Revisiting the 80s: Apple II Games
Posted by Tamar Weinberg on December 19th, 2006
And now for something completely different.
I grew up on an Apple IIgs. I must have been six or seven years old when my father bought it for our family. I remember spending my computer time learning how to use a mouse with some pretty addictive games — and then there was Bolo.
The Apple IIgs days were pretty exciting, but they didn’t leave a lasting impression on me. For about 18 years, I completely forgot about what I did on the Apple II (and my favorite game Bolo, including the title of the game) until the game screen flashed into my head this past weekend. I was determined to find that game to relive my childhood.
My efforts asking peers were fruitless. Not many people were using computers at all in the 80s. The revolution began in the 90s when computers were deemed to be useful tools for every home.
I searched and searched, and thanks to Webomatica, I found out the name of the game and took it from there. I can’t believe there are emulators for this — but I guess there’s nothing to do now that the Apple II has been replaced by bigger, better, and more powerful machines.
I’m happy to say that I’ve been successful in getting AppleWin and the old version of Bolo on my computer and still subconsciously knew how to play the game. Man, that was addictive.
I’m curious to know how many others among us, if any, may have had one of those games that you couldn’t pass up when you moved to bigger and better equipment. I’m not a gamer, but this was one of those puzzles that somehow made its way back into my consciousness, which must mean that it did make an impression that was just waiting to be awakened. I’m happy I found it.
Tamar Weinberg is a social media enthusiast with a passion for all things tech and productivity. She provides consulting in internet marketing and blogs for numerous online publications, most notably Real Simple Magazine, Lateral Action, and Mashable. She is also a former Lifehacker and Search Engine Roundtable contributor. Tamar is also the author of 
December 19th, 2006 at 10:12 pm
hmm ,looks interesting ill have to take a look at that. my fav old school game was pong
December 19th, 2006 at 10:44 pm
Pong… ah yes, that classic. But it was so widely available that nobody can forget such a name. This one, however, was an incredible challenge that I spent days trying to go at!
Thanks again to Jason at Webomatica for his help.
May 21st, 2007 at 4:44 pm
Wow, and I thought I was the only one! I used to spend hours trying to crack the top levels of Bolo! I ended up motoring backwards at top speed firing as best I could at the drones. Mis-spent youth, or what?
May 21st, 2007 at 5:21 pm
I did the same thing, Julian. You’re not the only one. I think it’s impossible.
May 22nd, 2007 at 4:27 am
Don’t suppose you could send me the game file(s) so I can try and make it work with AppleWin too? Might impress the kids! (julianptechstuff@googlemail.com)
May 22nd, 2007 at 5:22 pm
Sent you email.
I don’t have it on this computer but you can search for it!
June 5th, 2007 at 1:55 am
I liked a game on the Apple II called Rescue Raiders. You dispatched tanks and troops and commanded everything with a helicopter.
August 27th, 2007 at 11:57 pm
I loved Bolo. At the top levels you travel full speed with gun pointed backwards or sideways to destroy the enemy fighters. You learn where the enemy fort is, and then you head straight toward it, at full speed with gun pointed forward, firing a couple shots at specific intervals followed by crashing your tank into the fort kamikaze style. Sometimes, this was the only way to destroy the enemy fort since the enemy fighters were so fast. Wish I had that game.
October 21st, 2007 at 10:42 pm
I used to play this game in junior high around 1983. We had a really cool math teacher that would sell us 5 1/4 inch double-sided floopies and let us play games during ‘off times’. I used to hang out and play games with my old buddy Sidney Vannoy.
I had looked for the name of this game in the past and was unable to find it. Thanks. Brings back old memories.
December 19th, 2007 at 12:38 am
I *loved* this game. I dug up the ROM but found the game hard to play in the AppleWin emulator. I actually bought an Apple ][ so I could play the game for real. Of course, I don’t have the original game disk nor a working joystick, so alas, I still haven’t recreated that early 80’s experienced. This is one of my favorite games of all time.
January 3rd, 2008 at 12:19 am
Bolo Came in COLOUR ????
i spent many many Many houres looking at the green screen. and Now you tell me. Time to unearth the ][e and the Five and a quarter disc.
Cheers,
Kilroy
January 4th, 2008 at 12:40 am
Nostalgia - I’ve been looking all over the web to locate Bolo program for the Apple IIe but no succes. My floppies have been trashed long ago - a shame. Can someone point me in the right direction?
January 4th, 2008 at 12:44 am
Philippe - use AppleWin and search online for bolo.dsk.gz. Then run AppleWin, open the disk image, and type BRUN. That should do it for you.
February 10th, 2008 at 10:20 am
Hi Tamar,
Would you be able to send me the emulator to play rescue raiders on my pc (Win Vista)? I love this game so much as it is my childhood game. Please help me to fulfill my dreams
Luv,
David
February 10th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
David, all the information I know is in this post. Google is at your disposal.
April 10th, 2008 at 3:16 pm
I cant believe that I’ve finally found a group of people who understand what bolo for the Apple II was all about. Every once in a while I would do a google search but keep ending up with references to the newer multi-player version, such a bummer! I thought knowledge of this was gone forever. Now I just need somebody to reprogram for PCs.
April 10th, 2008 at 3:17 pm
Ryan, I totally agree! This game rocked and it was almost impossible to find.
April 28th, 2008 at 6:11 pm
Hi, another Bolo fan here! I tried looking it up on Wikipedia but it directs to a different game by the same name. I agree with Jeffery Rankin — that’s exactly the way I eventually ended up playing. Very fast and fun, with the enemies at top speed, the turret turned ’round and the maze at a low level of density. It was great how adjustable it was. Does anyone know the names of the programmers?
