Retronauts - Retronauts Micro 70: The Apple II Breaks Out

Episode Date: September 22, 2017

Jeremy speaks to game and computer historian David Craddock about his new book of Apple II game developer interviews, "Break Out," including David's most interesting experiences meeting the people who created video game history.

This week in Retronauts, was the frequency, Kenneth. Hi, everyone, and welcome to a bonus episode of Retronauts, And this one is a special tie-in with friend of retronauts, David Craddock, who has a book coming out, I think, this weekend. It is, let's see, this podcast is going up September 28th. So, yeah, that's like the release date for your book, right? That very day, yes. That very day. So run, do not walk to your bookstores and get a copy of David Craddick's breakout, which is a very, very well-written and very well-researched book.

on the role that the Apple II computer system had in the evolution of video games and game design. And David went out and talked to a bunch of people who were there at Ground Zero of the Apple II and developed for the system through the years. And it's just packed full of great anecdotes. Like I said, good interviews. I read an advanced copy about a year ago. And actually, I think I referenced it on the Apple II podcast we did at Retronauts E. a few months back. But here we are with the man himself. So he can give you much more

detailed information than my vague recollections of an advance read through a year ago. So, David, tell us a little bit about yourself and how you came to write a book like this. Sure. Well, I can tell you that it was, the book was good a year ago. It's even better now. I am a writer by trade, been doing it for 14 years or so, and I grew up playing the Apple 2. The Apple 2 was the first PC on which I played games, and also the first PC I learned how to program on. I don't remember exactly how old I was, somewhere between 9 and 11, but my mom signed me up for a summer computer course at State Street Middle School, which was where I attended middle school. It's torn down now. It should have been torn before I even got there. But nonetheless, I learned how to write in basic there, learned how to play lemonade stand, which was something we were allowed to do when our programs were done. And I just, I thought it was so cool that I could not only play video games. I was already playing NES and the Atari 2600 Jr. by that time, but that I could learn how to write my own, which was, of course, the impetus for taking the programming course in the first place. I also had experience with the Apple II at home. My grandma was a reading center teacher, and on days when I was sick, sick or sick, in quotes, I was not allowed to stay home and play video games.

I would usually go to school with my grandma while my mom worked, and I was allowed to sit in the back of her classroom and play mostly edutainment games. But I really didn't think of them that way because they were fun. I got to play the Oregon Trail, we're in the world's Carmen San Diego, Sticky Bear Math. And then during summer break, she'd bring the computer home, so I got to keep playing it then. I was at an advantage because everyone else in the house knew only as much as they needed to know just from the computer on. If they needed help with the computer, I got to come in and fix it. And as a reward, I could play it whenever I wanted.

As far as writing... Yeah, you know, if you don't mind my interjecting really fast, that's something that I don't know that kids today necessarily experience that, you know, people who grew up after the 80s really experienced the fact that computers. now are, you know, they're ubiquitous. Everyone has them and a lot of schools, you know, just hand students' tablets, basically. But back in the 80s, that really wasn't the case. And computers were this sort of new, amazing thing. And there was a, there was sort of a prevailing belief or mindset among adults that, like, we need to get these into schools and into classrooms

because, you know, if kids learn how to use these, they can become geniuses and it'll help them with their futures. And it's true, it did. I think the, you know, the reality of the situation of how computers have evolved into consumer products is very different than what our parents envisioned and our teachers envisioned. But, you know, nevertheless, like, there was that sort of like understanding that, that intuitive grasp that, yes, this is important. This is something that our kids need access to. So we would have these computers in our classrooms. And, you know, video games weren't ubiquitous back then. We didn't have telephones in our pockets that could play, you know, Unreal Engine 4 games. Right. So, so there was this kind of blurred line between the educational, you know, build your future here device and also the video games that they could play. And so there was this sort of like this entertainment and education thing that went hand in hand. And I don't know that adults always necessarily.

necessarily understood which was which. So I feel like we kind of got away with a lot that maybe our teachers didn't quite realize. But yeah, it does, it does sort of like, I think hardwire the idea of education and video games into a lot of our brains because it was kind of like a, almost like a reward system. Like you said, you know, when you finished doing your academic stuff, you could play lemonade stand. And it was that way for us. Like, you know, when I would help out in the computer lab, and once I get stuff done, I could play load runner. And so, yeah, I think it kind of created like this positive feedback loop for education for us, like, oh, video games, I can play video games after I learn. Let's go learn.

