aid, List Enhancer, Better Branching, ESCape Upgrade, Automatic Typist, ProDOS Speedscript File Converter, ProDOS Catalog Sorter, Guardian Angel, ProDOS Protector, DCONVERT and DHGRSAVE.
Any feedback on these disks (or this whole project) is most appreciated!
comp.sys.apple2 reaches far and wide, and usenet has done a good job of being future-proof so far.
Anonymously FTP to ftp.apple.asimov.net, upload in binary to pub/apple_II/incoming.
Awesome idea - and the disk images look great too.
It sounds like a great idea.
Did you consider the following process:
1) Scan programs into PC.
2) Use OCR software to produce text files.
3) Cut and paste text files into Apple II emulator.
4) Test program in emulator.
5) Save to disk image.
Might save a huge bunch of time over typing them in.
The older I get, the worse my typing.. I am partial to the SCAN, OCR, Copy and Paste Idea, but I don't have all the Tools setup... Yet.....
Besides here, I frequent the Atari Age Classic Computer Forum, Vintage Computer Forum, and the Apple II Enthusiasts and the TRS-80 / Color Computer FaceBook Pages. Since Compute! was multi-platform, other venues besides those catering to the Apple ][ would be good places to Inquire for support... If you have some Contact Info, I could post on any of those places for you, until you setup your own account..
There might be something here:
http://www.electronicarchives.org/
or
http://www.atarimagazines.com/
or
http://www.vintage-computer.com/magazines.shtml
or
http://www.atariarchives.org/
I think this is a fantastic idea.. Other publications, ( e.g. http://www.nibblemagazine.com/nibble_disks.htm ), have people working on getting the Software on Easy to Run media.
MarkO
Thanks for all of the replies! A few responses:
* I was expecting a more complicated submission process to Asimov -- didn't realize it was so simple! That should be nice.
* As for scanning, the versions up on the Internet Archive do have OCRed text already, but it's pretty bad quality -- I think it's a combination of the fact that this is not the kind of text that OCR is generally expecting, and that the print in the original magazines was not always great quality either (I remember when I was originally typing these in as a kid, there was a lot of squinting to see if that character was a B or an 8 -- having the PDFs is a lot better because I can zoom in!). So maybe someone with a lot of expertise in OCR could get a reasonably-good scan out of it, but since I don't really have those kinds of skills, I'd probably spend more time correcting the mistakes in the OCR than it takes to just type it in from scratch. Plus, to be honest, I kind of enjoy the typing.
* Thanks for the offer, MarkO. I'll check out some of those other places, but if you'd like to post there, I'll PM you my email address. I'm limiting myself to the Apple II programs, although if someone else was interested in taking up the other platforms that would certainly also be welcome. I checked those other locations and, unfortunately, no dice for the Apple Applications.
I've currently finished typing in the programs from issues 71-94, and am working on 95 (which was the last issue with type-in programs) -- I'm just working on finishing the documentation, menu programs, etc. and then I'll post those as well.
Hi all,
Here's the second disk set, covering issues 76-80. The contents:
Games: Beehive, Prisonball, Laser Strike, Chain Reaction
Utilities: Jacket Lister, PowerKey, Turbodisk, EDIT, Apple Math Graphics, Printer Master, DOS Wildcards
If these look good, I'll start uploading to Asimov.
(Note: I've also revised the README to put a short table of contents at the top, so you don't have to read the whole thing just to see what's on the disks. I also made this change for the first set.)
Thanks for the feedback!
The third disk set is up, covering Issues 81-85. There was so much on here I couldn't fit it into just two disks! Here's the listing:
Games: Wari, Euchre, Rememory, Laser Chess
Utilities: SpeedScript 80, Quick ProDOS Catalog, Applecoder, Diskcheck, Menu Planner, Apple's Built-In Music Program, Magazine Indexer, ShapeMaker for Apple II, Solving Alphanumeric Puzzles, Hi-Res Text, Catalog Saver, Printing Special Characters, Full-Screen Editor, Font Loader for ImageWriter
Laser Chess and SpeedScript are two of Compute!'s most famous programs. Laser Chess runs great, but the keyboard response in SpeedScript is pretty sluggish -- if you're even a reasonably fast typist, it will start dropping keystrokes. It seems like whatever it uses for keyboard input routines doesn't play very well with emulation, unfortunately.
