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Compute Type-In compilation dsk images


CaptainBreakout

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Yeah... just as an update, I was able to dig around in a save-state IMG file from ApplePC and view the basic file. Something is really buggy in there. I transferred the basic file to a DOS 3.3 disk image, but after looking at it it seems all the BIN support files are missing. This is quickly turning into a complicated situation.

 

If I can't find the source dsk from whereever this came from, it might be time to start over, if we can find a copy of that issue of Nibble.

 

I do have a bunch of .SHK archives of various issues of Nibble that contain all the programs, so if we're lucky we can find it in one of those if we can pin-point the issue it appeared in.

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december 86 apparently...it has a basic component that drew the hires car first, and then it died... I ended up assuming there was some kind of error in the listing, we tried it many times... individually and then together, 1 reading and the other typing. Net result was just what you described, so maybe your backup isn't corrupt, its just they way that it is.

 

A

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Vol 7 No12 just in case thats more important than the date. :)

I'll look for it tonight if I have time. I love mysteries like this.

 

It must have worked for me at one time, or I wouldn't have added it to my emulator menu. I have vague memories of a red dot moving on the rim of the steering wheel that was supposed to indicate your direction.

 

Anyway, thanks ill check for that issue.

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Guys,

 

Not sure if you know or not, but all of the nibble programs are available as a free download from the official nibble magazine website:

http://www.nibblemagazine.com/nibble_disks.htm

 

Hopefully that will save you the trouble of typing them in again. :-D

 

Cheers,

Mike

 

Wow... will here's the silver bullet for Nibble magazines. Thanks, and yes, this probably saved me a giant amount of time.

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Wow... these Nibble articles are intense.

 

So I pieced together a working copy of Formula Nibble... thanks to the archive from Nibble Magazine itself and the pointer from Polymorph.

 

Little did I realize most of the basic files are actually MAKE files... of sorts. (In the December 1986 directory of NIB29A.DSK... to save you some time if you want to join me in this rabbit hole). They generate the tracks, tables and graphics when you run them, and then save all those files on the disk. The main game program needs to have all these support files on the disk before it will run properly.

 

Neat!

 

Does anyone have this actual magazine in hard copy, or Mike Harvey's DVD set? It would be cool to add a title screen from the graphics in the magazine and make it a bootable DSK file, I think.

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... anyway, back to Compute!

 

Just got Vulcan Mines typed-in. Confusing as crazy. Game seems to work.

 

In these days where we spend more time to type-in (tech-support, install, bugfix, take yer pick) a game then actually play it, this is not a surprise that I didn't actually have a few minutes to figure it out.

 

I plan to make something that will let us launch the game, or edit levels. Plus have instructions. Working on it. Haven't typed in the level editor yet.

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You have more patience than me. I'd try to scan+OCR them, and then EXEC them to get the program loaded. :P

Hehe... Glad I can save you some heartbreak there. Tried that... Due to Compute's choice of typeface, all the OCR attempts had... Err... Issues. I mean, they'd work for 99% of the text in terms of accuracy, but that last 1% was enough to drive me crazy...

 

For example... The ('s would sometimes come in as C's, the 5's as S's and the worst was 8's would show up as 3's (usually in a POKE or DATA statements). Spaces and carriage returns all had to be manually fixed. : And ; would be randomly wrong. Also D's, O's and 0's would mix up six ways from Sunday. Wouldn't be so bad if only there was consistency, but well, no.

 

All is all, debugging the result was as time consuming as typing it in straight, but way more cerebral. I did do it this way a couple of times tho- with Caves of Ice and most of Spiders.

 

Hex entires with OCR? Forget it. Attempts at doing this with Canyon Runner almost killed me. My dance with sorting 8's 0's and D's could get me a heavy perscription. (Dramatic? Sure! Really frustrating? Also sure!)

 

Anyways, I got a much faster method I developed. If anyone wants to know my technique, just PM me. I'm almost out of Apple II type-in material that's still lost, but there's still some for other platforms.

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Well I s'pose at the end of the day, you could just bang it all into a text file rather than bang it straight into monitor, which was what we used to do. That way if you need to check your entries you've still got a copy of it. I still remember sitting there, poking back through the listing on the II+ comparing it to the magazine and trying to locate the differences.

 

A

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Hehe... Glad I can save you some heartbreak there. Tried that... Due to Compute's choice of typeface, all the OCR attempts had... Err... Issues. I mean, they'd work for 99% of the text in terms of accuracy, but that last 1% was enough to drive me crazy...

 

For example... The ('s would sometimes come in as C's, the 5's as S's and the worst was 8's would show up as 3's (usually in a POKE or DATA statements). Spaces and carriage returns all had to be manually fixed. : And ; would be randomly wrong. Also D's, O's and 0's would mix up six ways from Sunday. Wouldn't be so bad if only there was consistency, but well, no.

 

All is all, debugging the result was as time consuming as typing it in straight, but way more cerebral. I did do it this way a couple of times tho- with Caves of Ice and most of Spiders.

 

Hex entires with OCR? Forget it. Attempts at doing this with Canyon Runner almost killed me. My dance with sorting 8's 0's and D's could get me a heavy perscription. (Dramatic? Sure! Really frustrating? Also sure!)

