Origin of the "TYPE LETTER TO RUN" classic HELLO program?

[Nick Westgate]

Hi guys.

There are many variants of this HELLO program.
Does anyone know the original or probable origin?

Someone asked the question here:
https://retrocomputing.stackexchange.com/questions/14206/where-did-the-levi-file-selector-runner-for-the-apple-ii-dos-3-3-come-from

But I've often wondered this too and would love to know the history.

Cheers,
Nick.

[D Finnigan]

If someone doesn't speak up with an authoritative answer, here's how I would
investigate this.

I would first check all DOS 3.1 and 3.2.x disks at hand and see if any of
them have this file selector.

I would also skim thru Call-APPLE, Apple Orchard, and any other magazines
from that time period. I would probably just scan the table of contents for
each issue.

--
]DF$
The New Apple II User's Guide:
https://macgui.com/newa2guide/

[D Finnigan]

D Finnigan wrote:
>
> I would first check all DOS 3.1 and 3.2.x disks at hand and see if any of
> them have this file selector.
>
> I would also skim thru Call-APPLE, Apple Orchard, and any other magazines
> from that time period. I would probably just scan the table of contents
> for
> each issue.
>

By the way, its widespread dispersal is suggestive of publication thru a
magazine, user's group newsletter or the like.

Or, it came from a single disk or small set of disks so common (such as a
DOS System Master) that nearly every Apple user had a copy, and thus more
copies were made and distributed, and the program trickled out to many more
disks.

[Steve Nickolas]

On Thu, 26 Mar 2020, D Finnigan wrote:

> D Finnigan wrote:
>>
>> I would first check all DOS 3.1 and 3.2.x disks at hand and see if any of
>> them have this file selector.
>>
>> I would also skim thru Call-APPLE, Apple Orchard, and any other magazines
>> from that time period. I would probably just scan the table of contents
>> for
>> each issue.
>>
>
> By the way, its widespread dispersal is suggestive of publication thru a
> magazine, user's group newsletter or the like.
>
> Or, it came from a single disk or small set of disks so common (such as a
> DOS System Master) that nearly every Apple user had a copy, and thus more
> copies were made and distributed, and the program trickled out to many more
> disks.
>
>

The one I've seen most was KEY-CAT, which was published by Beagle Bros in
two different versions, but that's not quite the same as this.

-uso.

[Nick Westgate]

All good ideas, thanks guys. I don't have a lot of time, but gambled on Nibble ...

I think I found an ancestor in the Nibble magazine [program index][1] from volume 2, number 7, 1981:

> Catsup Catalog Supervisor Weber, Chuck Express II, V2N7 1981

You can [run it online][2] or [download the disks in a zip archive][3]. (It's on NIB06.DSK.)

Screenshot in my answer here:
https://retrocomputing.stackexchange.com/a/14228/71

I wonder when the scrolling text got added.
I'll have a look at KEY-CAT later, thanks again!

Cheers,
Nick.

[Nick Westgate]

On Thursday, 26 March 2020 23:49:47 UTC+10, Steve Nickolas wrote:
> The one I've seen most was KEY-CAT, which was published by Beagle Bros in
> two different versions, but that's not quite the same as this.

Yes, KEY-CAT could be another possible ancestor as it was supposedly published in 1982 but has this comment with a 1981 copyright:

===========================
"KEY-CAT" CATALOG MENU-FIER
BY BERT KERSEY
(C) 1981 BEAGLE BROS.
LISTS UP TO 23 FILES
SELECTABLE BY ONE KEYPRESS.
===========================

Cheers,
Nick.

[fadden]

There's an answer up on https://retrocomputing.stackexchange.com/a/14240/56 that has a listing with:

560 REM ***APPLESOFT MENU***
570 REM BY LARRY L. FREEMAN
580 REM AND JAMES P. DAVIS
590 REM OF ABACUS...

Could it be our resident James Davis?

[Nick Westgate]

Well spotted! His middle name begins with P, so I sent him an email.

Cheers,
Nick.

[Bill Buckels]

"fadden" <thef...@gmail.com> wrote:
>Could it be our resident James Davis?

Possibly... you know him...

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/comp.sys.apple2/m66DduFQy64

James Davis has the initial "P" in his middle name... posted here in 2017:

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/comp.sys.apple2/K336Dk4vHQE/6Haf2vSfCQAJ

James Davis says he was a friend of Larry Freeman... posted in here in
2017...