Also, anyone have any suggestions for somewhere that might be willing to host a central page for this project? I could put a page up on my own space, of course, but it might be nice to have a more visible location.
Comments and questions welcome!
To the others asking about OCR and using that to speed up typing in programs. I've tried it, and it doesn't work very well. The reason is because modern OCR programs try to "guess" what the text is and usually the line numbers get put in individual "text boxes" and the lines get put into individual "text boxes" and many times they insert several spaces between characters. The amount of cleanup that goes into fixing that usually takes almost as long as typing the program in by hand in the first place. (and the reason that cleaning up spaces between characters matters is that often that will make the line longer than the 239 character input limit on the Apple //, which means that long lines could get cut off).
So, not really worth it at present.
I just uploaded a bunch of official Compute disks to Asimov and they've been sorted to their proper folders already. They mainly cover the second half of 1986 to the end of type-in programs in April 1988.
Once you're done with issues 71 to 95, are you going to go backwards and do issues prior to 71, AquaHelix? There's lots of good stuff in those issues as well.
Ooh, thanks! I'll definitely have to check them out.
I started with that range because that's approximately where my subscription was when I was growing up, but yeah, I'm planning on working backwards eventually. Although they introduced MLX and the Automatic Proofreader in issues 61 and 62 respectively, so before that, it will probably get trickier.
I've finally finished issue 86-90 (July-November 1987). Here's the contents:
Games: Climber 5, Monte Carlo, Marbles, The Hermit
Utilities: Weather Wizard, Disk Expander, Print Shop Converter, Auto-Display Hi-Res Pictures, Compress and Decompress, Chaining Programs, Audio Recorder, Applesoft Line Lister, Chrome, Double-Duty DOS, Chrome II
Enjoy!
Wow this is great! I'm very interested in finding the rest of these type-in programs. This effort from AquaHelix is really appreciated, some of these games on these disks are ones I haven't seen in years! Laser Chess and Rememory were especially satisfying to play again.
The disk IMG on Asimov called "Typed-In Games from COMPUTE! (2006)" was compiled by me ten years ago. I remember awaiting the next issues of Compute! back then for whatever new game was within the covers.
I was also lucky to have a subscription to Compute!'s Apple Applications... in the waning days of the magazine (I think it was cut back to quarterly publication). I don't think that magazine enjoyed much of a circulation, as I remember even reading within the covers that the subscribing list was low. Needless to say they all were thrown out eventually. I've been interested in reacquiring these magazines and have been looking high and low for years now.
Some of the games on the aforementioned disk IMG were from xeroxed pages of the magazines I owned as a lad. I guess I was that obsessed with them, and went down to the copy shop and made sure I had paper copies of all the games I liked. Fortunately that folder survived and that's where a few of the games on the IMG came from (Basketball Sam & Ed and Air Rescue were among them). But I didn't have copies of all of them for whatever reason.
Two missing/lost games I remember in particular were Mosquito Madness and Rat Race. I'm fairly certain they were from Compute's Apple Applications but not 100% sure. I can't find a single trace of them on the internet now. If anyone has information on either of these two games I'm very interested!
Anyway, I hope this project still has some momentum left in it. Any more development or information I'm keenly interested in.
-CaptainBreakout
I remember one called, "Snail Race". But I can't remember where it came from.
Snail Race? That sounds vaguely familiar. Sure it wan't "S@ails in Space" by Beagle Brothers?
Beagle Brothers gave away typed games in a magazine?
I did not know that.
The snails looked like the @ character.
They started on the left side of the screen and finished on the right side.
They did move pretty slowly.
There were maybe 10 snails racing like this.
I don't remember much more about the game itself.
But I wanted to improve it by adding the ability to place bets on the snails and using the RND command to let the computer decide who wins the race.
But my programming skills were and still are non-existent.
I dug through my folder of xeroxed Compute! articles (which is funny since I'm actually really bad at keeping paperwork of most real life, but for some reason have this stuff). I think I remember the Snail Race game you are talking about, but I don't think I ever typed it in. I think it was one of the articles that I was pondering if I should scan at the public library or not. I'd like to track it down and will put it on my radar!
Anyway, the folder turned up nothing on Snail Race. But I did find...
Sn@ils in Space!
