alt.hn

2/23/2026 at 8:53:36 PM

The challenges of porting Shufflepuck Cafe to the 8 bits Apple II

 https://www.colino.net/wordpress/archives/2026/02/23/the-challenges-of-porting-shufflepuck-cafe-to-the-8-bits-apple-ii/

by homarp

2/23/2026 at 10:45:51 PM

I have nothing smart to say, but it's one of those games I played as a kid and I feel nostalgic seeing its title pop up here more than 3 decades later. For some reason, somewhat boring seeming games were among my favorites.

I'm still proud of figuring out that one of the hardest players had a tell that let you predict which corner he was going to target, thereby making him easy to defeat (that was on the Amiga version, I'm not sure if it was universal).

by strangegecko

2/24/2026 at 5:02:07 AM

My aunt had a Macintosh with this game and we used to play for hours. I still vividly remember because it was one of the first "computer" games I'd ever seen with sound

by TripleFFF

2/24/2026 at 3:50:11 AM

Yes I remember playing it on an old Mac in the late 1990s - Lemmings was also an option but Shufflepuck was still appealing.

by jamesfinlayson

2/24/2026 at 7:30:22 AM

Yes, Princess Bejin's telekinesis sound effect is different depending on which side she'll serve, which helps a lot. This is universal as far as I know.

by colinlm

2/24/2026 at 5:54:09 PM

The tell I remember was for Biff

by strangegecko

2/23/2026 at 10:57:29 PM

Shufflepuck Cafe got easier with the introduction of optical mice, ironically. A large part of the difficulty was your dirty ball mouse not dealing with rapid changes in direction well.

(The Amiga port is really good. It's slightly ironic that the official OS X port is now unplayable, but earlier Amiga and Mac versions still play just fine under emulation.)

by LeoPanthera

2/23/2026 at 10:48:57 PM

While I enjoyed writing assembly on the 6502 Apple II back then, I would hate doing it today, 42 years later.

Good job, though! Hard to comprehend how limited the hardware was back then, and how much cleverness it took to get things to work.

by coldcode

2/24/2026 at 3:32:40 AM

Just dig out your Beagle Bros book.

by Terretta

2/24/2026 at 6:37:13 AM

Beagle Bros were absolutely Apple ][ wizards.

by blooalien

2/23/2026 at 9:08:31 PM

and https://gamesfromtheblackhole.wordpress.com/2020/10/04/shuff... narrates the pleasure of playing Shufflepuck Cafe

by homarp

2/23/2026 at 10:24:46 PM

Fantastic article, this really sums it up nicely.

I remember playing a black and white version of ShufflePuck Cafe on a Mac LC3 around 1992 or so. Great game, still fascinated by how the exotic characters make the game far more engaging than Pong could ever be.

I think there was a guy, Biff, he was really tough, seemingly impossible to beat (for my 10 year old self, anyhow).

I miss those days!

by metadat

2/23/2026 at 10:09:30 PM

I was developing games on MSX/MSX2 about 40 years ago. It was already a fight with hardware resources, but the Apple II was an even stricter environment. Impressive work. Below is a quick comparison for those unfamiliar with the specs: Macintosh (1989): 16-40MHz 68000, 1-4MB RAM, hardware acceleration, QuickDraw, non-blocking sound Apple II (1979): 1MHz 6502, 64KB RAM, no hardware multiply/divide, race against CRT beam (4550 cycles), blocking sound only * 10-year age gap, 16-40x slower CPU, 16-64x less RAM

by tl2do

2/23/2026 at 10:44:31 PM

Shufflepuck Cafe ran on the original Macs, which were 8MHz and had between 128K and 512k of RAM. (I never had access to a 128K machine and don't know if Shufflepuck worked on those.) This is still an incredible achievement of course! But the types of Macs that ran at 16MHz with 1MB RAM were probably incompatible with the original Shufflepuck as it was coded with the original Mac screen resolution firmly embedded into the design.

by StilesCrisis

2/24/2026 at 8:24:03 AM

When implementing my version, I have noticed that the original Shufflepuck (with no anthropomorphized opponents) also did use the EOR trick on the player's paddle. Shufflepuck Cafe, on the other hand, draws it "cleanly". I suppose it was purely for performance too.

by colinlm

2/24/2026 at 11:56:26 AM

Fascinating, but no video of the multiplayer over serial?

by lloydatkinson

2/24/2026 at 8:01:27 AM

JSR $FDED !

by JSR_FDED