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Wii Businesses Entertainment Games Apple

Apple IIe Emulator Released For the Wii 86

fortapocalypse writes "Yohanes Nugroho just released WiiApple, an Apple IIe Emulator for Wii. While the sound doesn't work, some games are playable (he shows a screenshot of Epyx Winter Games as well the execution of a program he wrote in BASIC). He's also released the source code. Using WiiApple requires the Homebrew Channel, which we have discussed in the past."
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Apple IIe Emulator Released For the Wii

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  • by Anonymous Coward

    And Leather Goddesses of Phobos

    • by F34nor ( 321515 )

      Castle Wolfenstien! Impossible Mission! Karataka!

      Anyway...

      I tried one of the online editors but I could not remember or find any of the commands for the Apple OS. Hwo the fuck do you use BRUN??? I cannot remember and it shames me deeply.

      • What I remember is "20 FF 58". That means jump to subroutine at address $FF58, which happens to be in the ROM of the Apple II and contains the magical "60", meaning return. What is the point of jumping to a return? So that you can find out your own address by looking at the stack(*). From there, you could start relocating your code. Remember: no virtual memory, no pagination, no nothing. You had to find a way.

        (*) and later discover that in the 1/million chance that you got an interrupt precisely during the

      • Karateka was awesome. We wore out a couple lab keyboards playing that back in the 80's. Kind of like Mortal Kombat or Street Fighter a decade in advance.
    • by farrellj ( 563 ) *

      Welcome back, Bilestode, Wavy Navy, Lode Runner, Super Stellar Trek and Softporn Adventure!

      Now if I could just find copies of those games....

      ttyl
                Farrell

    • by HTH NE1 ( 675604 )

      Sabotage [wikipedia.org]! The original of what you PC owners came to know as Paratrooper and iPod users as Parachute.

      Some out with a IIgs emulator and I'll finish my port of this game to IIgs graphics.

      Meanwhile I'll need to hook up my PowerMac 7500 (upgraded to a G3) to read my 3.5" ProDOS disks and get them onto a system with an SD card writer, and my IIgs to get what's still on 5.25" converted to disk images on 3.5" disks. (I don't know if the OS currently on the 7500 can do AppleTalk networking anymore.)

  • by Anonymous Coward

    So is it called the WIIe or Wiie ?

  • by flargleblarg ( 685368 ) on Saturday January 03, 2009 @11:58AM (#26312225)
    That's great! I wrote a Wii emulator on the Apple //e back in 1983. Now I can run that again!
    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward

      wrong kind of wii..

    • by Evets ( 629327 )

      Woohoo! I can start writing in LOGO again!!!

      Green/Amber Turtle rules!

  • So not having sound is really not a big deal. All it could really do was make beeps and clicks... sounding like a wannabe R2-D2.
    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Hatta ( 162192 )

      Some games supported the add in Mockingboard which provided more sophisticated synthesis. Ultima III, IV, and V all supported the Mockingboard. The Linapple emulator does support the mockingboard, so it should be possible on this Wii port, if they can get the sound working at all.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by VanessaE ( 970834 )

      I'm no fan of Apple (I prefer Commodore when it comes to the 8-bit era), but a stock Apple II can do more than just beeps and clicks - it can do full digital audio using pulse width modulation. I'm not sure of the effective resolution (more than 1 bit, for sure, probably closer to 6-8 bits), but I've heard at least a couple of examples of this, including a multi-voice music player, and it actually didn't sound half bad for an otherwise rudimentary output.

      • There's just one problem with that. It can't.

        At least not without additional hardware.

        The Apple II has a 1 bit audio circuit, you control the audio by reading one location in memory.

        But you did hear it do it, and that's purely because somebody was really good with assembly programming of that clicker - it could be made to sound like a multi-voice synthesizer with creative timing of the clicks.

        • by Anonymous Coward

          I would call your understanding of the audio circuitry as incomplete...

          Yes, there is a single flip-flop control for the Apple II speaker output, which you can toggle once with a LDA $C030 command, or toggle twice with a STA $C030 command, and control these "clicks" by careful timing between commands. Sounds very digital... click to high state or click to low state.

