Bret's IIgs software

A full featured arcade-style fighting game that uses only text characters and runs on any Apple II. TextFighter supports many different fighting moves, can run extremely fast, and can be played against another person or against eight levels of intelligent computer-controlled opponents.

An uncompleted collaborative project with Russell Nielson which runs on any Apple II. It's a music editor for a popular music playing routine called Electric Duet. It supports both spreadsheet-style and staff editing, is easy to use, and has many features. The project was terminated before a few advanced features could be added, but is still quite functional. The alpha version was released as freeware.

My first IIgs project. A system software hack that randomly chooses a startup picture and a tagline, and displays them as the system is loading, instead of the bland "Welcome to the IIgs" message. The package includes over twenty cool startup pictures that I designed, and a collection of over 2000 taglines (funny or insightful "one-liners"). It's also very easy for the user to add to or change the pictures and taglines.

A collection of small freeware system extensions that I wrote partly out of boredom and partly to let people have a cool-looking system that's fun to use. I received a surprisingly large amount of positive feedback -- a lot of people wrote to tell me how much they enjoyed these silly little programs. Most people were kind enough to avoid commenting on the documentation, which sort of forms a bizzare chronicle of my depression. The series includes:

ShadyBar and Bender: Fades in the menubar and desktop so it looks cool and rounded. (Later merged into SlixTop).

Boinger: Every so often causes the apple in the menubar to drop to the bottom of the screen, make a "boing" sound, and bounce back up.

GravityMouse: Every so often causes the mouse pointer to start sliding down the screen, until the user chooses a menu option to "Restore zero gravity".

Horoscope: Gives a humorous (or serious), randomly generated "Mad Libs"-style horoscope on startup.

SlixLaunch: Upon double-clicking on a program to launch it, the screen zooms into the program icon and fades into a blank desktop. The most popular of the series.

A shareware program that allows the arrow keys to control the mouse pointer inside any program, and has other features to make mouse control more precise. Very useful when using paint programs. Also available for Windows.

Displays an info bar at the bottom of the screen in the Finder which automatically gives information on the file selected (eliminating the need to choose "Get File Info") and also calculates the total size for groups of files or folders. Published on Softdisk G-S issue #71.

A IIgs adaptation of a great, addictive game. It's similar to Tetris or Columns in that you drop pieces and make them go away, but it is specifically designed for two-player competition. My version provides both a one-player and a two-player mode, and two-player games can be insanely fun. Freeware.

Hides the menubar, thereby freeing up more screen space. When the mouse pointer is moved to the top of the screen, it displays the menubar and allows the user to choose from the menus without having to hold down the mouse button. Published on Softdisk G-S issue #76. Superseded by SlixTop.

A desk accessory that displays a piano keyboard, and allows the user to specify almost any chord. It shows which keys to use to play the chord, and will also actually play it so the user can hear what it sounds like. Published on Softdisk G-S (possibly issue #77).

A desk accessory that shows a periodic table of the elements, and allows the user to click on any element for more information on it. Published on Softdisk G-S (possibly issue #77).

My big summer project. An intense logic/action game with plenty of music, and cool graphics. Push and rotate mirrors to deflect laser beams. Open doors with "laser-locks", shoot power generators, and rescue the hostages before the time runs out, without frying yourself in the process. 100 levels of puzzles to solve, ranging from introductory to brain-boggling, along with passwords, different difficulty settings, and an original five song musical score. Rated four stars (the highest rating) by II Alive magazine!

Allows the user to move, scroll, and zoom windows in the Finder by using the keyboard. Published on Softdisk G-S issue #78.

A desk accessory that lets the user click anywhere on a map of the world and see what time it is there. Published on Softdisk G-S issue #78.

A hybrid of ShadyBar, Bender, and BarNone II. Shades the desktop and menubar so they look rounded, and provides a "hiding menubar", automatically adjusting shading and shadowing so it looks cool. You can see its effect in the screenshots of all the other programs. Published on Softdisk G-S issue #81.