May 3rd, 2008 at 6:33 pm
Ok this is awesome. i hope someone will read this. i just downloaded the applewin program but i cannot find the bolo game anywhere. im still looking though. my email is ladillon79@hotmail.com
someone email me and tell me….
July 29th, 2008 at 3:52 pm
Hey Bolo !!
Alltime high !
i´m form germany and i did play the game till i passed out
it was one of my the best games ever .. at level 5 you could still drive full speed and destroy anything moving ..
i agree with the other persons here .. on the highest level
you didnt had any other choice then hit the bunker 2 times and drive the tank into it to destroy it …
hmm.. i maybe have to look up my old GS and hardrive .. if its still running
The 5″ disks dont work for sure anymore ..
but i have still both .. my first computer , Apple II+
the IIGs , a IIe and a IIc
ahwell
when i was young .. and my life was a open *g*
cheers
SEan
July 29th, 2008 at 3:56 pm
uh
by the way .. the quadrat is a radar ..
it looks into the nearest bunker ..
and you have to drive vertical and when both quadrants of the quadrat are full you are having it locked vertical ..
then you only have to get horisontal to find it
and vice versa
Cheers
Sean
August 11th, 2008 at 10:53 am
montezuma’s revenge, floppy, bolo, alice in wonderland, super pitfall (the weird nes version)
January 14th, 2009 at 6:44 pm
Hey– I’m not that computer savy but I loved this game as a kid— How do I get in on my Mac? In the words of Michael Scott, explain it to me like I’m 5.
Thanks!
January 14th, 2009 at 6:49 pm
Ryan, sorry, I am not volunteering any additional information than what I provided in this post. Plus, I don’t have a Mac so I have nothing to offer you.
I already explained how to get Bolo for the PC here. (And Alexander Reid, maybe you should’ve read that instead of spamming me and my friends.)
February 10th, 2009 at 4:32 am
As far as I know, it is possible to win at the highest level of the game. It’s hard to do, though - deliberately so. Most computer games of the time were easy enough that players would get tired of them fairly quickly. Bolo was designed to be challenging even for very practiced players.
There was a minor extra built in to the game. If you did manage to win at the highest level, something happened on the screen. It wasn’t major; just enough that knowing about would prove that you actually had won, at least until word got out.
James Lane
Author of the Apple ][ game, “Bolo”
February 10th, 2009 at 8:47 am
James, that’s awesome - thanks for contributing to the comments here. And that’s so cool! I guess I’ll be compelled to try to beat the game now!
April 28th, 2009 at 5:53 pm
I remember taking one sided floppy discs and cutting a notch so to make it a two sided floppy which could hold the BOLO game.I think maybe this was before Apple II(1984 -85)If anyone knows where to get the old original BOLO please post.BOLO was the best.Thanks
May 2nd, 2009 at 12:52 pm
Finally I found what I was looking for! bolo! But i’m having problems. I downloaded applewin. I downloaded bolo.dsk.gz on my desktop. I opened ‘disk image for drive 1′. I typed BRUN in the pop up where file name goes and nothing happens. I tried selecting BRUN.DSK thats in my folder and nothing happens. All help is greatly appreciated!
May 28th, 2009 at 5:37 am
Gerald: Yup, I remember cutting notches in floppies, too. But the first time I did that, they were 8″ floppies, not 5 1/4″
Re playing/winning at the highest difficulty levels: IIRC, there were 9 levels. I don’t think I ever won a game above level 6, and even that was rare. I figured that there would be players much more skilled than I was, and I hoped that the extra 3 levels might be enough to challenge even them.
If you have the original game, and particularly if you have access to at least a picture of an Apple ][ keyboard, take a look at the game controls. There were three sets: the joystick, a set of keys on the left side of the keyboard, and a set on the right side of the keyboard.
It was built that way to allow two simultaneous players; one as driver and another as gunner. Of course, it also supports three players, but I didn't have any idea how they could split up the workload.
Some Bolo trivia:
As far as I know, Bolo was the first published, commercial game that had a tie-in to a novel (or novels, in this case). Unfortunately, Keith Laumer refused to write a scenario description. My (now-ex) wife and I came up with it. To the relief of readers everywhere, I haven't had anything to do with any short-short story (or any other length story) since.
Bolo was inspired by a game I saw running as a demo on some now long-forgotten small computer. I think the demo was supposed to show off the machine's monochrome-only graphics. A friend and I started Bolo together, but he dropped out for various reasons (incl. moving out of state) early on.
Bolo had to be done in time for a holiday season deadline, but it still had a serious bug in the linked list code that handled the smartest tanks. It happens when a smartest-type tank crosses a cell boundary; probably only when that tank is at the end of the linked list. I was too tired (full time day job + part time game author) to fix it before the deadline. Finding it, fixing it, and publishing the fix would be a nice service someone could do for the handful of people who still remember the game.
Fame doesn't last :-). IIRC, Bolo tied ChopLifter for SoftTalk Magazine's #1 game of the year (1982?)
There are never more than 32 enemy tanks in the game. When the player gets close enough to a base (but still out of sight of the base), tanks that the player can't see are deleted so they can be generated to protect the base.
At one point a few years ago, I was thinking of doing some software development on PDA platforms, and a friend of mine suggested writing a PDA version of Bolo to learn the platform. I ended up putting my Copious Free Time(tm) into a different game (a 4X PC game called Stars! Supernova) instead.
James Lane
Author of the Apple ][ game, “Boloâ€
July 2nd, 2009 at 3:37 am
Bolo is great! There are a lot of great old Apple II games out there.
I used powerarchiver to unzip the .gz file then you load it into applewin and type brun bolo