          However, there is an analog component to the circuit as well, and this makes all the difference. If you include the characteristics of the DC b

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by VanessaE ( 970834 )

          And depending on how those clicks were timed, the technique was probably pulse width modulation. It's simply the easiest way to turn a 1 bit output into something greater. At present, PWM is used commonly in CD players, motor speed controllers, and probably your PC's power supply. Hell, even a Commodore mouse uses it [1]. There's not much limit to the applications this method can be applied to. Higher drive current and/or voltage, a faster pulse rate, and finer pulse width granularity are usually bette

    • So not having sound is really not a big deal. All it could really do was make beeps and clicks... sounding like a wannabe R2-D2.

      Clearly you never played Ghostbusters [youtube.com] or that vertical scroller submarine game (anybody remember what I'm talking about?).

      • Replying to myself (my bad) but the game was Sea Dragon [wikipedia.org] and included a quite clear voice that announced "Attention Captain. Your ship's computer is now ready. Please wait while I initialize the systems".

    • I had a voice synthesiser for the Apple ][
  • Linapple (Score:4, Informative)

    by Hatta ( 162192 ) on Saturday January 03, 2009 @12:01PM (#26312255) Journal

    The Linapple port of AppleWin that this thing is based on is great. For the longest time there was no good option for the AppleII on linux. xapple2 only ran in 8 bits, blech. kegs was ok, but I could never get it to run Ultima II. AppleWin ran in wine, but it didn't like to be full screened. Mess worked ok, but there was a bug when swapping disks. When Linapple came around it was really nice. It was not perfect, iirc it won't take a disk image as an argument, you have to boot it through the GUI. But that's a small quibble.

    In the end I just got a real IIgs. That's always the best way to go. BTW, have you seen the prices on DSDD media these days? One 25 pack of 5.25" media cost me just about as much as my IIgs did. But that's ok Wasteland is awesome!

    • Re:Linapple (Score:5, Informative)

      by AKAImBatman ( 238306 ) * <akaimbatman@gmaiBLUEl.com minus berry> on Saturday January 03, 2009 @01:50PM (#26313039) Homepage Journal

      BTW, have you seen the prices on DSDD media these days?

      About $1 a disk. Which isn't that bad. Not as good as they were back in the day, but probably not too far off after adjusting for inflation.

      The best place I've found for floppies is (the oddly obvious) http://www.floppydisk.com/ [floppydisk.com]. The disks come well packed and are of high quality. I have not had a single disk fail. Not sure if that's cheaper than your current source, but it might be worth looking into. :-)

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by the_B0fh ( 208483 )

      Where the heck did you get Wasteland from? I succumbed to nostalgia, and downloaded some MS-DOS versions of wasteland. Holy Mother of God, CGA graphics sucked big time compared to Apple II Hi-Res. I played Wasteland on my Apple ][GS, and don't remember it sucking that much.

      • by Hatta ( 162192 )

        I was able to track down some .dsk images and used ADTPro to transfer the disks over a serial cable. ADTPro didn't like the .nib files I found everywhere, so it took some looking but they're out there. It's highly worthwhile tracking them down.

        Other than not liking my .nib images, ADTPro is a really nice program. It makes working with disk images dead simple, and bootstrapping itself on a naked apple II is pretty impressive.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by pashdown ( 124942 )

      Depending on how many disks you are buying, you might want to consider purchasing a Semi-Virtual Diskette [rothfus.com].

      • by Hatta ( 162192 )

        I think my next purchase for the unit will actually be one of the CF-IDE adaptors. Even a 64 MB card is a ton of space for an apple II. That does look like a cool project though.

    • What an outstanding game! Wow. Memories. Fallout based on Wasteland my b*tt. I have so many fond memories of Proton Axes and things exploding like blood sausages... though I've never seen an explosive sausage I imagine it is quite grievous to behold.

  • Memories are Forever (Score:3, Interesting)

    by alain94040 ( 785132 ) * on Saturday January 03, 2009 @12:30PM (#26312431) Homepage

    This is great... Now, all you have to do is install the preventive multitasking OS [ordinotheque.free.fr] I had written at the time then try to bootstrap Minix from it, and you'll have the best of the 80s.

    So many memories, so little time. How many people on /. even have fond memories of the Apple II? Just showing my age I guess. Anyone below 30 who even knows what it was like at the time? I ran my first BBS on an Apple II. Kind of like slashdot, minus the traffic :-)

    • by Nimey ( 114278 )

      I had an Apple //c for several years and many fond memories of games like "Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego", various versions of Oregon Trail, the Stickybear edutainment titles, Wings of Fury, and even doing Appleworks spreadsheet work for my high school ROTC unit, after my //c had been retired.

