Greetings Bard's Tale fans one and all! Can you believe it's October already? Time flies when you're having fun...

A few months back, we discussed how to run The Bard's Tale on a Commodore 64 emulator for your IBM computers. I hadn't played the C64 version since my C64 days (circa 1988), and what a treat it was again to see all those familiar graphics and sounds.

I had very little Bard's Tale experience on the Apple computers, but I still wanted to publish information about running The Bard's Tale on an Apple emulator. With my lack of apple knowledge, this project sat on the back burner - until September 21. 1999, when Daniel Wey from Brazil sent me an email asking, "Would you like some help to upgrade your Pentium II to an Apple II? :-)"

Thanks to Daniel, we have all the Apple emulator information in place! Whu Hoo! This month we'll focus on emulating the Apple IIe with the AppleWin emulator. This version of the game looks very much like the Commodore 64 version, but sounds a bit different. The Commodore version has a better system for playing rich sounding musical notes, but the Apple version of Bard's Tale 3 has quite a surprise in it for sound lovers! The game has a few digital sound effects in it that I had never heard before. For instance, when you're at the temple being healed, the priest's chants of healing come across loud and somewhat clear through your speakers! Amazing...

Step 1 - Download the AppleWin Emulator

AppleWin is a freeware Windows Apple IIe emulator written by Michael O'Brien. It is available at ftp://ftp.apple.asimov.net/pub/apple_II/emulators/applewin/AppleWin_95.zip. If this link doesn't work for you (like it doesn't for me), you can go to DOS and get it this way:


Once you have the AppleWin.Zip file, unzip its contents (15 files) into a folder of your choice, like "Apple" or something.

Step 2 - Download The Bard's Tale Apple II Disk Images

All the Apple versions of The Bard's Tale are available for download at The Adventurers' Guild. For our example, we'll emulate The Bard's Tale 1, Tales of the Unknown. Once at the Adventurers' Guild, click on "I: Tales of the Unknown", then on "Files", and lastly on "bt1-apple_ii.zip" under "The Bard's Tale for Apple ][ - 1985". Unzip the three disk images into your Apple folder. The files included in the Bard's Tale 1 Zip file are:

Apple Disk NamePC File
The Boot Diskbt1-boot.dsk
The Character Diskbt1-char.dsk
The Dungeon Diskbt1-dung.dsk

Step 3 - We have the files we need, so let's get playing!

When you start AppleWin, you'll notice this toolbar on your right. If you remember the Apple computers, you put in a boot disk, then boot up the computer to get your software to start. So, we stick in the Bard's Tale Boot Disk by pressing the Disk 1 (Master) button, and selecting "bt1-boot.dsk". Then, to reboot the Apple emulator, click on the Apple icon. Seconds later, the game will begin! Notice how much faster this comes up than the Commodore version.

One difference to note about this emulator, as opposed to the C64 emulator, is that this one does save to disk! Be careful however, because if you don't go back to the Guilds every time to save your game when you're done playing, the next time you start the game your gold will be gone! Pickpocketed by the rogue called "Interplay". So remember - go to the Guild, and save your game.


Apple IIe
A cool thing I like about the Apple version is the scrolling graphics found as you walk the city streets.

These graphics here are taken from a famous location in a famous city, moving one space foreward and then one space back.

Commodore 64

In future editions, we'll try to get an Apple IIgs emulator to run our all-time favorite game series. From what I've heard, the Apple IIgs and Amiga versions of The Bard's Tale are simply fantastic!

You can contact me at WebMaster@BardsTale.com. Until next month, farewell fellow Bard's Tale fans!
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