Re: Asimov Uploads..

[Dick Sisco <dsisco@mchsi.com>]

On 01 May 2004 05:13:09 GMT, obsbedia2@aol.com (Obsbedia2) wrote:

><< I'm not sure the National Geographic titles were ever actually
>released.  If they were, they were only sent to member schools.  If
>not, 1995 was the last Apple II release with Wolly's Birthday,
>Quilting Bee, Get Well Woolly, Flip-Flop and Move Over, Mother Goose.
>
>Sure miss those days.
>
>--Dick Sisco
> >>
>Hi Dick,
>	Our district had a district license for MECC and I've laid my hands on
>everything they bought for the Apple II, Mac, and IBM, but there are now
>National Geographic programs for the Apple II.  What are they like and in whose
>bottom file drawer do they now reside?
>
>	Yep, we have the 1995 titles.
>
>JaY
>

Dinosaurs
Mammals
Plants
Golden Spike: Sacramento to Omaha and Omaha to Sacramento
Zoo Builder
Zoo Keeper (?)

Golden Spike simulated building the transcontinental railroad.
Simpler than Oregon trail and other MECC titles, but of the same ilk. 

Zoo Builder was a very simple Sim City knock off and I think Zoo
Keeper was similar.  

I don't remember a thing about the Dinosaurs, Mammals, and Plants
programs.

All were mostly BASIC with a few assembly routines.  As I recall, the
Zoo series ran assembly out of the language card--just the opposite of
the later MECC programs which ran BASIC in AUX and assembly in MAIN.
One was a compiled BASIC.  The Zoos were fast DOS (3.3) based.  The
others were ProDOS based I think.  

These were titles produced for The National Geographic Society, I
suspect, by three separate free lancers, and most were originally
published prior to 1990.  They were available commercially under the
National Geographic Society logo.

MECC purchased them, probably in 1997 and I removed the copy
protection (actually I had put the copy protection on the National
Geographic Disks when I worked for a disk duplicator, so it wasn't a
really hard job), removed the reference to National Geographic, and
tried to get them to work with the Network Utility and on a 3.5" disk.
(I don't think I ever got the Zoo programs to network).  

They were supposed to be released to member schools in 1997, but I
don't know if they ever were.  If they were, I don't know how many
schools actually got them.  This may have been a very limited release.

I'm sure the modified masters are long gone.  But there should be
copies of the National Geographic versions floating around.  I think
Golden Spike and the Zoo programs were fairly popular.

The actual _last_ release of MECC Apple II software may have been for
the Tiger Learning Computer.  Sometime after the end of Apple II
development MECC licensed 5 old titles (including Oregon Trail) to
Tiger Learning who were producing a super inexpensive diskless 6502
Apple II Clone.  These titles went into ROM or onto cartridges.  I do
recall the machine being sold for about $75 in discount stores.  Has
anyone ever seen one?

--Dick Sisco