Jan. 3, 1981

"In this letter you will see that we talked about putting the Apple 1 in EPROM and the spaces in basic and if we could and how to use them."

Larry Nelson
514 S. Adams
Marion, In 46952
Jan 3, 1981
Dear Joe,
They say "Three is a charm" and this is the
third time I've started a letter to you, so maybe
I'll get to finish it this time.
Still no keyboard. Met a fellow who
says he has a spare he'll let me have, but
he hasn't come through yet.
The INKEY function could be put in
code. The problem is that I've used some of
BASIC empty spots, and now I'm not sure
which places I've filled (HIMEM=and LOMEM=
changes, and that routine to randomize).
I goofed and didn't save a hard copy of
the changes. (I make up for my stupidity with
ineptness!)
In the original Apple BASIC, there are
several areas we could put "fixes":
E61C thru E622 = 710 Bytes
E98D " E997 = 1110 Bytes
EE3E " EE67 = 3710 Bytes (PLOT, COLOR=, OFF commands)
EEA6 thru EECA = 3710 Bytes (HLIN, COLOR, Value of HIMEM and
LOMEM
(don't work)
plus another 34 bytes strung over the 4K program in
banks of 6 or less.

Apple BASIC does not modify itself, so
it is ROMable. Programs would rut at the same
speed, since the APPLE cycle time is about 980 NS,
since it uses a clock of 1.023 MHz. Dynamic
roms need a refresh cycyle crowded into the clock
once ina while, which probably explains why
they have to be faster on access.
Until I get the Apple up, I can't do
much on Adventure game, except work out
arrays, flow charts, etc. Called A-BOMB.
A berserk ambassador has armed an atomic
bomb in his embassy. Your assignment, if you
accept it, is to search the building, find and
disarm the bomb before it blows the city
(and you) off the map. It'll be written in BASIC,
with a lot of the data accessed via PEEK and
POKE. Conserves memory and keeps hackers from
listing the traps, lagards, and solutions. I'll have
60 to 70 verbs and nouns (should be a sizeable
vocabulary). Random outcome of the game will
prevent you from winning one time and "Breaking
the code". I've played some of these games that have
only one solution. Once you win, you can always
win, and there's no thrill in playing it again.
I have no idea how much memory I'll need,
but I guess I'll find that out when I start writing
it.
Better get this in the mail, now.

Larry