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The History of the Apple II as a Gaming Platform
Matt Barton writes "Gamasutra is running a feature on the venerable Apple II platform, which practically defined the early home computer industry and was home to many of the greatest games and developers of all time. The authors discuss the platform's lifespan and many iterations, struggles with illegal distribution, and legendary Apple II games such as Prince of Persia, John Madden Football, and Ultima. 'How big of a problem was piracy? Although several software authors claim that they stopped developing games because of rampant piracy and the subsequent loss of revenue, piracy did expose more computer owners to more games than they otherwise would have been -- this was at a time before ubiquitous demos made it easier to "try before you buy." Another benefit of this piracy is that much of the software archived today at online repositories are the cracked versions.'"
My first computer was an Apple IIc. I came from a lower middle class family and it was a sacrifice for my mother to buy the machine for me second-hand. She did it because she recognized my passion and wanted me to have the opportunity to pursue it. But there was no way my family could afford to buy any software, really, much less games at $50 a pop.
Over the course of a couple of years I "acquired" two disk files full of software, much of it games. I paid for blank disks out of money I earned mowing lawns and such. I also accumulated a stack of magazines mostly donated by a teacher who took an interest in my interest and whose husband had an Apple II and a couple subscriptions.
Long story short, I'm running two IT-based businesses today and I'm grateful for a mother that cared, a teacher (and her husband) that cared and "pirate" software. No one lost anything from my "piracy" because there was absolutely ZERO chance that I ever would have been able to buy any of the software or half of the magazines that I had available to me back then.
All of that combined has defined the life I now lead and today I both give away software under OSS licenses and willingly pay for any commercial software that I use.
I like how I can't play the Virtual Apple games on Safari.
Potato chips are a by-yourself food.