Jolt Country

Here is how this "Total Replay" project works: there is a person that goes by the handle 4AM, and they crack Apple games. I believe they have started doing so with Macintosh games but the great majority of their work is for games with the Apple //. They are defeating copy protection and releasing these disk images on the Internet Archive daily.

That's not all! They also have a project called "Total Replay," where they have created a front end for these games. You can see it on the Internet Archive here.

I have an Apple //e, and I was using a device to have it run the new Apple // role playing game called Nox Archaist every time it booted up. I liked that way of doing things. It is possible for me to use the device that booted it to run other things, but it meant running around to the other side of the //e. I found a cheap, different device called the "BOOTi" and bought it, and I have it set to run the Total Replay disk image. It has a boot config screen, not unlike what the REAL Man is getting going with his laptop, so I can pick different images to start. But if I do nothing for 8 seconds, it starts Total Replay. I can easily do nothing for 8 seconds.

When the //e starts, I now have instant access to hundreds of Apple // games. (The BOOTi goes into an expansion port of the //e, and you can load images on it with a USB stick that you plug into it. And guess what.... it needs small fat-formatted USB sticks. I got one with my purchase, but I am also glad I keep them around!)

Here is a screenshot of Lode Runner, on the 8" Sony Trinitron CRT I picked up at a Denver Retro Gamers Swap Meet with Wyatt the other week:



And here it is playing Prince of Persia.



It's got a menu of games that starts, and you can either use the ] and [ keys to browse, or you can start typing. I have never played Oregon Trail, but I probably will tomorrow because of this setup.

More on this on Wednesday.

That's one sweet looking monitor. Is it more hoops to jump through to get an Apple to run a modern interface card? I feel the Commodore and Atari machines had this sort of thing a long time ago. I want to believe there's some nefarious hardware reason why it wasn't possible until 2024

I can't decide if this new stuff (like using a USB on an Apple //) is the smart advancement of technology or cheating.

I am seriously thinking about coming around to the idea of FREEDOS instead of MS-DOS because of convenience... but... convenience is for wimps.

MAN I would love to have a working Apple, but I have no room for it.

BTW I LOVE that little TV set.

My take is - I will never really go all the way back to floppy disks when USB and sdcard solutions are available, because when the floppy drives go (or when they can't read certain disks) it's this whole thing that prevents games from being played.

Before I had the jrIDE, I was using 100% pure floppy disks on the PCjr, and I am certain that I set one of the disks on top of my phone, which has a magnet. Luckily I had tools to be able to re-image the floppy, but still. I've lost my spidey sense of where magnets are, that I think I had when this was more of a problem.

The 8" monitors are great because they really don't take up much room and everything looks super sharp. So if you find yourself trawling eBay for one of those, you will love it!

That's a good point about old floppies. I just borrowed an SD card reader from work (they supplied it with some other stuff) and it has a MAGNET (and sticks to the side of my PC case). Can't understand why it doesn't scramble the cards!!!

Ah man I want a TV like that! I've been looking for one slightly larger but smaller than 14 inch.

And yeah if I had both that and a real Apple II I would probably barely touch the Apple II.

The same guy was selling, I think, a 14" one at the Denver Swap Meet. There is going to be another one in April. Who knows what treasures await?

A 14" one would have been nice, but it is getting a little ridiculous in this room, in terms of what systems are out. I will attempt to take 4 photos tomorrow that show the setup.