Appleii Air Attack.bas

Posted4 months agoActive3 months ago

ibobev

18 points

12 comments

basic-code.bearblog.devTechstory

calmpositive

Debate

20/100

RetrocomputingApple IiBasic Programming

Key topics

Retrocomputing

Apple Ii

Basic Programming

The post shares a vintage Applesoft BASIC game, 'Air Attack.BAS', sparking nostalgia and discussion about the Apple II's capabilities and the challenges of programming games in BASIC.

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01Story posted
Sep 19, 2025 at 7:41 AM EDT
4 months ago
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Sep 22, 2025 at 3:10 PM EDT
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12 comments in 78-84h
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Sep 22, 2025 at 5:30 PM EDT
3 months ago
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Discussion (12 comments)

Showing 12 comments

TMWNN

3 months ago

2 replies

In 1977, the Apple II was the only personal computer in the world on which this sort of game—color, animation, sound—was possible. Not TRS-80, not Commodore PET.

Put another way, from 1977 to 1979 (when the Atari 8-bit appeared), the Apple II was the world's best video game machine.

badc0ffee

3 months ago

2 replies

> Put another way, from 1977 to 1979 (when the Atari 8-bit appeared), the Apple II was the world's best video game machine.

I suppose if you restrict this to personal computers with keyboards, that's true. But the Atari VCS (2600) came out in 1977 and had better sound, and in some ways better graphics, than the Apple II.

TMWNN

3 months ago

1 reply

2600's sprites and better-than-beeper sound aren't enough to make up for the Apple II's other advantages. Consider this homebrew version of Pac-Man for 2600 <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPttWAND5ok>. Would you rather play that, or the Atarisoft version from 1983? <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYML_8zOBXk>

badc0ffee

3 months ago

I do like the detail of the Apple II version better, but like I said the Atari 2600 did have some advantages, like a 128-colour palette that gives you a yellow Pacman.

One of my favourites from the era with a nice arctic sky (and great gameplay): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dl1jGOu5No0

TMWNN

3 months ago

1 reply

> better sound

Amazingly, the Atari 7800 has worse sound hardware than the 2600/5200! That's got to be up high on the list of Tramiel skinflinting.

badc0ffee

3 months ago

1 reply

Is the sound just worse on 7800 games, or does it affect 2600 compatibility?

TMWNN

3 months ago

I misspoke. The 7800's sound hardware is worse than the 5200's (which is the same as the Atari 8-bit), but is the same as the 2600. Still, having audio hardware (or, really, anything else) decrease in quality from the previous generation is not a virtue for the console or Atari.

JKCalhoun

3 months ago

I feel like "color" and "sound" should be in quotes, but point taken, ha ha.

deepthaw

3 months ago

2 replies

The emulator runs way too fast - probably because I'm on a MacBook Pro with some bizarre refresh rate.

Very impressive demo nonetheless.

hu3

3 months ago

Same here with AMD 9800X3D processor and a 300Hz monitor.

nerdsniper

3 months ago

Yep, totally unplayable on M3 MBP. I don't think the issue is the screen refresh rate - I lowered that to the lowest it goes in System Preferences (47.95 Hz) and it's still essentially just as bad as the "ProMotion" setting (presumably 120Hz).

JKCalhoun

3 months ago

That's wild. I was convinced you could not do an arcade-style game in BASIC on the Apple II.

I tried (at the time) to figure out shape tables (a kind of vector graphic) as those seemed like the way to go (short of my learning assembly — which was not going to happen). I never got a shape table to appear on screen.

It's too bad there were not more system calls you could make to handle higher level graphics functionality.

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ID: 45300466Type: storyLast synced: 11/20/2025, 5:27:03 PM

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