It did. And there was also, there was another level tying video games in education because after the Apple 2, I moved on to PC, Windows PCs, but actually back then they were running DOS. And so if I wanted to play a game, there was no plug-and-play. You know, you had to, in some cases, you had to create boot discs by editing startup files. You had to, I used Memmaker to create memory, which kind of blew my 11-year-old mind. And I remember if you used it too often, it would start taking away memory. So it's interesting because by playing games, playing games was this kind of thoroughfare into learning how the computer works. Like, why, why can't I, you know, use my Sound Blaster 16 and my new CD-ROM drive?

Oh, because it needs memory. So I need to go into config.coms and remark out some lines and see which hardware I can boot. It was almost like being under the PC's hood, but through a software interface. And there's also kind of a dichotomy in my household between what I could and could not do with computers. My family wanted me to set up the computer. I remember my dad got a new Packard Bell, and he had me set it up, and then he goes, okay, now no kids can touch this. And then it was break, then it broke down. He's like, David, come fix this.

Okay, good. Now, don't touch it. I'm like, I remember I took a stand of like, Dad, this is not happening. You can't tell me to fix your computer and then not let me play it. So he was like, okay, that's fair. So after that, it was Diablo and Doom and Quake nonstop. But, you know, the Apple, too, was the breeding ground for that. And just kind of opened a lot of gateways into when I would play games.

After that programming course, I would find myself thinking, like, oh, I kind of sort of understand what's going on under the hood as this game is going through its processes. In terms of writing the book, about two years ago, I went to Books a Million, which is unfortunately the only bookstore still open near me. And I was looking through their computer self-help section because I had an idea for that type of book, and I wanted to see, you know, what formats and layouts were popular among publishers. And I found this hardcover called, this by Brett Weiss, I think it's like the 100 greatest console games from like 1977 to 1980 or something. And it was shaped like an NES cartridge, which I thought was kind of cool. So I took the book down and this flyer, this little bookmark fluttered out.

And I picked it up and it said, Schiffer publishing on the back said, hey, we're looking for authors if you want to, if you have ideas, you know, you could submit. And on the drive home, I put together in my head this proposal for breakout, which I'd always wanted to write because I love the Apple II, but I thought, you know, I don't really know what I could do with it that hasn't already been done because games like Ultima and the Oregon trailer are well-charted territory, pardon the pun. So my initial outline was, my initial pitch was, I want to do like, I don't know, top 50

your top 100, Apple 2 games, and it would be kind of a listical, but bound in hardcover. And they accepted that, and then I said, okay, this is awesome. And I don't, I'm not turning down this, this advance that you offered, but I'd like to jigger this proposal a bit, because by May of 2015, when this happened, I'd written my first day-a-while-and-listen book about the history of Blizzard Entertainment, Blizzard North, and I was really getting my creative non-fiction voice legs under me. And I said, you know, what I'd really like to do is I'd like to track down some people

who made Apple II games and talk to them. And my parameters for that were I want to talk to people, I want to write about games made by people I can get hold of. Because, you know, the sad fact is the Apple II came out in 1977. A lot of great designers, such as, you know, Douglas E. Smith, who made Roadrunner, have passed on. And my concern was, if I can't talk to people who made a certain game, I don't want to wind up writing what might be, you know, a regurgitated Wikipedia page along that line. Right. So, you know, instead, I track down Bill Budge, Richard Garriott, Jordan Mechner, Dane Begham, the writer, the author of Carmen San Diego, Where in the World is Carmen San Diego.

And I was able to turn over quite a few stones that they hadn't really touched on yet. kind of accomplish what I set out to do with any article or book of this type, which is to tell a story about people with technology and games is kind of more of a stage on which to follow this particular slice of their lives. So were any of these developers particularly difficult to get in touch with? Were there any developers that you tried to reach out to that weren't available? I mean, obviously, of course, you know, Doug Smith passed away, so you couldn't speak to him. But, you know, of the people who are still living and still, you know, have some sort of public presence, was anyone like, ah, no, thanks.

