Re: Apple II gaming today: an anecdote

["magnusfalkirk" <dean.phares@gmail.com>]

On Feb 22, 9:18 pm, "N.N. Thayer" <nntha...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> In 2001, I had just finished college and was sharing a house with five
> others, a mix of friends and acquaintances. Then, the guy that owned
> the Nintendo 64 moved out, and we had zilch left for gaming - except
> the Apple II Plus I had stowed away in my room.  My roomies were
> desperate, so they were all "Get that thing down here!"
>
> Perhaps it was because everyone was tired of adrenaline-pumping action
> games, but the very first game requested was... chess. I was
> surprised.  "Well, I think I have Sargon III here somewhere."  "Is
> that - "  "Chess, yeah."  They proceeded to take turns playing against
> the computer, for hours.  I got a little anxious about how hot the
> motherboard might have been getting, since I had no System Saver at
> the time.
>
> Eventually they went to other games such as Archon, Paipec,
> Ballblazer, Carmen Sandiego, Mario Bros., Pieman, and Flip Out.  Flip
> Out was especially well liked for its vindictiveness - after you ran
> out of balls, you could screw with your opponent's as you saw fit.
> Paipec became an obsession for one of them due to its aggravating
> simplicity.
>
> A couple of them commented on how they'd never seen games like these
> before, and such was the demand that they requested instruction on
> basic system operation so I wouldn't have to always be around.  For a
> period of three months, the heart of the summer, this then-22-year-old
> computer was the heart of the living room.  While others would drink
> and watch movies or go out, we'd drink and run electrons through
> ancient circuitry.  It occurred to me more than once that we may have
> been the only house in the country, perhaps the world, with residents
> of that particular age group doing this.
>
> Then one of my roommates decided to introduce a little competition.
> She brought back a Commodore VIC-20 that had been stored in her
> parents' closet.  It didn't get nearly as much play as the II Plus,
> due to the much smaller game library that had accompanied it.  Still,
> they were both a veritable phenomenon: a college living room, in 2001,
> with not one but TWO vintage computer systems providing the primary
> electronic entertainment for the residents.  If we were a rarity
> before, we were now a statistical impossibility.  The VIC-20's tour of
> duty lasted for a couple of months, the II Plus's for over half a
> year.  I've never been so proud of my heritage.
>
> Fast-forward to today.  The guy that was nuts about Paipec was in my
> fact my best friend, and has since that time expressed his fondness
> for that game and others on multiple occasions.  "Do I need to get an
> Apple II?" he said once, and we laughed.  The answer, as everyone at
> csa2 knows, is yes.  Via FedEx today I shipped him a platinum //e,
> DuoDisk, joystick, a fine set of games, and a page of operational
> tips.  It will arrive two days in advance of his birthday.

Greetings,

Here's another anecdote about Apple II gaming. Aug of last year I
bought an enhanced Apple IIe, with 2 5.25 drives (the newer ones that
can be daisy chained) a color monitor and an ImageWriter II printer,
along with some software. It took a while but with help from people on
this forum I figured out how to transfer disk images from my Mac back
to the Apple II so I can truly experience Apple II games the way they
were meant to be played.

About four weeks ago I was telling my boss about the IIe, since he
knew I had it after helping me load it in the car after I bought it. I
mentioned transferring games back to 5.25 disks to run the games on
the computer and he happened to ask if I could pick up an Apple IIe
for him. He remembered playing a game called Ulysses and wanted to
play it again. This surprised me, since he hadn't expressed any
interest in it when I got mine, but I said sure. I got on Ebay and
managed to find a pair of Apple IIc's being auctioned, along with two
monitors and one power supply. I turned out to be the only person
interested in the auction and got the pair for $10 plus shipping. I
also got another power supply for my IIc. Now I'm just waiting for the
computers to get here and I'll bring the IIc into work for the boss
along with whatever other games he wants.

Apple II Forver,
Dean