(click)
Also I found a few more games from Compute that I don't have any active memories of... namely, Things in the Dark (December 1984), Paratrooper (January 1985), and Spiders (November 1984).
Two missing/lost games I remember in particular were Mosquito Madness and Rat Race. I'm fairly certain they were from Compute's Apple Applications but not 100% sure. I can't find a single trace of them on the internet now. If anyone has information on either of these two games I'm very interested!
I have that issue of compute and a couple others that Aqua Helix has not listed yet.
Here are a couple of other websites that started listing issues of compute. The second link has a few 1985 issues.
http://www.bombjack.org/commodore/magazines/compute-apple/compute-apple.htm
http://www.electronicarchives.org/periodicals/compute/
@AquaHelix
Have you considered contacting Jason Scott at the Internet Archive? He is in charge of their software archives. He might be interested in putting the files in their collection.
jscott@archive.org
Of course put them in Asimov as well that seems to be the go to place for Apple II people looking for the warez
. I might try my hand at typing a few. Do you have something that keeps track of who is doing what? I don't want to duplicate any work.
The only magazine I remember having back in the day was A+.
I don't remember if that magazine ever had any type in programs.
A+ was cool, I remember that one but don't think it has type-ins either. Nibble and Compute did. Nibble had "One-Liners" at the end of the magazine which were really neat. I have a whole xeroxed collection of those if anyone is interested.
Thank you Robo Robby for that lead. Looks like Vulcan Mines is amongst the lost Compute games that I haven't seen on any disk images floating around. One of the magazines in the link you provided has the entry in its entirety so hopefully someone or me can type it in.
As far as who's-doing-what with this project, there's not exactly anyone other than the active folks in this forum on this thread that I know of. Anyway if you want to type-in and post a game that's previously unaccounted for, just announce it here and post it I suppose. So far, everything that I did was on that 2006 disk on Asimov. Everything else was done by Aqua Helix who did a much more thorough job than I did for the magazines that he covered. I'm mostly interested in the games.
Soon I will be posting an updated disk IMG (volume 2) once I finish the menu on it. Mostly this is a result of his (Aqua Helix's) work and will contain a lot of games from the issues he covered. The disk volume I'm working on is actually crammed full with Compute games so there's no bytes left, so I just have to update the menu and then I'll upload it and share it.
There's still a lot of missing games... so hopefully that means a volume 3 could get made with some of these rediscovered games.
Here's a few that I know of that remain untyped-in as far as I know...
Rat Race
Mosquito Madness
Things in the Dark
Spiders
Paratrooper
Vulcan Mines
Cosmic Caverns (not sure if that is the right name... this was from an pre-1986 Compute apple book before MLX)
... more?
Incider and IIcomputing magazines both have some very good type-in programs as well.
Such games as chess in applesoft, backgammon, Ecto blasters (ghostbusters), modem battleship
Utilities - font editor, create polygons and spirals, Mac-style windows, keep track of Haleys comet
The best way I found to enter in these programs is to take multiple pictures of the program page with a digital camera, then transfer the pictures to your computer. Open the pictures with a graphics program, and type into your word processor of choice.
This way sure saves lots of eye strain and if you line up the top of the Word Processor window just under each line, you don't lose your spot when looking at your keyboard, then screen, then magazine.
Thank you Robo Robby for all this info. Yeah... I forgot about InCider. I got a subscription to it right at the end of their run (I think they merged with Nibble... or was it A+?). Anyway I do remember typing in Twilight Treasures which I had a lot of fun with. Turned out to be written by John Romero as an interesting notable.
I was too late for any other type-ins from them. I'll have to check out the folder on Asimov. Maybe there's some lost games there too.
I recently completed Volume two of my own little format on a dsk image and uploaded it to the INCOMING folder on the Asimov FTP.
Hopefully when and if it gets sorted into the Magazines folder I'll post a link here.
Anyone typing in games, please PM me... there almost certainly enough still undiscovered to make a Volume 3!
I know a few years have gone by, but anyone who might be interested in Compute Apple type-in games should know I'm working on this project over at AtariAge. In the classic computer/apple II forums there's a topic about it. If anyone still has Compute Apple Applications magazines, I'd like to hear from you. We're at the stage of gathering instructions and collecting up the few remaining type-ins. Several lost games have been found!