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For a while during the early days of the Internet, an AtariSoft release list floated around where the author compared it to his own collection, and he marked that he owned Pole Position for the Apple II.  That's one reason why that particular rumor has continued to persist.  But, no one could ever confirm it, and as Tempest mentioned, nothing, prototype or otherwise, has ever turned up elsewhere.

 

I also agree getting a racing game on the Apple II with any appreciable speed would be a Herculean feat.  But AtariSoft worked some magic with their other Apple II games, so it would have been fun at least to see their efforts.

On 10/11/2019 at 8:21 AM, Keatah said:

There've been a couple of first person racing games for the // series that were pretty good. I don't recall their names offhand. 

The original Test Drive is an obvious one: 

 

 

It wasn't what you'd call fast or smooth today, but it was probably more complex graphically than Pole Position was (a cockpit that actually worked, etc.), and at the time it was more than acceptable.

 

There were other first person games that were not necessarily driving games but that did the same types of things, and ran smoother than TD, like Skyfox:

 

 

So I don't see why Pole Position couldn't have been made for the Apple II. It may not have been the best version, but it would have been fine, especially for those who already owned Apple II's and understood the system's limitations. I don't see why anyone would think it just couldn't be done, or that it'd even be a bad game. Not many ports are arcade perfect, and an Apple II version of Pole Position almost certainly would have been as good as or better than the Vic-20, TI-99/4A or ZX Spectrum ports.

Till PP is posted, there's TechnoCarRacing, GrandPrix, FormulaOneRacer, PitStopII, Formula.Nibble and one more I can't recall offhand that are very PolePosition-like. Any of those games would be a worthy PP with minor changes and touch ups. The II series has enough resources to pull it off.

So, pardon my ignorance, but if a game like Skyfox can run somewhat smoothly on an Apple II, then why couldn't Pole Position run OK?  Is it because of the odd-ball graphics format?  I know the Apple II is only 1 MHz (with no custom hardware) but still...

 

 

Well, I actually did bother to read the thread but I guess I didn't put 2 and 2 together like you did.

 

I gathered that the general consensus was that it could never be good enough to be enjoyable which is why it was never done.

 

Thanks for pointing out my mistake.

 

27 minutes ago, zzip said:

I don't think Joust ever made it to the C-64 either

Are you sure?  I remember playing Joust as a kid and I know it wasn't on my TI.

I know I played it in arcades but I was almost positive I played it at home too.  Which would have been C64, Amiga 500, 2600 or Coleco. 

Then again, I am in my late 40's so who knows how bad my memory is.  lol

 

 

16 minutes ago, cbmeeks said:

Are you sure?  I remember playing Joust as a kid and I know it wasn't on my TI.

I know I played it in arcades but I was almost positive I played it at home too.  Which would have been C64, Amiga 500, 2600 or Coleco. 

Then again, I am in my late 40's so who knows how bad my memory is.  lol

 

 

I've found some homebrew/shareware versions of Joust, but not the offical release.   Maybe that's what you remember playing?

23 minutes ago, zzip said:

I've found some homebrew/shareware versions of Joust, but not the offical release.   Maybe that's what you remember playing?

 

One of those knock-offs was called Jouste with an "e".  Easy to mistake for an official port, which I'm sure was the idea.

 

Linky.

6 minutes ago, FujiSkunk said:

 

One of those knock-offs was called Jouste with an "e".  Easy to mistake for an official port, which I'm sure was the idea.

 

Linky.

Yes, that's the one!  Haven't played in awhile, but I thought it was a bit weak to be the official port it pretended to be

Edited by zzip
3 hours ago, cbmeeks said:

Well, I actually did bother to read the thread but I guess I didn't put 2 and 2 together like you did.

 

I gathered that the general consensus was that it could never be good enough to be enjoyable which is why it was never done.

 

Thanks for pointing out my mistake.

 

No big deal. Having the game enjoyable is a big factor of course. I found the "night driver" games more fun than the "pole position" like games because of the framerate. Some of the pp-like games crawl at 5 or 10 fps.

Joust for the C64 did exist, it was shown at a CES show.  The problem was that the programmers copied the 8-bit version's graphics almost 100% without permission.  I don't know what happened to it, but there are pictures of it.

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