Collaborator(s) wanted...

[foegelle@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Michael Foegelle)]

Hi all!  It's been a while since I've been on here, and unfortunately I
don't have time to read all of the messages these days.  (Thus please
E-mail all responses as I will not read them here..)

Here's the scoop!  I have three or four incomplete projects that I started
on for the Apple II with every intention of finishing them and releasing 
them as either Shareware or Freeware.  Well, time has passed, I've FINALLY
graduated from college, and I just don't have the time or inclination to
finish them.  Although I still have a place in my heart for the Apple, I'm
down to my last operational //e (from about 3--bad power supplies all)
which runs my BBS (Wunderland, see the sig) and my gs.  And frankly, I've
kind of moved on to greener pastures, realizing that to do my job I have
to use state of the art PC's...

At any rate, I'm looking for one or more interested and experience 
programmers interested in completing what I started and sharing the
credit (and possibly any meager profits that might be gleaned) with
me for bringing a few more apps to the Apple II.

Here's a run-down of what I've got:

2.  Scanner:  A //e based binary file editing utility.  (Currently called
scanner because it doesn't do much editing!)  Using a semi-windowed 
interface similar to that found on Shrinkit, this app was intended as
an invaluable programmer/hacker tool.  Hex or text search and replace
modes with high bit set/clear/ignore options would allow the user to
find and edit program or data files easier than using a disk utility
like Copy ][+ or Disk Warden.  As it stands right now, the search 
is incredibly handy and I've used it for a number of things (although
I had to use something else to edit the data once I found it).  I may
go ahead and upload the executable (system file) at some point here
if there's interest (and the understanding that there is absolutely
not support; what you get is what you get...

2. A set of Applesoft ampersand add ins for doing drawings and sprite
animation on the double-hires screen.  Those of you with the registered
version of Columns //e have what I've created of this app.  I used it
to develop an Applesoft based gem editor as a bonus on the back side of
the game disk.  It still needs considerable work to add all of the 
routines I think it needs, but currently it should draw lines, select 
colors, etc.  And of course it will load and display the Columns gem
bitmaps!  <grin>  The intention was to develop a sizeable bitmap 
handler and maybe even a mask handler allowing users to make complex
sprite based games and educational programs from Applesoft.

3.  Look at the sig!  1.5 GIGS on a //e!  Now how the heck did I do
THAT?  Simple, actually...  The boot-time loadable patch does use the
space normally used by the 5.25" disk drive controller in ProDOS, but
what the heck?  With that much storage space your need for a floppy is
typically non-existent.  And, with a control-apple-reset you can reboot,
press a key, and prevent the driver from loading.  (This gives you back
your floppies, but you lose access to the expanded drive space.)  How
it works:  Each hard drive (other than typically your boot drive, but
that can be handled...) is NOT partitioned by the SCSI controller (I
use RamFAST, don't know if the Apple card can handle it..).  Instead, 
it is treated as a smart drive device and the driver soft-partitions
each 32 Meg partition, allowing you to have as many software switchable
partitions per drive as it will hold.  Here's where the rub comes in.
With seven slots and the current ProDOS design, you can only have 14 
drives online at any given time (without more serious modification 
to ProDOS than I've done, but that would make some utilities not work
right.)  Currently my system has a simple system program that lets
you change the online drives sort of "on the fly", but if a drive you
need is not available from within your application, you have to exit,
switch drives, and restart.  (By drive, I actually mean partition. Mine
are labelled /Hard1 through /Hard42 or so...)  Since I use this setup
for the file system of the BBS software which I wrote (see the next 
item) I don't have any problems.  The BBS knows which volume it needs
and if the partition isn't online, it switches to it before attempting
to access it.  What I envision for solving 95% of the difficulty a
normal user would have with this system is to hook into the ProDOS
error stream and intercept Path Not Found errors.  If one is encountered,
the driver would search the offline drives for the appropriate volume
and put it online, replacing the last unused drive.  Flags would be
required to keep from removing partitions with open files from the
drive list...  Once the required volume is online, the driver 
repeats the failed call.

4.  WBBS--Wunderland BBS.  I have a collection of Applesoft programs 
(online games, message base, file system, main BBS, etc) and binary 
drivers (including Xmodem, Ymodem, chat mode, message editor, modem
control, etc.)  If anyone's interested in fooling with it.  I think 
it's a pretty great BBS, having ideas I've collected from elsewhere, 
and of course it's one of a kind.  If nothing else, some of the online
games would be a great addition to any of the remaining Apple II BBS's
out there, although they'd require considerable modification to run 
on another platform.  (I did start conversion of one game to ProLine?, 
but never got far into testing it..)  And the drivers can be useful 
for some things too.

5.  Columns...  This is something I'm not going to just give away, but
if someone's interested in working out a deal to develop an updated 
version I might be interested.  Currently I have both the //e and the
][+ versions, and I started work on the GS version but never got far.
(Besides, the GS has two versions, although not quite the same.)  No
matter what occurs with Columns, I will retain the copyright on my 
game design, gem sets, etc. since I've developed a VGA version for 
the IBM and am about halfway through the Windows based version.  (If
you're interested in any of the versions, they sell for $20 each, or
you can have a demo disk mailed to you for $5.  Most of you here 
should just check an online location or two for the demo.  E-mail me
if you're interested.  BTW, Columns ][+ is only $15...)

Ok, I think that about covers all of the major things that I have 
for the Apple ][.  Please contact me by E-mail with any comments or
questions.  (And if this starts a rage of messages here, someone
let me know, ok?)  Hi to Joe Kohn and all the other numerous people
that I've corresponded with over the years here.  Sorry there are too
many to list and too few of them actually come to mind right now.  =)
Thanks for wading through this post!

Michael Foegelle


-- 
 Michael Foegelle  | Call Wunderland BBS! |   foegelle@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu
  University of    | (512) 335-6753  8n1  |   foegelle@utaphy.ph.utexas.edu
 Texas at Austin   | 14.4kbaud, v.32/bis  |   foegelle@emctest.com
Physics Department | *** Over 1.5 gigabytes on an accelerated Apple //e! ***