Series of unidentified Apple II disks

CaptainBreakout · March 14, 2018

From the depths of my memory, I'd like to present this community with one of these "help me identify such-and-such" situations.

So, about 1986 or so, my father subscribed to the "I'll copy yours, you copy mine" approach to amassing an Apple II library.

Pop and his young son (yours truly) became experts at all the crazy intricacies of Central Point Software's Copy II plus.

Anyway, somewhere early along the line we ended with a large collection of disks that must have been from an Apple II users club. Each disk was a volume that contained programs related to some theme... Board games, card games, and I remember one of them was a disk that contained DNA related utilities of all things. There were quite a few of them... About thirty 5 1/4" floppies, two sided I think.

I'm trying to identify which series or usergroup was associated with these floppy collections. I can give some specific memories...

As the disk loaded, it displayed the words "Loading Files ... Please Wait"

This text was in graphical hires mode, although it looked like standard centered text. Each disk did this while loading. And did a "........" Fill-bar as it read the files into a graphical menu system. It took a minute or so to boot.

We used to refer to these disks as the "Loading files, please Wait" disks.

Anyway, the menu system would show up and list all the runable files (usually games, but they were public domain or homemade hobby programs, rather than releases from cracking groups).

I remember "Raiders of the Lost Ring" from Caviler Computer was on one of these disks. I don't know if it was legitimatly included or not.

Also the icon to select your program was a hand icon. The menu system was kind of sophisticated for Apple II standards. The disk file index was put into it, and it displayed in hires. Runable files were displayed with a check mark next to them. Support files (like .bin and .obj) were also displayed but had no check mark and couldn't be run.

Each disk also had an animated title graphic that could be run. The graphic was always a screenshot of one of the programs on that disk, plus the name of that disk volume drawn on to the graphic. The graphic would animated onto the screen with some effect that varied disk to disk. (I remember hacking their graphic display methods when I was like 10 years old and making slide shoes).

So... Does this ring any bells?

I think I have ONE of these disk left ,(it was left in one of our computer floppy drives that ended up in the possession of my aunt, where it stayed for several decades). If no one here can identify these disks by my description I can see if anyone wants to try to image this disk.

centuri · March 22, 2018

I am not familiar with your description, but I can certainly image it for you if want.

CaptainBreakout · March 24, 2018

Thank

I am not familiar with your description, but I can certainly image it for you if want.

Thanks! I'll certainly keep that in mind. I believe I have the one remaining disk from the set I talked about... I'll set up the IIc and see if it still boots next time I have a free evening... And if it is what it is, I'll keep you in mind.