Computer Gaming World, December 1983
- Tag Archives Apple II
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Apple II / TSR Advertisement
In the 8-bit computer era, TSR was probably best known for their partnership with SSI in bringing Dungeons & Dragons games to computers. Those “gold box” games were some of my favorites on the Commodore 64. However, TSR was releasing computer games well before that and not just role-playing games. This ad from the February 1983 issue of BLiP features three of the earliest on the Apple II, all from 1982.
Dawn Patrol is a World War I flights simulator. As you can see from the screen shots it is pretty rudimentary with a text based configuration screen at the beginning of each game. Still, it was pretty advanced for its time.
Dungeon! is an adaptation of a board game by TSR of the same name. I’ve never seen the board game but the goal is to explore a dungeon collecting treasure while avoiding monsters and make it back to the exit alive. The computer version is essentially a maze game in which you control a blocky character with the keyboard. There isn’t a whole lot of variety as the maze is the same each time (but I suppose the board game is the same).
Finally, Theseus and the Minotaur is another maze game in which you search a randomly generated maze for the Minotaur. You must fight other monsters along the way and make it back out of the maze in order to win the game. This one was pretty advanced for the time because it was a 3D game played from a 1st person point of view. The randomly generated mazes added more playability as well.
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Computist, December 1987
Computist (originally titled Hardcore Computing) was an interesting magazine in that its primary focus was on defeating copy protection on and otherwise hacking Apple II software. This was most often done through the publication of “softkeys” which were short pieces of code designed to work with an Apple II program called Super IOB. For this reason it was quite controversial but it did have a long life with publication not ending until 1993.
The December 1987 issue includes the following:
Features
- Super Boulderdash – M.A. Horton’s program automatically modifies Super Boulderdash so that you can get extra men or move on to the next cave any time you want.
- Activision software – William Green’s quick-n-easy softkeys for: Game Maker, Hacker II, Little Computer People, Great American Road Race, Spindizzy, Master of the Lamps, Rocky Horror Show.
- Double Your F-8 ROM Space Without Motherboard Surgery
- MECC Software – Jack Moravetz’s Super IOB controller will completely deprotect Arithmetic Critters, Counting Critters, Clock Works, First Letter Fun, Fun From A to Z, Jenny’s Journey, Dataquest Fift States, Number Munchers, Paint with Words, Path Tactics, Phonics prime Time, Quickflash!, Skylab, Sound Tracks, Speedway Math, Amazing Reading Machines, Market Place, Word Munchers, Words at Work.
- Ace-Apple Bimodal Switch: Two machines in one – Ron Balewski’s hardware project will give your Franklin Ace 1000 complete Apple-compatibility (or make your Apple completely Ace-compatible) with the flick of a switch.
- PFS ProDOS software – A.L. Head’s key to unlocking Software Publishing Corporations’s pfs ProDOS series: pfs:Write, pfs:File, pfs:Graph, pfs:Report, pfs:Plan.
- Using Sider hard drives, 3.5″ 800K drives, & 5.25″ drives in a DOS 3.3 Environment
Plus more softkeys too numerous to mention, game playing tips and more!