I'm past that part of my life. Dan Gorland, who wrote Choplifter, seems like a really great guy. And then Choplifter's a great game. But when I talked to him, he was like, sure, how much? And I said, how much what? And he's like, how much will you pay me for the interview? And I said, that is not how this works. So Choplifter didn't happen.

But what I did in the case of games like Choplifter and Load Runner was I was able to, I didn't want to just ignore them, of course. So I tried to write about them within the context of other games. I was able to talk about Choplifter, for example, because Dan Gorman actually gave Dane Biggham, Carmen San Diego's programmer, his hiring interview. And Dane had a really funny story about that. So I was able to kind of set down a background on Choplifter and then talked about, Dan Gorman and then move into Dane Biggham joining Broader Bond and talk about his hiring story, and then flow into Carmen San Diego from there, as well as as well as Lodrunner, because Doug Smith and Dane Biggham were pretty close.

Right. Okay. That's interesting. I've only had one developer in all the years that I've been, you know, hunting down devs to talk to, say, like, oh, well, you'll have to pay me to be interviewed. Like, it just seems a little strange. But I guess, you know, some people really value their time. But it's cool that you're able to get some info on choplifter in there.

And your chapter on Broderbund was pretty detailed. Yeah, that was, it's interesting because, you know, I wrote two broader bun chapters, but really the second one was more of a focus on Carmen San Diego with other events and people kind of weaving in and out. And that first chapter, I thought, you know, there's no particular game that I can kind of anchor this chapter to. but their early events and kind of the spots of good luck and these really kind and generous people that Doug and Carol, Gary Carlston met along the way after they funded the company were really interesting.

So I thought, I think that people might still like to read that story. Were there any particular games or people, developers, that you really, like, you set out and said, I have to talk to these people. I have to go into detail about these particular games. Jordan Mechner, hands down. That's probably the Prince of Persia and Karataka chapters are probably my favorite chapters of the books. I really like them all, which I know is kind of biased.

But you know what that's like. It's like they're all kind of your children in a way. But I'm really proud of the chapters about Jordan Mechner's games because I grew up loving Prince of Persia. I still play that game. I guess I was a speed runner before speed running was a thing. That game really lent it. to the speedrunner approach because of the timer, yeah. Right.

Like you beat it in an hour or you lose. Like you have to, you can only, you know, whittle away time from there. And so, uh, Jordan Mechran actually, this kind of traces back to your previous question. He was hard to get a hold of because that guy is kind of a jet setter now. He's off doing movies. He's writing books. He's doing all sorts of things. So, uh, yeah.

You know, he, I think he did. The last time I really saw him sort of, you know, as a public figure, sort of visible was back when that Prince of Persian movie came out, and I know he consulted on it to a certain degree. That was the big one. I know he did consult. I think he might have written an early draft of the script. I can't remember.

But he was just really hard to get a hold of because he and his wife are doing all sorts of other projects, I think, outside of gaming. And so my two best resources for contacting people were Facebook and LinkedIn. And Jordan Meckner, I don't remember how. I contacted him. It was one of those two. And it kind of felt like shouting into the void. I did not know if I'd ever get a response.

And like a month or so later, I did. He was like, hey, I can talk now. And I was like, oh, so I threw a few extra questions together. And we talked, he had like one hour. And so I tried to divide the hour between Carataka and Prince of Persia with probably a little biased to a Prince of Persia, since that's one of my favorite games ever. Yeah, I mean, there's not really that. much to Carotica. It's a much more limited game. Right. So

yeah, I definitely think there is a lot that just the concept of Prince of Persia, the game itself, is much richer. So I can definitely see where maybe that wasn't, you know, the formative work, but it was definitely the influential one and the one that

really kind of, I guess, sort of defined his style as opposed to being the rough draft. Yeah, for sure. And it was interesting how Carotica, thank you for the pronunciation there. I mean, I assume that's right. I don't know.

