Rebuilding James Bond's Apple IIc - A Software Forgery
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Published 2020-04-23
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Download a disk image for your Apple II or access the code on Github: github.com/MaxPiantoni/View-To-A-Kill
Apple II Software I Used:
- Apple Mechanic for creating shape tables
- MousePaint for adding the text to the map
- Copy II Plus for moving files between disks etc
- The boot disk uses DOS 3.3
- I also looked at but didn’t use a bit of other Apple II software while I was deciding what to do about text on the HGR screen. Including The AppleSoft toolkit font thing (I think called animatrix), Fontrix, Beagle Graphics, some other beagle font tools, etc
Mac Software I Used:
- Visual Studio Code to write the code
- Virtual II as the emulator, I also created the disk images in virtual II and imported files (using its ability to mount a folder as a disk). Once the files were imported I moved them around using Copy II Plus.
- Affinity Designer for drawing the coastline for the map (not the label text though). I also figured out the best way to draw my circles in Affinity before plotting the manually in Apple Mechanic. My first pass at freestyle plotted circles were charming but wonky.
- Buckshot for converting the coastline drawing to HGR data
- ADT Pro to send the disk image to my Apple IIc and write it to 5.25 floppy
All Comments (21)
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Download link: github.com/MaxPiantoni/View-To-A-Kill
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As someone who's always been amused by the film depictions of computers doing various things and who has always thought about how they had to get a programmer to make up something that looks "right" for a very specific scene, this absolutely tickled my fancy. Well done.
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This is NOT a waste of time. You never waste your time when you learn something. Congratulations for that funny program.
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Came here from Daring Fireball - as someone who spent a while using Apple IIs, I really enjoyed this.
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Dude, that's awesome! You've inspired me to tool around with my own pet project idea. No one asked you to do this but we're glad you did. Wouldn't that be incredible if the original programmer saw this. Cheers!
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Fascinating. I bought an Apple 2c from John Lewis in London in late 1984 to use as my business machine. As well as the monitor, I had a second disk drive, and an Imagewriter printer. The software was AppleWorks. About a year later I bought a modem and subscription to Prestel. This was a precursor to the Web, providing text based information pages via dial-up. I was a freelance video editor, and was getting work in Europe and had set-up and account with a travel agent. They had some flight information pages on Prestel, so when I got a request, I could look up flights and book them over the phone. In the mid-1980w, this was a huge thing to be able to do. AppleWorks was a pretty powerful package. I used it for all my business documents, and the spreadsheet could invoices and quotes. The 2c remained my business machine till I got a Macintosh in the early 90s. I also had a Telex machine, so my office was pretty cutting edge! I had a go at Apple Basic, but at the time I also had a BBC Micro B with BBC Basic which I had got quite good at. This project was a lot of work, but the end result is cool. Unfortunately my 2c failed sometime in the early 2000s, and I no longer have it.
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I work with a number of 20-something programmers all day (I'm 56). They have no clue about the history of their profession. This is an awesome example of the hoops we used to have to jump through that were limitations of the platform. Worrying about clock cycles and refresh times. Loved the trip down memory lane!
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Kudos for going down this particular route of history and recreating the IIc’s big screen moment! That scene from my favorite Bond movie made quite an impression.
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From one coder to another, well done!
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I applaud you for this effort! I was in high school at the time "A View to a Kill" came out, and I had an Apple //c, just like Stacy's. I was so excited to see my computer in a James Bond movie! I remember thinking at the time, "How did they do that?" I certainly didn't have your skill at forging the software, and I am delighted to finally see my question answered, so many years later! Thank you.
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Just found this and downloaded it. Ran it on my iie. Later in the day heard that Tanya Roberts (Stacy) died. RIP
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Brilliant, 007... Absolutely Brilliant !
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I was asking for it, but I didn't know it yet. It's a great demo. I love it. I think you could get the beep beep sound to work too.
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Discovered via Daring Fireball. Thank you for this, great work!
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I watched this video to the end. Thank you for it.
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Not an apple guy but really enjoyed the way you explained and progressed through the project. Well done.
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I love living in the nerdy intersection of this particular Venn diagram of interests!
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This gives me an energy boost today to keep pushing forward on my own development project which nobody asked for and is a waste of time (but which is teaching me a whole lot about Pico-8 development). Great video!
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This is pretty cool! It's nice to see this older programming :)
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Great job! Not only did I watch your video, I've watched it a couple times and downloaded your disk image. It's hardly a waste of time. P.S. Love your little idea of the monitor on your //c. I did the same thing, even painted it white, put a little Apple logo, and screwed it to a little 3d printed block that lays in the void the handle leaves when it's proped up. This computer series is an icon, and it deserves the attention it gets in movies, YouTube videos and even new hardware and software even now, decades after it's been discontinued. Apple // Forever!
