Softkey Publishing's magazines', Hardcore Computing, Hardcore Computist, and Computist, are available for free from The Computist Project Website, either as PDF's or by request via free DVD. In addition, the PDF's have recently been re-cropped, color corrected, and OCR'd so they can be fully searched. Definitely check out this valuable community service to Apple II-series enthusiasts and software hackers in general. As a nice bonus, this project has even been blessed by the original publishing company! Check out the Website here. I know my free DVD is already on its way (thanks, Mike)!

A2 News and Notes December, 2006

INDEX
* Don't Try This At Home!
* Letting Your Fingers Walk
* Software Source
* Apple Internet
* Up For A Challenge?
* Software News
* SignOff

-- Remember in school how fascinating it was to look at those "visible
people" cutaways of the human body, and what things looked like inside
you? Well, if you happen to have access to a high-powered x-ray machine

It may not be immediately clear what the XGameStation team offers, but they've been creating tremendous proprietary kit systems for a few years now that help interested hobbyists learn game hardware ins-and-outs and programming ins-and-outs from the ground up. Obviously this hearkens back to the old days when we really knew the architectures of our old 8-bit systems and could really maximize their performance if we were so inclined (and talented). Definitely check these folks and their many offerings out.

XGS Pico Edition 2.0 kit partsOur friends over at XGameStation have updated their product line with two new additions. Unfamiliar with the XGameStation concept? The product description for the new XGS Pico Edition 2.0 sums it up best:

"The XGameStation Pico Edition 2.0 is based on the technologies of its bigger brother the XGameStation Micro Edition. However, the Pico Edition is a more simplified unit that you assemble yourself! The XGS Pico Edition 2.0 comes with both the XGS Pico Edition 1.0 solderless breadboard and parts as well as the Pico PCB Add-On Kit, so it's two kits in one! After you build the solderless breadboard version then you can solder your unit together and have a completely portable embedded game system that you can re-program."

The full release:

Once a Cheater...: Oh, Pooh...When I was but a whippersnapper, playing bootlegged games on my dad's Commodore Amiga computer, the choice seemed obvious. If I could play the game with a "trainer," I did so. A "trainer" was a little piece of code, inserted into many cracked distributions of games, that allowed you to play through a game with infinite lives, invulnerability, or some other such option that would let you blaze through the game without fear of a premature "game over." I doubt I could have ever beaten games like Turrican and Blood Money without one of these trainers. The games were brutally difficult, and, besides, the appeal of these games (for me, at least) wasn't so much about developing lightning-fast reflexes as savoring the amazing graphics. It was also exhilerating just to deal massive amounts of carnage. The trainers seemed to eliminate the frustration and lower the bar to the point where an average kid could get all the way through some of the most difficult games of the era.