I can't remember how he pronounced it down in our interview. I'd have to go back and look. But it was interesting how that game informed Prince of Persia in some ways. Because he said, he told me like, well, I sat down. And when I designed Prince of Persia, I said, okay, whatever Carotica did, I kind of want to do the opposite. In Carotica, you run from left to right and fight guards. Prince of Persia was, he's like, all right, I'm making a vertical game.

And instead of karate, I'm going to use a sword. And even minor little things, like every time you fight a guard in Karatica, you get your 12 little hit point arrows at the bottom of the screen. And in Prince of Persia, he said, you know, I want to start players with three. And in order to encourage more exploration, since you're not just running in one direction, I'm going to hide, you know, life enhancement potions around. So it's something extra to look for, but also you feel like, should I really take time to look for this? Because the clock is ticking. And I really liked hearing stories about that. Prince of Persia, like, I've always been sort of surprised that that started on Apple 2 because

in a lot of ways, it feels like it has a console game mentality. And of course, it made its way to like every console in history. But at the time, yeah, like it really, like going back and seeing, oh, that started on Apple 2, sort of opened my eyes to realize, you know, there is more to PC gaming than the RPGs and strategy games that I was kind of associated with the platform. And it's interesting that, you know, even that late in the Apple 2's life, because that was, what, 1989 when that shipped? Yeah. Like that the system that had been for around for 12 years, a computer platform that was pretty much obsolete could still inspire and play host to such a revolutionary and forward-thinking game. That was, that was probably my,

my favorite aspect of my interview with Jordan McKner. He said the Apple II version debuted in 1989 and it was dead in the water after like, I think six or 12 months that had sold like six or seven thousand copies. And he said, I was so disappointed. But, you know, as you say, everyone had kind of moved on from the Apple II really except teachers. Like I remember even as a kid in the 90s, like fourth, fifth grade, we still had like Apple 2GSs in the classroom, but they were all edutainment focused games, nothing like Prince

of Persia. But as part of my interview with Doug Carlston, I asked him, I said, you know, Prince of Persia is this classic, but it was kind of dead in the water at first. How did it, how did you resuscitate it? He said, I believed in that game. I didn't want to let it go. The marketing department didn't let it go. So we just kept pushing to port it to other systems. And I can't remember the name of the model, but it was a port done on a computer in Japan.

um that okay yeah that introduced the prince of persia look that we know from the mac version which was what struck gold here in the states you know he had the blue turban the open red vest um the pointed shoes i can't think what they're called but that version they brought everyone took that version and ported it to the mac and they gave it the trapezoidal box and that is when it took off like i think two or three years after the apple two release and then they ported it to the pc and it just it just exploded from there. So it was really this late bloomer. But I, you know, I had never played the Apple II version. I played it on Mac first. And then my friend and I, his dad took us to a live showing of where in the USA's Carmen San Diego. You remember that show from the 90s? And, and after

that, he took us the Comp USA as a treat. And we were walking around on an N-cap. We saw Mac running Prince of Persian. We were just blown away by the fluidity of the animations. And, you know, we fell in spikes and kind of had a good laugh over the gruesomeness. So he got that version. And an uncle of mine who's been a very big influence in my life, my uncle Brad, he got it for me for a PC. And I remember that was the one point, maybe the one of two instances, where I was jealous of a game on the Mac that my friend had, because it just looked so much better than the PC version. But, you know, I'd never played on Apple 2, and I downloaded the ROM on an Apple 2 emulator while researching the book and was just amazed at how good it looked and how fluidly it moved.

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screenshots and it does look like the Mac version. So that's, that's interesting. I'm wondering who ported that. I can't find any information on it. But, um, yeah, it's, it's interesting that, you know, with a lot of these PC games, uh, on Apple 2, a lot of times they, they kind of, you know, did their thing here, but then they really like changed or took on their own life when they were ported over to Japan. Load Runner is probably the, oh yeah, the key example. Like that was, you know, that was a hit here. But then Hudson brought it over. to Japan, early in the Famicom's life, it was like the second third-party Famicom title. Right.

