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Prince of Persia Apple II source code released

Lost, but not forgotten, for 20 years, the source code for the very first Prince of Persia on the Apple II was released today by creator Jordan Mechner after his father found it on 3.5" floppies in a box in the back of a closet.
Alice O'Connor
3
Lost, but not forgotten, for 20 years, the source code for the very first Prince of Persia on the Apple II was released today by creator Jordan Mechner. The code was unknowingly discovered by his father on 3.5" floppy disks in a box at the back of a closet, and salvaged with the help of a huge amount of vintage hardware. Mechner was jubilant when a box of old games arrived in March from his dad, who also composed PoP's music, with the source code disks apparently amongst them. "I've been searching for [it], off and on, for the past ten years, pestering everyone from Doug Carlston to Danny Gorlin and everyone who ever worked at Broderbund, and finally gave up hope of ever finding [it]," he said. Decades-old disks can be volatile, though, so Mechner drafted expert help with specialised hardware to save them. It all went swimmingly, but you can follow it historically through the #popsource hashtag on Twitter. Should you fancy tinkering with the source, you can download it now from github.

The recovery setup

[Images from Jordan Mechner on Twitter.]
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  • Shacknews legacy 10 years legacy 20 years
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    April 17, 2012 7:00 AM

    Alice O'Connor posted a new article, Prince of Persia Apple II source code released.

    Lost, but not forgotten, for 20 years, the source code for the very first Prince of Persia on the Apple II was released today by creator Jordan Mechner after his father found it on 3.5" floppies in a box in the back of a closet.

    • Schnapple legacy 10 years legacy 20 years
      reply
      April 17, 2012 12:57 PM

      What I would like to know is, when Jordan Mechner looks at source code for modern game engines does he say "holy shit how did people figure this out?" or does he look at it and say "pfff... these guys have it so easy"

      Because when I look at this source code I'm pretty goddamn amazed anyone could figure this shit out back then.

      • RomSteady legacy 10 years mercury ludicrous
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        April 17, 2012 1:21 PM

        That's always the way it is when you're looking at shipping code.

        Once optimization starts, the readability of the code starts to suffer.

        That said, the code is better commented than I was expecting...given that I was expecting none.

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