06/07/2014: Another Educational Journey Into Music Uncovered - Music Shapes

After the recent unearthing of previously unknown IIGS software Sound Discoveries, we've found another piece of IIGS specific educational software that allows you to play and experiment with sound and music - Music Shapes. This has been added to the archive by finding a demo version within Tony Diaz's collection, and it seems to allow you to play with the software but not allowing you to save your sonic creations. Also held within the archive however, is a disk image that's supposed to be the full version that's been cracked, but I've never been able to get it to work. Regardless, enjoy...and expect more content to come!

28/06/2014: Gertrude's Secrets v1.3 3.5" Disk Image Archived

Thanks to Stavros Karatsoridis, who recently spotted I added an archive for Gertrude's Secrets, but no 3.5" disk image, we've been able to fill the gap with v1.3 of the educational classic. There is definitely v1.4, which is hard drive installable and ProDOS friendly however, so if anyone has that, that too will be added to the archive.

22/06/2014: Buckets of New Content

We've got a bevy of miscellaneous updates - let's roll them out...

Michael Shopshin's been able to provide a disk image of Bank Street Writer Plus on 3.5" disk and Antoine's been able to provide a scan of the box for it - anyone have any word processing documents you need to view again with this 8-bit app, that includes a dictionary and thesaurus?

Another rare and odd find is some accountancy software - DAC Easy Accounting. I couldn't get too far with trialling the program, but it's there none-the-less for anyone wanting to have a go with this 8-bit application on 3.5" disk.

There's a whole bunch of box scans recently acquired. Antoine's provided Stickybear Math 2, Punctuation Rules (both with the manuals as well!), and Writer Rabbit. François Michaud has been able to provide scans for Math Rabbit and Gertrude's Secrets, for which I've added an archive for given that it was officially released on 3.5" disk (for which we still need a working disk image).

Antoine's also been able to provide the box scan and manual for the IIGS specific educational software All About America.

Always helping out, Antoine's also been able to provide manuals for Designasaurus, First Shapes, 4th & Inches Team Construction Kit, Blackjack Academy and Street Sports Soccer (just in time for the world cup!).

09/06/2014: Sound Discoveries – A Discovery in itself!

Even after all this time, we're still finding IIGS software that's never been archived.

A little while ago (yes, I'm still catching up with posting IIGS software and documentation submissions) Antoine Vignau was the winning bidder to Sound Discoveries -  a bit of an oddity that I had NEVER heard of before (I'll double check the Apple IIGS Buyers Guide, mail order catalogues and software reviews in A+, InCider, A+/InCider, Nibble, etc to see if it was ever mentioned anywhere).

But it's a great addition to educational software on the IIGS - quite unique and different from anything else made in that category.

Much thanks goes to Antoine again not only for purchasing the software from eBay, but then making a complete archive including disk images, cover scan and full documentation available for everyone to enjoy.

31/05/2014: Author of the book Iconic, the Photographed Visual History of Apple Products, Personally Drops Off a Copy

Last Monday, I had the rare pleasure of Jonathan Zufi visiting my abode (luckily it's on one of the days I work from home) and personally deliver a copy of his book 'Iconic', the 'Photographic Tribute to Apple Innovation'. Jonathan started his quest to photograph every product back in 2009 and started the Shrine of Apple site to share his collection of products photographed.

Luckily we both had time to chat and shared stories of our collecting obsessions and our mutual love of Apple products. I was able to show off fairly modest collecton - my prized Apple IIGS, my G4 iMac, strawberry iMac G3 (both of which were recent acquisitions) my 9 classic form factor Macs making nice bookends in my shelves, the collection of boxed Apple II and Macintosh software, and the few other more 'recent' Macs (A blueberry iMac G3 and, a couple of blue and white G3s and quite possibly the rarest of my collection, the black all in one Performa from 1997.

I was especially pleased that Jonathan told me he looked around for inspiration on books on Apple and came across my desire to create a coffee table book around Apple. I can only hope I had some influence; meeting Jonathan and seeing the results of his hard work in Iconic has made me want to double my efforts. Yes, the work is still continuing on visual history of the Apple IIGS. I'm still discovering all sorts of new information and content to include in the book – it WILL be worth the wait!

18/05/2014: Jack Nicklaus Greatest 18 Holes of Major Championship Golf - All Course Disks Now Available!

Who'd have thought that finding serveral complete golf courses, each with 18 holes, would be a hard thing to locate?

It is when it's for the IIGS, and Antoine Vignau, the shyest man in the Apple II community, has done the admirable job of finding each of the additional official Accolade course disks for Jack Nicklaus' Greatest 18 Holes of Major Championship Golf, adding to my original archive of the Courses of 1989, so we now finally have them all disk imaged, packaging and disk labels scanned as well as the complete documentation (updated the following day after this article was originally written).