A music program for the masses. This desk accessory provides a few cool rock beats (with drums, bass, and rhythm guitar) and allows the user to play a lead guitar on the keyboard. It is set up in such a way that the notes will always sound good together and will always be played right to the beat, so even if the user is randomly banging on the keyboard it still sounds really good. There are lots of features, as you can see in the screenshot. Published on Softdisk G-S issue #80.

A desk accessory for finding those special, non-keyboard characters such as the copyright symbol, the bullet, etc. The program will display a chart of all the characters if you want, but it is also much smarter. Press a key, and shows how to make all of the special characters that look somewhat like that key. Published on Softdisk G-S issue #80.

A desk accessory that quickly and easily changes the quotation marks in a block of text to curly quotes so it looks stylish and professional, or changes curly quotes to straight quotes for exporting to an ASCII file. Published on Softdisk G-S issue #80.

Allows the user to set up a list of most commonly used folders in the Finder. The user can then select PickQuick and click on the desired folder, and the folder's window will open up. Published on Softdisk G-S issue #79.

An educational game like no other. The player controls a guy on a flying surfboard whose job is to shoot flying hamburgers with math problems on them. The different levels include one and two digit addition and subtraction, multiplication, division, and mixed levels. Each level has four successively harder waves in which the burgers attack in different patterns. There are cool graphics and music, of course. Published on Softdisk G-S issue #79.

Allows the user to manipulate the operating system's directory pathname prefixes from within a desktop program. It basically helps desk accessories and the Finder work better together. Published on Softdisk G-S issue #79.

A desk accessory that allows a frustrated user to turn the mouse pointer into crosshairs and shoot big holes in the screen, complete with stereo gunshot sounds and an optional machine gun mode. Published on Softdisk G-S issue #79.

A desk accessory that lets the user convert quantities from one form of units to another. Almost all common units of length, area, capacity, weight, temperature, time, angle, and speed are available. Published on Softdisk G-S issue #79.

A two-purpose Finder extension: if a window's title is buried under other windows but some of the window is showing, the user can position the mouse over it and press a key to see what the name of the window is. Also, during a file copy, it brings up a box showing the source and destination directories. Published on Softdisk G-S issue #81.

A puzzle game where the player tries to reassemble the pieces to preserve the pattern, and might go crazy trying to do so. The computer divides up the board randomly, so it's a different game every time. Includes background music, a "cheat mode", and a cool animation if the player wins. Published on Softdisk G-S issue #81.

A game for two players. Jump on the sliding platforms, tunnel through bunny holes, and try to grab the carrots and get them back up to your home hole before your opponent knocks you off the screen. Great competitive fun, with cool background music too! Published on Softdisk G-S issue #82.

A shareware NDA extension to Copilot, which is an offline message reader for the Genie online service. If you receive internet spam-mail, SpamMaster will let you instantly and automatically send any (or all) of a variety of polite or impolite replies to the spammer, as well as a notice to the spammer's site administrators and postmaster.

A child-proof security extension which password-protects your computer. If your password is not entered, then the user gets restricted access to the computer, such as only being able to open designated files and programs. SlixSecurity is highly customizable, and unlike other child security programs, it works completely from within the Finder, so it's familiar and easy to set up. Shareware.

SoundSmith was arguably the most popular music creation program for the Apple IIgs, and countless songs were written with it. Most game and demo music was in SoundSmith format. Unfortunately, keeping your IIgs in the closet makes it difficult to listen to these songs. This program converts SoundSmith files into ScreamTracker 3 modules, which can be played by any modern MOD player (including Winamp), and even edited with several popular trackers. The converted files sound almost exactly like the originals, except for the higher sound quality that a modern player provides.

A Windows executable is provided, as well as the source code, which should compile anywhere. And because I know how frustrating it is to download a new program and not be able to play with it right away, I packaged up some of my old game music for you to deMODify.