Thread: "Extracting source from binaries a' la' Burger Becky";

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/comp.sys.apple2.programmer/QskjeuZTAmM/p1NbFOXWAAAJ

Further, James knows about ABACUS (Apple Bay Area Computer Users Society)

Thread: "Lowercase on older Apples"

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/comp.sys.apple2/K336Dk4vHQE/9mV3_tI3BwAJ

References to ABACUS:

https://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/c8668dz0/dsc/

https://www.wap.org/info/usergroupjournals.html

"Apple User Groups are sprouting everywhere, including Europe. If this keeps
up (and we're sure it will) there will be an Apple User Group in every
neighborhood."

CALIFORNIA-
ABACUS USERS GROUP
Byte Shop
Hayward, CA 94540
(415) 886-2980
3rd Thursday of Month

https://archive.org/stream/Apple_Contact_v5_HQ_color/Apple_Contact_v5_HQ_color_djvu.txt

Reference to James Davis and Larry Freeman Revised: 11/20/84... could this
also be him?

https://www.apple.asimov.net/documentation/hardware/misc/

"Using the Old Monitor with the Apple Language Card !.tip.txt"

Regards,

Bill

[Antoine Vignau]

It is pretty funny to discover what others did in their young lige.

For instance, each year at the Apple II Festival France, we have an attendee, kind, discreet, curious, and we like him a lot. For us, he is one of the numerous Apple II enthusiasts in France.

In fact, we discovered that he had bought an Apple II recently and was the writer of Zombi, the first game published by Ubisoft.

I like that world!
Antoine
ps. I hope you and yours are all ok

[James Davis]

Hi Guys and Gals,

Yes, I.I.R.C., Larry Freeman wrote it for the A.B.A.C.U.S. in Integer BASIC back in 1978 or 1979 around the time we first met at the Apple Bay Area Computer Users Society (Computer Club meeting monthly at Castro Valley High School, CA, USA). I converted it to Applesoft and made improvements to it. I probably still have the club newsletter it was published in, and it is on most of my floppy disks & A.B.A.C.U.S. D.O.M.s. Bert Kersey & Bill Sanders may have included it in Beagle Bros' "Big Tip Book" and/or on one of their diskettes too, B.K. claiming to be the Author, but he also changed it too.

Larry Freeman moved to Reynoldsburg, a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio, in 1981 or 1982. I lost touch with him after that. He worked for the Telephone company, Bell Labs or AT&T, back then. He was an Internal Communications Electrician (in the U.S. Navy) long before we ever met. If he is still living, you may be able to find him and get his take on all of this.

Yours Truly,

James Davis

[Steve Nickolas]

On Sun, 29 Mar 2020, James Davis wrote:

> Yes, I.I.R.C., Larry Freeman wrote it for the A.B.A.C.U.S. in Integer
> BASIC back in 1978 or 1979 around the time we first met at the Apple Bay
> Area Computer Users Society (Computer Club meeting monthly at Castro
> Valley High School, CA, USA). I converted it to Applesoft and made
> improvements to it. I probably still have the club newsletter it was
> published in, and it is on most of my floppy disks & A.B.A.C.U.S.
> D.O.M.s. Bert Kersey & Bill Sanders may have included it in Beagle
> Bros' "Big Tip Book" and/or on one of their diskettes too, B.K. claiming
> to be the Author, but he also changed it too.

So "Key-Cat" (which was on the Tip Disk 1 and DOS BOSS) is a descendant?

-uso.

[Nick Westgate]

On Sunday, 29 March 2020 18:36:56 UTC+10, James Davis wrote:
> Yes, I.I.R.C., Larry Freeman wrote it for the A.B.A.C.U.S. in Integer BASIC back in 1978 or 1979 around the time we first met at the Apple Bay Area Computer Users Society (Computer Club meeting monthly at Castro Valley High School, CA, USA). I converted it to Applesoft and made improvements to it. I probably still have the club newsletter it was published in, and it is on most of my floppy disks & A.B.A.C.U.S. D.O.M.s. Bert Kersey & Bill Sanders may have included it in Beagle Bros' "Big Tip Book" and/or on one of their diskettes too, B.K. claiming to be the Author, but he also changed it too.

Wow, so it goes back to 78? If you have any disk images or scans you could share that would be very interesting.

