Uploaded February 2017 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
I haven't seen an Apple //e running the original Space Quest series online, so I did this. I just play to the point where I die (i.e. the root monster) to give an idea of what the game is like. This is a direct capture from my Australian PAL revision //e.
Interference on the microphone was pretty bad from the CRT so I noise reduced it as much as I could and compressed it a little. The vertical lines of interference aren't visible on the CRT. I expect they're caused by bus noise in the II aliasing against the sample rate of the capture card.
Here are some differences I noticed from the PC version:
It runs much slower when there are more than one moving objects on the screen (it's a 1MHz 65C02, give it a break)
The speaker is CPU driven so when there are sound effects the whole game stops.
Some of the graphics around the border seem to be cut off.
Other than that it's an early version of Space Quest II. Later versions are more common on the PC so there are some differences in the game itself, such as when Roger is in the shuttle being taken away from the asteroid fortress.
To get this game running, you will need to run Bag of Tricks on your Apple (after you've written the eight sides of the game to disks) and run the Init program. Make sure the option is set to preserve data, change the label of the first disk, front side to 001, back side to 002, disk 2 front to 003, back to 004 etc., writing changes to each disk.
I haven't seen an Apple //e running the original Space Quest series online, so I did this. I just play to the point where I die (i.e. the root monster) to give an idea of what the game is like. This is a direct capture from my Australian PAL revision //e.
Interference on the microphone was pretty bad from the CRT so I noise reduced it as much as I could and compressed it a little. The vertical lines of interference aren't visible on the CRT. I expect they're caused by bus noise in the II aliasing against the sample rate of the capture card.
Here are some differences I noticed from the PC version:
It runs much slower when there are more than one moving objects on the screen (it's a 1MHz 65C02, give it a break)
The speaker is CPU driven so when there are sound effects the whole game stops.
Some of the graphics around the border seem to be cut off.
Other than that it's an early version of Space Quest II. Later versions are more common on the PC so there are some differences in the game itself, such as when Roger is in the shuttle being taken away from the asteroid fortress.
To get this game running, you will need to run Bag of Tricks on your Apple (after you've written the eight sides of the game to disks) and run the Init program. Make sure the option is set to preserve data, change the label of the first disk, front side to 001, back side to 002, disk 2 front to 003, back to 004 etc., writing changes to each disk.