And like, the Japanese audience loved it and Japanese developers and publishers just ran with it. And it's, you know, it's had a long and fruitful life over there. Whereas here, it kind of was largely forgotten and then just kind of popped up from time to time. But it never really went away over there. I didn't realize that was the case for Prince of Persia, too. But, like, learning that, you know, it does kind of show the sort of, you know, the reach. of the Apple 2, like the way that

it could transcend cultures in a way that didn't really happen a lot back then. Like the Japanese gamers didn't tend to like American games that much in the 80s, but it seems like a lot of these Apple 2 games made their way over there.

Load Runner and SimCity and Prince of Persia and Choplifter, like all of those became like their own things over there. And that's that's really fascinating to me. Yeah, while we were talking about this, I was trying to think of a corollary that opened here. And the most recent one, I know there are several, but I would say the most recent one I can think of might be demon souls over here. And it didn't take quite as long to catch on in the states, but it was this sleeper hit that had been out in Asian territories for a while. And then it came over to the states and slowly through the word of mouth, which is how I heard about it. It, you know, it just kind of snowballed and became, you know, kind of gave way to dark souls. And, just hasn't really gone away. It was also interesting to hear from Jordan Howl other ways that Prince of Persia might have innovated. He said one of the first things he did to facilitate his building levels was to write a level editor.

And he intended to ship it with the game. Really? Yeah. And so it's almost, you know, it would have given, I think Load Runner had some sort of tool like that. I don't know if it was. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Load Runner from like out of the box came with a little. editor that you could share and trade with your friends and so forth.

Yeah, and Jordan didn't really get into details of, like, if you'd be able to share levels, I'm sure you could probably copy them onto disk or something. He said it didn't really get off the ground. I can't remember exactly why he said that didn't happen. I touched out in the book, but I was just thinking how cool that would have been and how it might have made Prince of Persian an even bigger deal if all of those ports, especially the Mac and the Sharp versions had shipped with it. Yeah, I don't know that that, you know, the 2D platformer is necessarily the

kind of game that people want to sort of do the DIY approach with. I remember it's not an Apple II game, but it did kind of debut on Mac, which was Abuse by crack.com, published by Bungee. That came with its own level editor, I think. And, you know, I don't know that that ever really went anywhere. But the level editor seems to have been sort of, I mean, that was kind of an Apple II invention to begin with, with Bill Budge's pinball construction kit. Like, that was, it wasn't even a game. was a level editor like make your own pinball tables go for it right and and that's something he and i talked about he said uh you know he's very candid and he said i really didn't care about playing games i really just wanted to to make them i found that much more interesting and so

you know after raster blaster which i also wrote about um he said you know my next game is going to be a game where you just make the games and people can build their own pinball tables and what one thing i do with um so every chapter focuses on on one game or one company and And at the end, I talk about, like, here's, you know, kind of the ripple effects that this game or this company has had. And, you know, really, as you say, RastraBlast, our pinball construction set was the level editor that really took off and kind of, I would say, laid the groundwork for other DIY kits, like a little big planet, like Super Mario Maker. But you're right. I mean, there's not, I don't know that that genre has ever exploded. There seems to be, you know, specific examples, but it's not as prolific as you would think.

Maybe just because most people, I know that I kind of enjoy creating levels, but the main reason I bought Super Mario Maker was I looked at it as a bottomless well of Mario levels that other people made that I could play whenever I got in the mood to take a 2D Mario for a spin. I'm trying to think, was SimCity an Apple 2 game or did that never show up on Apple 2? It's an interesting case, and I might get wires crossed here because I haven't looked at my notes recently, but I believe that was a game. think that launched on Commodore 64, but I know Will Wright wrote some of the code on an Apple 2. But, yeah, I think it was that deal. Okay, yeah, I'm looking over release info and I don't see Apple 2 on the original SimCity. So, yeah, that could be one of those that just kind of, you know, fell victim to the platform transition. And the Apple 2 just wasn't viable enough at that point for it to make sense.