> Larry Freeman moved to Reynoldsburg, a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio, in 1981 or 1982. I lost touch with him after that. He worked for the Telephone company, Bell Labs or AT&T, back then. He was an Internal Communications Electrician (in the U.S. Navy) long before we ever met. If he is still living, you may be able to find him and get his take on all of this.

It looks like he might be on Facebook, so I've sent him a message.

So far we have 4 programs, some of which copy parts of each other's styles or functions, but the code for each is quite different. The source and a screenshot for each is in the zip archive linked here if anyone wants to have a look:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GuX_3nqR2kMwmhV1wX3WCw5LwhzyBBUG/view?usp=sharing

Cheers,
Nick.

[Steve Nickolas]

On Sun, 29 Mar 2020, Nick Westgate wrote:

> So far we have 4 programs, some of which copy parts of each other's
> styles or functions, but the code for each is quite different.

If mentioning Key-Cat, I actually wrote my own program of this ilk, which
I then ran through a cruncher to get this (you can't type it, I don't
think), which appears on some of my disks.

1 NORMAL:TEXT:HOME:PRINT:PRINT CHR$(4)"CATALOG":DIM A(24),B(24):FOR D=1 TO 24:A(D)=0:B(D)=0:NEXT D:C=0:FOR D=1 TO 24:A=SCRN(0,(D-1)*2)+16*SCRN(0,(D*2)-1):B=SCRN(1,(D-1)*2)+16*SCRN(1,(D*2)-1):IF (A=160 OR A=170) AND (B=ASC("A")+128 OR B=ASC("I")+128) THEN A(D)=1
2 IF (A=160 OR A=170) AND (B=ASC("B")+128) THEN A(D)=2
3 IF (A=160 OR A=170) AND (B=ASC("T")+128) THEN A(D)=3
4 IF A(D) THEN C=C+1:B(C)=D:VTAB D:HTAB 4:INVERSE:PRINT ":";CHR$(C+64);":";:NORMAL
5 NEXT D:VTAB 1:HTAB 1:INVERSE:PRINT " PRESS THE LETTER OF YOUR SELECTION ";:NORMAL
6 WAIT 49152,128:GET A$:IF A$="Z" THEN HOME:END
7 IF A$<"A" OR A$>CHR$(64+C) THEN 6
8 E=ASC(A$)-64:B$="":F=B(E):FOR D=7 TO 36:B$=B$+CHR$(SCRN(D,(F-1)*2)+16*SCRN(D,(F*2)-1)-128):NEXT D
9 IF RIGHT$(B$,1)=" " THEN B$=LEFT$(B$,LEN(B$)-1):GOTO 9
10 VTAB F:HTAB 8:INVERSE:PRINT B$:NORMAL:C$="RUN":IF A(F)=2 THEN C$="BRUN"
11 IF A(F)=3 THEN C$="EXEC"
12 PRINT:PRINT CHR$(4)C$;B$

Obviously it's not as good as these programs but in most cases it
suffices. I did call it "Mini Key-Cat" - and it has the same key to exit
- but there's no actual code connection, or at least should be none,
between it and the original.

-uso.

[I am Rob]

I don’t think I have ever seen a program selector written in Integer Basic. I would be interested in seeing that one.

[Nick Westgate]

On Sunday, 29 March 2020 22:42:31 UTC+10, Steve Nickolas wrote:
> So "Key-Cat" (which was on the Tip Disk 1 and DOS BOSS) is a descendant?

Hmm, I got it from Utility City, but the two disks you mention have slightly different versions! To be expected I suppose. I also found another completely different take on the genre on Beagle Bag. There are two menu programs on there, the fanciest being Beagle Menu, but it lacks one-key run. You have to use arrow keys to select, which is crazy! I might have to check all their disks.

In my mind Catsup looks like an (inspirational) ancestor of what the question author calls "Levi" because they share what I think is the crucial text and options: "TYPE LETTER TO RUN, OR LOAD=1 LOCK=2 UNLOCK=3 DELETE=4". Larry and James' Applesoft Menu has similar wording and options.

If Key-Cat was a descendant I would expect more options.

My guess is Levi's name was some kid doing INIT <NAME>!

Cheers,
Nick.

[James Davis]

On Sunday, March 29, 2020 at 9:41:53 AM UTC-7, Nick Westgate wrote:
> On Sunday, 29 March 2020 18:36:56 UTC+10, James Davis wrote:

> ...