Accolade did a great job extending the playability of its IIGS titles, so you'll be enjoying a lot more golf on the IIGS than ever before with not only Jack Nicklaus, but also the earlier Mean 18 release, as well as enjoying a lot more diverse driving with Test Drive II, which featured a load of additional content that's archived on this site as well.

11/05/2014: More Manuals for Hardware and Software!

Andrew Roughan has been able to scan a whole bunch of rare manuals and submit them to the site. We've got new documentation for hardware OctoRAM and the Supersonic Stereo Card and Digitiser, as well as the manual to educational program MathTalk, TypeWest True Type fonts, and last but not least, the assembler Merlin 16+.

David Wilson has also chipped in with manuals for the Cirtech SCSI Interface Card and the InSyder Controller Card. Thanks guys!

Now, I've created a new archive for TypeWest, removing it from the Pointless archive. In the process, I've updated the Pointless archive to now allow you to download the 2image archive for the software. I've also updated the archives for Harmonie, InWords, TypeSet and Ultima I to now allow you to download the 2image disk archives given it's been over 4 years now since Joe Kohn, the rights holder for this software, passed away. No one else has arranged licensing for these wares since, so let's call them Abandonware until someone secures the rights for them. They'll circulate around the Net in the meantime from this site, which is as good as any means to ensure these titles won't be lost forever.

27/04/2014: Shufflepuck Cafe Now ROM03 Compatible!

Antoine and Olivier have done it again! The boys of Brutal Deluxe have been able to patch the unreleased IIGS version of Shufflepuck Cafe to enable it to work on ROM03 machines! Hooray! Download the invidividual .zip from the game's archive page.

I've also updated the Sports and Unreleased Games 32 meg ProDOS volume where the game resides. To make it fit, I had to move ALL the text documentation I have for games (including cracks, hard drive installs, cheats, walkthroughs, maps, etc) to the Games with Paths Modifications volume, which seems more appropriate there anyway, given I've used a lot of those text files to make those games run from this 32 meg ProDOS volume.

Enjoy!

26/04/2014: 8-Bit 3.5" Disk Additions: Neuromancer, Death Sword, SSi Collection 1

Joo Jun emailed me to say he'd found some additional 8-bit games on 3.5" disk: Neuromancer, Death Sword (otherwise known as Barbarian in Europe) and a homebrew collection of some classic Strategic Simulations Inc. games rolled onto a single 800k volume. Nice to see some more unexpected additions to this category of games, making play easier on a IIc+, IIGS or any other Apple II equipped with a 3.5" disk drive. Be sure to read each archives' notes for more information about each game, but between all three, another nice addition is that they seem to work from ANY large ProDOS volume as well!

In addition to these new archives, Brian Picchi has submitted a scan for Clue Master Detective for this category as well. In preparing this archive, I've accidentally stumbled upon the manual, as scanned by Arnaud Brossard when we swapped the content of our archives some years ago. Hooray!

Also, we now at last have a truely 8-bit friendly version of Rampage on 3.5" disk - I was inundated with new copies of the game to replace the IIGS only crack by the French United Cracker's Klan, by Rob, Antoine and another copy I found at Tony Diaz's. Either way, you'll quite happily play this game on a IIc+ or any other Apple II equipped with a 3.5" disk drive.

Thanks Joo Jun, Brian, Rob, Antoine, Tony and Arnaud!

24/04/2014: How Many Apple IIGS Went into Production? You Can Help Find Out the Answer!

Apple kept sales of their machines fairly close to their chest in the 80s, at least with the Apple IIGS - although it's been said the IIGS outsold the Mac in its first year of production, I've never found where that claim comes from. If we wanted to talk hard numbers of just how many IIGS machines were made from 1986 to 1993, we're just as in the dark.

Antoine and Olivier of Brutal Deluxe are trying to make an educated guess at an estimate by looking at the serial numbers of IIGS models from as many people as possible. The more people submit the serials numbers from the bottom of the cases of their IIGS specimens, the more accurate Antoine can determine how many IIGS were sold overall and by what year.

The serial number of each IIGS can be broken down like this:

E : Factory code (E=Singapore, CK=Cork Ireland, ...)
7 : Year of production (7=1987, 8=1988, 9=1989, 0=1990, 1=1991...)
49 : Week number (01-52)
YJA : current # / based on units built this week
A2S6000 : Apple IIgs code

See how are favourite French duo are fairing with their current list of serial numbers. Be sure to check out all the spreadsheet tabs on Google Docs at the bottom of the page.

This is the current estimate of the total number of IIGS produced.

You can help come up with a more accurate estimate by emailing your IIGS serial numbers to (spam filter following) sn at brutaldeluxe dot fr.