But, yeah, like a lot of games. around that time, like, had some, some Apple II DNA in them. You know, the Wizardry games, I think, migrated away from Apple II after Wizardry 5, but, like, there was still that sort of, like, underpinning that they kind of fed into the game. Yeah, I know it was one thing I did was I kind of contrasted the evolution of wizardry on Apple 2 versus Ultima. Because, you know, I talked to Andrew Greenberg and Robert Woodhead about wizardry. And for that chapter, I wrote just about the first game and touched on the sequels.

Whereas for Richard Garriott, I wrote a whole chapter on Akalabath and then a whole chapter on the first four Ultima games. Because one thing he said is he would look at what other developers were doing and try to one-up them purely to distinguish his game from others that were established. as wizardry was at the time. And he said, you know, wizardry, they kind of found their formula with the first game, pure dungeon crawl, and they kind of stuck with it for several sequels. But he wanted his games to, you know,

at least one big new feature per game. And so that was kind of an interesting compare and contrast to write about because there was so much RPG activity on Apple 2. Right. Yeah, it's just such a fascinating platform. I'm really, I'm always a little bummed out that I missed out on sort of the prime of life for the Apple 2. But, you know, it was just, beyond my family's financial resources and by the time we could afford a computer the apple two was pretty much on its way out so it kind of passed us by but i'm always not not taken aback but um it definitely catches my interest whenever i start looking into something and i find out oh that

that started on apple two or that has roots in apple two it seems to be kind of everywhere yeah it's almost i almost think of apple two as the celebrity that you discover as an adult and then realized they played in some of your favorite movies when you were a kid before you really paid attention to, you know, who was playing what role. I kind of like that, too. I actually, I think that situation was kind of endemic with, has been endemic with Apple products. A lot of times they're just financially unattainable. But that's actually one reason I love to go back and play games because after a while, you know, the shelf life expires and you can get games for cheap. I mean, I really didn't, I was born in 1982 and probably didn't start playing Apple

two games until the late 80s, early 90s. And by that time, the discs were just flying fast and furious. I mean, I would go into classrooms and they just had hordes of games. And I think that was great because I got to go and play all of these games, like breakout, like Arkanoid, Carmen Sin Diego, that, you know, other people, you know, as you say, they kind of came and went for a lot of people. We kind of talked about the creation of the book. What did I say was going to be the, like, the final?

segment of the show. Oh, that was a long time ago. So I guess one thing I haven't actually asked about in terms of the process is like how many of these games did you actually go back and play to refresh your memory and how much of this was just kind of, you know, coasting on memories or just, you know, going in sort of blind to ask developers to tell you about what they thought was important. Because sometimes what you'll pick up from a game is different than what a developer will remember.

Yeah, you know, so my process with each game is I did play all of them. And I, you know, progressed to varying degrees in each one because a lot of them, for example, Sundog, Frozen Legacy, that's a great game. But, you know, Bruce Webster, one of the designers admitted this to me that their UI wasn't exactly the easiest to understand. It was this huge open world game that really is kind of a predecessor to Grand The FData. You can trace it that far back, but it was pretty difficult to understand and get into then, and it's even more so now. So I would try to play the games as much as I could, and I got lost in some of them. I played through Prince of Persia. I advanced several ranks

at the Acme Detective Agency in Warren World's Carmen San Diego. For others, what I did for every game was I would always, I would just did a lot of digging. I read a lot of old magazine articles, old interviews, Wikipedia pages and making sure the follow the links, because one thing I wanted to do was I wanted to see what questions had been asked to find if I could put a slant on them in some way, and also what had been overlooked. In particular, I wanted to focus on the human aspect of developing Apple II games, because I think that one thing a lot of writers tend to do is they'll dig into the nitty-gritty of game design and mechanics and kind of gloss over the backgrounds and the personalities of the people who made the games, which I think is really important

for that era because the teams were so small, which means everyone had a much bigger impact versus today when you have teams of hundreds. For example, I loved reading about, or learning about Dane Biggham's friendship with Doug Smith. He shared one story where after he finished Carmen San Diego, he took a sabbatical from Broader Bund and went out to live with Doug at his place in Seattle, and they would code starting the late afternoon, and then at night they'd hop in Doug's truck, and they would go, you remember those old Ford commercials, which is these big trucks, like going through muddy fields and just splashing up mud and dirt like a rocket.

