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186 lines
6.3 KiB
HTML
186 lines
6.3 KiB
HTML
<html>
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<head><title>Applesoft Portal FAQ</title></head>
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<body>
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<h1>Applesoft Portal FAQ</h1>
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This project turned out way more popular than I expected. Usually
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I make a silly video, forward it to a few friends, and maybe send
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it to hackaday (or adafruit if it involved a raspberry pi).
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Rarely do I get more than a few thousand hits.
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<br><br>
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I'm too lazy to make an account on all the sites that covered this,
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so here's a bunch of responses to questions that came up.
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<ol>
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<li><b>Why was your announcement click-bait? This isn't a fully
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playable 3-hour long game!</b>
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<br><br>
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I was exagerating for humorous effect, as I really didn't think
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this would get quite so out of hand popular.
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The game definitely is
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playable, though I guess I should have called it more of a
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"demo" than a "port".
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<br><br>
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Also, it's not really traditional click-bait, as I'm not getting
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any ad revenue from this.
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<br><br>
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<li><b>Have you tried a BASIC compiler?</b>
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<br><br>
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The hackernews commentators seem to understand this best.
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<br><br>
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The challenge/fun of this project was trying to take something modern
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and reimplementing it in a medium that seems impossible (see
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the con-tiki project).
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<br><br>
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Using a BASIC compiler or using assembly language would definitely
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make the game run faster/better/allow more features, but at
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the same time then the project just becomes a standard Apple II
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2-D platform game (of which there were many, the pinnacle
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probably being Prince of Persia which is frankly amazing for
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the hardware it was on).
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<br><br>
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<li><b>Wow your IIe platinum looks amazing. Did you retrobrite it?</b>
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<br><br>
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No. I should post a picture, but shielded parts of the case are definitely
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much much whiter than exposed parts. It's just compared to the tan
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of non-platinum IIes it looks original.
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<br><br>
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<li><b>Was it cool being interviewed by theregister?</b><br><br>
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Yes, though mildly disappointed I didn't get referred to as a "boffin".
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I did find their "The cake is a IIe" tagline particularly inspired
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<br><br>
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<li><b>Is the Apple II's hires mode as bad as you make it sound?</b><br><br>
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Worse actually. BASIC typically hides most of the complexity from you.
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I was being difficult by trying
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to get colored output using the DRAW/XDRAW shapetable support which
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is a silly thing to even attempt. You'll note in the code I cheated
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a bit to accomplish this.<br><br>
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I won't admit how much time I wasted trying to get the colors right
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on my VMW logo on the title screen. If you'll look closely you'll
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see I had to compromise on at least one of the pixels.
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<br><br>
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<li><b>You said that it took a week to put this together?</b><br><br>
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Yes, though I had some pre-existing tools (for example the pcx to hgr
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converter, the shape table compiler, and the disk image writer)
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that sped up the process. Though they also slowed things down
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as I wasted time re-writing (and re-indenting) the code as it was
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old and much of it is coded really inefficiently.
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<br><br>
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<li><b>Do you really code your webpages by hand?</b><br><br>
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Yes. Using the nano editor. You don't even want to know
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how I check my e-mail.
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<br><br>
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<li><b>What's the workflow for how you made this?</b><br><br>
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I edit the text on a Linux box, using a text editor (nano).
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I use a custom BASIC tokenizer and a dos33 utility to put the files
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in a disk image (a Makefile handles all this). Then I run things
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under the Linapple emulator to test. Once it all works I transfer
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to a USB key which I hook up to the CFFA3000 disk emulator inside
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of my IIe. If I want to transfer to a floppy I use Copy II plus
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to the floppy drives in slot #5.
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<br><br>
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<li><b>This is your second Applesoft game conversion.
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Do you plan any others?</b>
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<br><br>
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No. That doesn't mean it won't happen though.
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Only certain kind of games map well to this kind of project,
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and it has to be a game I enjoy playing enough to get a good
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feel for the gameplay. A certain amount of procrastination
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is involved too.
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<br><br>
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<li><b>Why is the disk image called glados33.dsk?</b><br><br>
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It was an obscure joke due to the fact that the disk image
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is in Apple DOS 3.3 format.
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<br><br>
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<li><b>Did you like the Portal games?</b>
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<br><br>
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Yes. Though I might be alone in thinking this, but
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I really didn't like the Portal2 Wheatley character much, I found
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him really annoying.
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<br><br>
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<li><b>Why is there no cake? Was it a lie?</b>
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<br><br>
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It turns out to be really hard to draw a convincing cake,
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either in ASCII art or in pixel form. After wasting a long
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time perfecting the companion cube I decided not to bother.
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<br><br>
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<li><b>Why is the video so grainy in the "Still Alive" credits?</b>
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<br><br>
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The Apple II's "NTSC" output was a bit nonstandard at the
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best of times, even when in 40 column mode. The composite to VGA
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scan converter I am using can barely display this, and
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it doesn't really handle the higher-bandwidth 80 column mode
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well at all. Yes, I was too lazy to find a CRT for purposes
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of making this video.
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<br><br>
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<li><b>Why does the title screen imply it has been "cracked"?</b>
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<br><br>
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Growing up many of the Apple II games I played were from floppies
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of dubious provenance. To me it feels traditional for there
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to be some sort of cracked copy protection notice on
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the title screen.
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<br><br>
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<li><b>How do you make your videos?</b>
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<br><br>
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A cheap Canon camera and a tripod. I edit things together
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with kdenlive which crashes a lot but mostly works.
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The biggest issue I have is trying to record my desktop for
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the emulator scenes, as I can never get the Linux microphone
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support to work well.
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<br><br>
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<li><b>Where did you get your time machine?</b>
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<br><br>
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Well I traded this crazy looking guy some plutonium...
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<br><br>
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No, really, I just like blinky LED lights and it's the perfect
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project if you like that kind of thing. I was vaguely trying
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to get it all finished for the BTTF2/2015 anniversary and it was
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mostly working but I had grand plans to put it in my car for
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a while but that never happened.
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You can find out more
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<a href="http://www.deater.net/weave/vmwprod/hardware/time_circuit/">
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here</a>.<br><br>
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There are plans and mostly enough info to build your
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own copy if you want.
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A few people have tried, but I've never heard back
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on any successes.
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<br><br>
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<li><b>Has Valve sent you a cease-and-desist letter yet?</b><br><br>
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Not yet.
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<br><br>
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</body>
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</html>
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