Re: Early sierra games for the apple 2 and SDK images

[mjmahon@aol.com (Michael J. Mahon)]

Alistair Ross wrote:

>I understand that SDK are 
>Shrink-IT disk images. How is it possible to unshrink these images and 
>transfer them to an apple to if you:
>
>A) Do not own nor wish to use a copy of Microsoft Windows.
>B) Have no clue about shrinkit in any capacity (i've tried reading a 
>number of websites).

ShrinkIt is the "standard" compressing archiver on the Apple II
platform.  It is an Apple II program, and is available in many forms.

For your setup, it sounds like the best format would be a .dsk
image containing ShrinkIt (and perhaps a few other utilities).
This will allow you to move disk images to your Apple using
ADT which contain .SHK (usually file archives) or .SDK (usually
disk archives) files which can be "un-shrunk" on the Apple II
and, in the case of .SDK archives, converted to real disks.

Check Rubywand's FAQ pages for references to .dsk images
with ShrinkIt.

There is a basic reference library and utility set which you
will find indispensable in experimenting with an Apple II.
The Reference Manual (widely available on eBay and elsewhere
for less than $10) and the Applesoft Manual (ditto) are two
"must have" books.  ShrinkIt and a good copy program are
two programs you should not be without.  Copy II Plus is good,
and handles DOS and ProDOS pretty well.  The ProSel 8
suite of tools is excellent, though it does not support DOS.
These tools are readily available.

If you do much Applesoft programming, you will appreciate
Program Writer, also widely available.

I find it very easy and convenient to use an Applesoft program
to do the "user interface" part of my programs and assembly
language to do timing-sensitive portions.  For me, this allows
most of my time to be spent on the parts of the program that
I find most interesting, and eliminates a lot of repetitive work.

-michael

New Applesoft BASIC interface for NadaNet networking!
Home page:  http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/