That's what they did. And he said, there's this one time where they got stuck, and it was getting dark, and they said, well, at this point, we should just kind of walk back and hitchhike and maybe, you know, get another one of Doug's cars in a chain to haul it out tomorrow. they were walking back, and they hitchhike these two girls pick them up. And they were like, hey, you know, you want to swing by and we'll get you a case of beer. And Dane goes, you know, I did not drink beer, but I did that night. And apparently they had a very fun night after that.

And just, you know, these, just what was life like back then? What were they doing while they were making games and then afterwards, just kind of adding context to that era and the culture back then? So, you know, going back and replaying these games, are there any that you thought hold up particularly well or some that you were just like, this is not a game that is aged well? You mentioned Sundog had a really questionable user interface, but like, I'm curious to know if there's anything that really stuck out in your mind is like, man, this is amazing even in 2015, 2016. I had as much fun playing Prince of Persia then as I did as a kid on PC and Mac. I mean, again, like, the only real difference was, you know, of course, the Apple 2 version and they used fewer colors. Other than that, that game is still so fun. But I thought the games that held up the best were the ones that weren't that you wouldn't think of as games, namely the edutainment games.

Math Blaster, I loved as a kid, and I still enjoy. But that one, you know, the veneer of game is very thin on that one because you're launching a dude out of a canon at answers to. to little math equations. But you take a game like Where in the World is Carmen San Diego or the Oregon Trail, and you really at times forget that, you know, hey, this is probably helping fourth grade me cram for a history test. Those games are just so fun. They hold up today very well.

And then on the flip side, anything that you're just like, nah? I had a lot of trouble going back and playing most RPG. geez, you know, wizardry in Ultima, I still enjoyed them, but they didn't really stick. Also, the Bard's Tale,

because those games are fun, but they're just, they're slower, they're clunkier. I'm not really a graphics guy. I can overlook, you know, aged graphics,

but I think that, you know, mechanically, and in terms of UI, that genre in particular has advanced so well. So those were cases where,

I loved those games as kids, and I can still appreciate their ideas, but I found it hard to go back to them. Yeah, I tend to agree. Like, I really wish I had experienced wizardry back in the day because it turns out I really like dungeon crawling, but, man, I can't really see myself subjecting myself to the original wizardry tetralogy, especially the fourth game, which is really infamous for being deliberately just like screw you up. Yeah, yeah. That one, wizardry is one that I only kind of glanced at as a kid, and so I bounced off of that one pretty hard, but I, you know, I really appreciated the lineage that it kind of started. Ultimate games were a little bit easier, especially for the quest of the avatar, because I was really interested in how innovative the morality-based decision-making was in that game. That one kept me playing for a while just because I wanted to see all the ripple effects I could cause in the world and, and how. how the world changed. I thought that was a lot of fun. I guess I don't want to take up too much of your time, but do you have any sort of final thoughts on the book, on the Apple 2, things that

people should be looking out for if they read the book? Reasons people should pick up the book? I think that as far as reasons people should pick up the book. I mean, I've got plenty of those. I think the highlights are that I think if you're interested, if you enjoy classic games as you and I do, or if you remember these games as a kid, or, even if you're just interested in the industry's history or a fourth prong, if you just want stories of kind of these rags to riches, sometimes rags to rags tale, of innovation in the technology and game spaces, I think that you will really enjoy breakout because, you know,

again, I take great pains to write. Breakout is a story. There are source notes and an extensive bibliography, but every chapter does read as a story. So I think you could sit down and appreciate the book that way. But yeah, it's available today. Break out how the Apple II launched the PC Gaming Revolution and hardcover from Schiffer Publishing. And I'm really proud of the book.

I think it turned out very well. I always, you know, crossed my fingers. The hope is that each successive book turns out better than the last, at least in one way. And I think this one did. I'm really proud of especially the people I get to talk to, getting to help share or reshare their stories and find new angles on them was a tremendous round of fun, and I think people have fun reading it as well. Is there any particular reason you picked the name Breakout?

