Re: Is it too hard to program for the Apple?

[Tony Cianfaglione <ab616@chebucto.ns.ca>]

On Mon, 22 Feb 2010, Simon D. Williams wrote:

> The few projects I've completed have been primarily Applesoft spaghetti with 
> a smidgen of assembly thrown in... the fact that I've actually completed a 
> few is, to my mind, testament to how easy the Apple II is to program -- 
> there's no way I'd ever be able to write a working program on a modern 
> platform.

   When I started out programming games, I used strictly BASIC and plotted 
my games (all text adventures - my favourites) on a large board, setting 
out the rooms, directions, objects found in each location and would assign 
a subroutine for each room (using GOSUB) and simple input (IN#) to make 
selections: N, E, W, S, LOOK, EXAMINE, GET, DROP etc.  Once I had a basic 
pattern set up, then I could modulize and simply change the data but use 
the same mapping strategy, just changing around some of the paths to make 
each game unique.

   I must have written over 100 games in this manner and distributed them 
to a number of friends over the years.  I never charged for any of the 
games, it was just the fun of seeing who could solve it the quickest. 
Each room had a really toughie poser to find so it wasn't just a quick 
walkthrough.  There were real mysteries in each game and to solve it 
probably about 10 hours of steady play to get to the end.

   My master disks were lost in a flood years ago and this was before 
internet access was available locally (pre-1994), so the games have all 
been lost as far as I know unless someone out there has copies.  I also 
made custom indicia screens with scrolling, sliding, phasing titles and 
credits on each disk.

Tony