XtoF's Lair

An efficient random level generator running on the Apple II, with a modest 1MHz 6502 CPU, requires to carefully choose the algorithms and some programming tricks. This post details every step.

A photo gallery depicting the 2019 edition of the Retro Gaming Convention. Certainly one of the best retrogaming event in Europe.

How does an Apple II boot and run ProDOS, its OS? Everything is explained step by step, from the power-up to the loading of a program stored on mass storage.

Simulating a line of sight increases the sense of immersion and is a good addition to my Rogue-like game for the Apple II. Built around the Bresenham algorithm it is written in 6502 assembly language.

Writing a multiscrolling game on the Apple II would be next to impossible, due to the lack of dedicated hardware and the peculiarities of its HIRES graphics mode. But what about a tile engine that could be used for a RPG or any turn by turn game?

All PCs running MS-DOS were limited to 640K of Conventional Memory. This article explains the origin of this limit and all the strategies that were devised over the years to overcome it. Did Bill Gates really said that 640 KB ought to be enough for anybody?

I just acquired a mighty 486DX2 66 MHz! Enough to build a powerful gaming PC as it were 1993 all over again! This post is a presentation of the hardware, including some comparisons with other retro platforms of the day.

std::async is one of the many functions introduced by C++11 to take advantage of multithreaded hardware. But does it allow true asynchronous programming?

Most reviews of PC monitors will test their color accuracy. But they almost never measure their homogeneity. Yet, this is a critical piece of information.

A postmortem report about how I ported Conway's Game of Life to the Apple II. Comes with an online Apple II emulator to trye it.

The Apple II really lacks sound capaibilities. In this regard, it is even behing the infamous IBM PC! Adding some music and sound effects to my programs would be nice.

In 1977, the Apple II was the very first personal computer providing color graphics capabilities with its LORES and HIRES modes. This feat was achieved in a very clever, but peculiar way.