I mean, obviously, yes, that was a game on the Apple 2, but, you know, of all the titles you could have gone with, why that title specifically? Well, because one of the, the subtitle kind of gives context to that, how the Apple 2 launched the PC gaming revolution. This was when the Apple 2 was when PC gaming really broke out onto the scene. And not just in terms of games. A common theme that everyone I talked to was that they gravitated to the Apple II versus competing PCs of the day, such as the Commodore Pet, the Tandy T.R.S. 80 or the Trash 80, as the Broader Bund co-founders called it. Because you could pop the hood on the Apple II and you could expand it.

You could add a modem. You could add more memory. You could add cards for printers, hard drives, mice. There was so much you could do to the Apple II. And that really laid the groundwork for, you know, I'm platform agnostic. I love playing games on any platform. But I do favor the PC because I know that, oh, hey, if this game kind of chugs, I can pop the hood. I can slot a new graphics card or more RAM in there.

And I also found it interesting. And in the epilogue, I wrote that, you know, Steve Wozniak insisted to Steve Jobs, I have to add Bayes for people to upgrade their computer. That is very important to me as a hacker. Jobs kind of resisted. And you can see that dichotomy because when jobs, you know, led, for example, the Macintosh team, the Mac is a closed box. You really couldn't pop the hood and do much with it after that. And I just thought that was a very unique aspect of the story to kind of dig into and show that, hey, here are these Apple II games that not only influenced games that came after, but also the developers that came after and the hardware that came after as well. So, you know, break out, the Apple 2 breaking out and PC gaming breaking out onto the scene.

Right. So is this also available on, like, is it an e-book or, you know, a digital format or is it strictly print only at the moment? Right now it is strictly print only. And I'm working with the publisher to talk to that. They're just expanding their catalog to games or to books about a big gaming and more technology. and I'm kind of campaigning for e-books and audio books because I know that, you know, I mean, as you know, game players tend to have their finger on the pulse of technology. I love books. I'm surrounded by five bookcases stuffed right now, but I also do a lot of reading on Kindle.

I listen to audiobooks everywhere I go. I feel like our demographic is one that would appreciate the options. But, you know, one of Schiffer Publishing's kind of core themes, if you will, is they like to publish these really big, lavishly, get out hardcover books. So hopefully I can get them to consider e-books and audio books. Yeah, definitely if you're catering toward the tech audience, you kind of want to meet them on their home territory. Yes, exactly. So do you have another project in the works now? Do you have another book in the planning that you can talk about? Or is it all still, you know, kind of like wait and see how this goes? So many.

Let's see. I wrote a book about Shovel Night for Boss Fight books, which was in their recent Kickstarter, and that should be out next winter. Next spring, I have my next, another novel coming out, which is called Point of Fate, the sequel to Heritage, which is a young adult epic fantasy that I published, the Tyke Books Publishing Press in Canada, published in 2014. I also have news coming pretty soon about a stay-a-while and listen to, which we'll dig into Diablo 2, Starcraft, Warcraft 3, and wow.

So a lot of irons in the fire right now. Yeah, but things that our audience would probably be interested in, especially the blizzard stuff. Yes, very much. All right. Well, thanks, David, for your time. And good luck with the book. I hope it does well for you. Thank you very much for having me on.

This is a lot of fun. I've been looking forward to it. No, I mean, your book, you know, getting the advanced version of that and reading through it was a huge help for us. when, or for me, when I put together our Apple 2 episode of Retronauts a few months back. So I kind of, you know, peaked ahead in the syllabus, I guess. But, yeah, it's a great book and lots of really, really, really valuable original research and anecdotes and interviews. So definitely one that I would recommend people check out. I'm not getting any money from that endorsement.

I just think it's a great book that everyone who is interested in video game history should read. Thank you very much. I appreciate that. Thanks again for your time. Hi, my name's Ken, and I own Good Start packaging in Bedford, New Hampshire. With my Spark Cash Card from Capital One, I earned unlimited 2% cashback on all my business purchases, and last year, that added up to $36,000 in cashback. That's right, $36,000.

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The cops like Brian don't shy away from it. It's the very foundation of who they are and what they do. The robbery suspect in a man, police, they acted as his lookout, have been charged with murder. Donahue.