      We did typing class on the //c as well; I forget which program that was on ("Wonderful World of PAWS?), and also practice in "Bank Street Writer". My math classes included a couple sessions with an adventure/m

      • by dosius ( 230542 )

        Yep, I used PAWS (I'd like to find .dsks for that!)

        I'd like to find a bunch of MECC and TLC software that's not up on Asimov too. I used to use Word Wizard all the time, and I had a copy of CNYICN's version of Elementary vol.6 (I think it was - the one with OREGON). And I still can't find Juggles' Rainbow (which I even had, for a while, in its IBM port too - IBM called it "Juggles' Butterfly").

        -uso.

    • What do you mean memories? I've still got a working IIgs and a IIc+ :-) But then again, I collect vintage computers & game systems (love my intellivision). And yes, I'm older than 30. Christopher.
      • (cue music)And so I plaaaaay my... Intel-e-viiiiision.(/cue music)

        Intellivision rocks the world. I don't care what anyone says about the controllers. Dreadnaught Factor rocked. Utopia rocked. Shark! Shark! rocked. Space Spartans rocked. Astrosmash rocked. Burgertime rocked. Diner rocked. Thin Ice rocked. Vec--

        Oh hell, just go here [intellivisiongames.com] and imagine that only 10% of that list sucks. And there you have the only ever instance of an inverted Sturgeon's Law.

    • Anyone below 30 who even knows what it was like at the time?

      I'm 20, the first computers I ever saw would have probably been an Apple II lab my school had. I can't quite remember what we did with them, I think there was a math or typing game that we loaded from those massive floppies.

      • by Nimey ( 114278 )

        Whippersnapper! Those 5.25" floppies were just the right size.

      • Logo. Apparently, when I hit school in 1987, they had a lab full of Apple ][ computers, and I was teaching the teachers how to use it, having had an IBM Compatible grey box since 1985.... All we ever did with it was play around in Logo, and play Oregon Trail or other "educational" games like that.

      • Anyone below 30 who even knows what it was like at the time?

        I'm 20, the first computers I ever saw would have probably been an Apple II lab my school had. I can't quite remember what we did with them, I think there was a math or typing game that we loaded from those massive floppies.

        At the time, they were the small floppies.

    • by muridae ( 966931 )

      Not 30 yet, and have lots of fond memories of the Apple II systems. Got to play with them in school around 4th grade, some IIe boxes. We had Oregon Trail, and a few educational games. Wrote my first code on those machines, someone got smart and taught us 4th and 5th graders how to write BASIC. Switching from Apple DOS to ProDOS was a good trainer for later, learning how all the layers separate and which layer does what.

      Later, parents bought a Laser 128 from someone else. It came with some many games, but

    • I'm 25 and my first computer was a IIe... although I got it because the school was throwing them out through them being obsolete, and if a school is throwing them out - you know they're old! sometimes I miss gosub.
  • ... the Woz will put it through it's paces and point out any errata or caveats the emulator author has missed.

    • Re:I wonder if... (Score:4, Informative)

      by g051051 ( 71145 ) on Saturday January 03, 2009 @12:57PM (#26312603)

      I don't think so. I exchanged a few messages with hin in the past, and asked if he had tried any of the AppleII emulators, or had contributed his unique expertise to any of them. He said he thought they were neat, but didn't have the time to spend on looking at them or contributing. Too bad!

  • Now I can get dysentery from the comfort of my sofa!
  • This is the most excited I've been since the Casio C-80 emulator was released for the Cray XT5!

  • Finally (Score:4, Funny)

    by jalefkowit ( 101585 ) <jason@NosPam.jasonlefkowitz.com> on Saturday January 03, 2009 @03:14PM (#26313705) Homepage

    Now I can play Oregon Trail the way it was MEANT to be played: by throwing my controller at deer as they run by.

    (btw, if anyone knows where I can get a good deal on a new flat-panel TV, lemme know)

  • Is it possible to use VirtualApple [virtualapple.org]? I assume no since Wii doesn't use IE and Firefox due to addons. :(

    • Why would anyone in their right mind use IE? Certainly Nintendo wouldn't stoop that low.

