Longtime Slashdot reader garote writes: The year is 1991. You are his teenage computer geek.
I upgraded to my first “16-bit” computer, an Apple IIgs. To relieve the overwhelming boredom of high school classes, you and your friends embark on a computer geeky equivalent of forming a heavy metal band: creating your own video game.
At lunchtime, we gather on a bench and pass each other rough plans scribbled on graph paper. They each give each other impressive titles, such as “master programmer,” “sound designer,” and “area data input.” He swaps out 3.5-inch disks and continues coding until 3am, like you're a secret agent. Your parents will look into your owl eyes, see your grades slipping, and ask if you're “doing drugs.”
If that sounds familiar, you might find this essay interesting. This piece takes a game a friend and I started over 30 years ago in high school, but never finished, and describes the absurd programming we did to make it playable on Apple IIgs. Explore the distortions of the Apple II's red-haired stepchild line; the machine sat for six years without any hardware upgrades to avoid conflict with the Macintosh.
Thanks to the recent release of the first cycle-accurate emulator for this machine, you can actually play the game in all its screen-tearing glory. You can also explore source code that has been around for 30 years and is tailored to be built on modern hardware thanks to Merlin32 and CiderPress II. “The content of the game itself is worth an embarrassing laugh in hindsight,” the web page says, “but the code we've worked out is worth remembering.” , I feel it illustrates the unique challenges of past eras…”