 

Anyways, I got a much faster method I developed. If anyone wants to know my technique, just PM me. I'm almost out of Apple II type-in material that's still lost, but there's still some for other platforms.

 

My guess is you simply were not scanning them in at a high enough DPI, and also probably scanning in as a compressed JPEG file. You need to try AT LEAST 600 dpi, .PNG or TIFF uncompressed. Scan at 24-bit color, try that as is. Then manually convert down to Greyscale (8 bit). Further, it might help to then convert that Greyscale uncompressed image to 2-bit BEFORE doing any OCR attempt. Good luck!
And Thanks so very much for your efforts. You are indeed doing pivotal and truly important work in your preservations efforts. My hat's off to you, and please keep it up! You archivists are heroic in my mind.
Edited by zyzzle
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Here's another one then!

 

This was also on compilation Vol 1... but I remember it being one I had to hunt down, so it was pretty hard to find. (This was one I typed in back in the day, so it might be from an ADT image of my own disks, can't remember now.)

 

Anyway, here it is with a proper title screen, instructions and self-boot. Nice little gem from the time.

 

GalaxyDefender Boot

GalaxyDefender Title

 

Galaxy Defender.dsk

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  • 8 months later...
  • 1 month later...
On 9/14/2018 at 12:07 AM, CaptainBreakout said:

I've been doing my best to collect all the Apple ][ games published by Compute! Magazine in the 80's.

 

This includes the type-in games listed in the main Compute! periodical magazine, the books (Compute's 1st/2nd/3rd book of Apple, Best of Apple, etc), and the specific and obscure Compute's Apple Applications magazine.

 

I'm trying to compile all the game software titles onto DSK images. I've been doing this for awhile... the first one I completed in 2006. It's posted here.

 

Slight tangent: It's still a challenge to find some obscure Apple ][ game software. I find this odd and interesting in how history has played out. Other platforms like the C64 and ZX Spectrum have every nook and cranny dug out and brought to light (or seem too, from my perspective), and certainly most of the popular home consoles (2600, NES) have even the most obscure prototypes and WIP projects available and documented.

 

Anyway, the Apple ][ was bowled over a bit I think (there's some interesting theories over time as to why). At any rate, all the games here in this thread are published games, in print form, from Compute! I've had to go to somewhat great lengths to find and type-in these things over the years despite being published nationally once upon a time.

 

I've gathered enough material to compile 4 volumes, I could use this community's help tho... I have a bunch of PDF files that haven't been typed in and I could use some help there.

 

Do you know the rewarding feeling it is completing a type-in game from a vintage computer magazine? Please let me know. I has PDFs. First come, first serve. Go crazy.

 

 

Here's what's on the first disk.

 

Volume 1
--------
Climber 5
High Rise
Heat Seeker
Miami Ice
Balloon Crazy
Webster
Leaping Larry
Basketball Sam & Ed
Galacticon
Powerball
Galaxy Defender

 

Volume 2 to follow. Volume 3 in the works. Volume 4 needs most of the titles typed-in still, so yeah... wanna help?

Typed-In Games from COMPUTE! Vol 1 (2006).dsk 140 kB · 52 downloads

I really wish they could be configured for WASD or Arrow support

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22 hours ago, Blindseer42 said:

I really wish they could be configured for WASD or Arrow support

I was thinking about this. Making the menu use the arrow keys wouldn't be that hard, but configuring all the games themselves would be a pretty serious undertaking.

 

Each of those games uses a different control scheme, so one would be forced to use the whole keyboard at some point.

 

That's one of the reasons I've started to release these as single disk images instead of compilations... I've including on screen instructions at boot that explain the key configurations in the single images.

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  • 7 months later...

So after... what... a year and a half... I finally have another dsk image to release.

 

This one's kinda special. I did a lot of work on the menu... since this game didn't really have one (it originally asked you to enter settings in a series of questions).  It had good "bones", but I wanted to be able to play this game in an emulator cabinet alongside other games that featured "Mario" in the name.

 

-I know that's a tall order.  Still, I felt that all it really needed was a good settings menu. Since it was running nice ML code within an Applesoft Basic program, I just kinda made one.  I hope you like my treatment, and now the entire game, including settings, can be navigated with arrow keys, return, and the space bar.  So now you can use a gamepad or whatever mapped to keystrokes. YAY!

 

(Also there's an ESC feature suggested by IAMGROOT, which seemed appropriate).

 

Anyway, here's this.  Took forever to track down the game and thanks to all who helped, as I started this project in 2016.  Lots of real life got in the way too, but I intend to keep this thread alive whenever my time allows.

 

So... RAT RACE for the APPLE ][ !

 

RatRaceBootScreen.png.cf0a9d6d4bd91e77886686693cf1866a.png

RatRaceTitle.png.50a90b348a1b9120146aa08810d56dce.png

 

and here's the DSK image...

Rat Race.dsk

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  • 3 weeks later...

Great stuff! I used to spend many hours typing in games for both the Apple and Atari back in the day and even submitted an Atari game at one point. They replied graciously that they liked the game but thought no one would be up for typing the whole thing in.

I pretty much learned to program from Compute!'s listings.

Thanks for all of your efforts! The title screens are a nice addition!

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