      At any rate, that site doesn't even work on Linux, so I can't imagine why it would run on the Wii.
    • The Internet Channel is Opera-based. It supports Widgets, but has no plugin architecture. Not that it would help. VirtualApple is written for Windows and Windows alone. It would be a major porting effort to make it work on another OS.

  • Who ever tagged the story with whoopdefuckingdo - thank you for the LOL moment.

    Carry on.

  • Wow, I didn't know that this will get into slashdot (like the tag said: whoopdefuckingdo)

    Sound is now supported, it is still not perfect yet, but you can hear "SeaDragon" and other games. If you don't like the sound emulation, just mute your TV.

  • XBOX (Score:1, Troll)

    by rtechie ( 244489 ) *

    I don't have a wii. I do know it's a huge step backwards from a hacked original XBOX for emulation. The original XBOXes were x86/Windows based which made porting all kinds of software far easier than other consoles. I have an emulator for virtually every system for the original XBOX and many of them are far superior to what's available on the wii. In particular this is true of Nintendo 64 emulation, where games are relatively bug-free on the XBOX but barely work on the wii at all. And of course having acces

    • by ral8158 ( 947954 )

      'Barely work on the wii at all'? I've got 4 N64 games from the Wii Shop Channel and I've had no errors.

      And I thought APPLE fanboys were bad. The 'XBOX' ones are worse.

      • by rtechie ( 244489 ) *

        Which ones? I've got Mario 64 and Ocaria of Time and both have audio, framerate, and REALLY NASTY clipping problems on the wii Virtual Console. These issues don't exist in my PC emulator (which is the same one I use on the original XBOX).

        Have you ever played N64 games in a PC emulator? I thought not.

    • You do realize that most open source emulators and such compile on non-Intel platforms just fine, right? Many of us free software types aren't glued to a single architecture and cross-compiling isn't totally strange.

      • by rtechie ( 244489 ) *

        You do realize that most open source emulators and such compile on non-Intel platforms just fine, right?

        Actually, no. This is a myth. I've done significant embedded development on Linux (MIPS, PowerPC) and it's a MAJOR PITA to port many apps to non-x86 architectures in large part because the compilers suck. If you don't feel like re-wiriting large chunks of source code your x86 app is unlikely to work in PowerPC. Running a VM is cheating. Spend some time working on Gentoo, you'll notice there is a LOT more software for x86 than PowerPC. Look at the capabilities of PS3 Linux vs. original XBOX Linux. There is a

    • dunno what asshat modded parent as troll, but the XBOX really is a true gem. there are numerous mature emulators available for the XBOX, and XBMC has a nice loader to access them all handily.

      We cancelled our cable service recently, now we just use XBMC to watch tv shows and movies we download off the internet.

      The interface is clean and intelligent, and it automagically downloads album covers, DVD covers & movie info from imdb, uses the milkdrop winamp plugin for visualization, and cooks you breakfast i

      • by rtechie ( 244489 ) *

        Thanks. Whatever you think about Microsoft it doesn't detract from the utility of the original XBOX as a media center and game emulation box.

        Especially XBMC was a REVOLUTION when it came out. To this day, it stomps all over everything in erms of codec support.

  • Oh man, can I run the original Apple II version of Castle Wolfenstien?
  • The Apple IIe was my first real computer, and one on which I first learned to program in basic and turtle (anyone remember that one). And the games were fun back then too; I clearly remember playing 'Goonies' and 'Conan' on that system. Then Apple abandoned that system for the MAC which could not run any software from the Apple II series and I quickly became a PC enthusiast due to being pissed off by Apple. Shortly after that I used the OS/2 operating system to run my BBS and my Windows software at the s
    • by BigGar' ( 411008 )

      I think the "turtle" you are referring to is the LOGO programming language.
      One of the things you can do with it is move a cursor around the screen to draw pictures, etc.
      The cursor was called a turtle and may have looked like a turtle or perhaps a triangle.

      The Turtle is a way to draw vector based images and was added to LOGO by its original inventor Seymour Papert, of MIT, so he could control his Turtle Robot to draw pictures.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logo_(programming_language) [wikipedia.org]

      • by j741 ( 788258 )

        I think the "turtle" you are referring to is the LOGO programming language...

        Yes, that's the one. It's been so long since I last used it that it's hard to remember.

  • Where is the Floppy drive emulator so I can load my CP/M Disc's?

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