> Wow, so it goes back to 78? If you have any disk images or scans you could share that would be very interesting.

> ...

I have no way to do it. I have given up on trying to connect my Apple II's to my Windows computers. ADT has never worked for me other than going from Windows to ProDOS with just the ADT setup program using Audio cabling.

> ...

> It looks like he might be on Facebook, so I've sent him a message.

> ...
> Cheers,
> Nick.

Well, I don't use Facebook either, but maybe you can get Larry to chime in here at comp.sys.apple2.

James Davis

[Brian Patrie]

On 29/03/2020 19.09, Nick Westgate wrote:
> My guess is Levi's name was some kid doing INIT <NAME>!

Could be. I pondered what it could stand for, and came up with Letter
Execution Volume Index.

[Brian Patrie]

On 29/03/2020 12.14, Steve Nickolas wrote:
> 1 NORMAL:TEXT:HOME:PRINT:PRINT CHR$(4)"CATALOG":DIM A(24),B(24):FOR D=1
> TO 24:A(D)=0:B(D)=0:NEXT D:C=0:FOR D=1 TO
> 24:A=SCRN(0,(D-1)*2)+16*SCRN(0,(D*2)-1):B=SCRN(1,(D-1)*2)+16*SCRN(1,(D*2)-1):IF
> (A=160 OR A=170) AND (B=ASC("A")+128 OR B=ASC("I")+128) THEN A(D)=1

For reading the screen, i prefer the likes of

DIM L$(24) : FOR Y=1 TO 24 : VTAB Y : LB=PEEK(40)+PEEK(41)*256 : FOR X=0
TO 39 : C=PEEK(LB+X) : C=C-128*(C>127) : L$(Y)=L$(Y)+CHR$(C) : NEXT : NEXT

To all that math on SCRN() values.

:)

[Nick Westgate]

On Saturday, 4 April 2020 01:20:19 UTC+10, Brian Patrie wrote:
> For reading the screen, i prefer the likes of
>
> DIM L$(24) : FOR Y=1 TO 24 : VTAB Y : LB=PEEK(40)+PEEK(41)*256 : FOR X=0
> TO 39 : C=PEEK(LB+X) : C=C-128*(C>127) : L$(Y)=L$(Y)+CHR$(C) : NEXT : NEXT
>
> To all that math on SCRN() values.

That's one of the interesting things about these programs. I was expecting - or hoping - to see more of a progression or evolution. Instead the 4 variants found so far (of course there are many others I haven't examined yet) are implemented very differently.

The LEVI program does the following:
1000 C1 = INT (CV / 8):C2 = CV - C1 * 8:P = 1024 + 128 * C2 + 40 * C1 + CH:C = PEEK (P): RETURN

Others use SCRN or pre-calculated data.

Even the catalog data is not always obtained by executing the DOS CATALOG command. CATSUP from Micro-sparc reads the catalog from the disk and parses it! It's not that it's difficult, but I didn't expect it.

Cheers,
Nick.

[Brian Patrie]

I made one that did that, using two entry points (one to read the 1st
catalog sector, the other to read subsequent sectors) that i gleaned
from a Beagle Bros program, and reading from the buffer by pointing a
string variable there. Sadly, it's trapped on my dead Sider. :(

[Steve Nickolas]

I know I did such a program but it was slow AF to read the catalog, so I
don't use it.

I do still have the code.

-uso.

[James Davis]

Nick,

Did you ever get in touch with Larry Freman?

James

[Nick Westgate]

On Friday, 10 April 2020 11:22:47 UTC+10, James Davis wrote:
> Did you ever get in touch with Larry L Freeman?

I sent a message and friend request to someone with that name on Facebook, but I doubt it was the same person as his profile mentions living in several places but not California.

Here's a photo of him from 2016 if you want to have a look:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PuOnsnBhH-gjP7Wa5ogW3Du5_DgXpG5q/view?usp=sharing

Cheers,
Nick.

[Nick Westgate]

On Thursday, 26 March 2020 23:29:31 UTC+10, D Finnigan wrote:
> By the way, its widespread dispersal is suggestive of publication thru a
> magazine, user's group newsletter or the like.

The program appears as "HELLO AUTO SELECT" in various public domain software collections that seem to derive from 1981 or earlier. This name appears in The Public Domain Exchange disk 166: "Hello and Menu" in The Best Apple Public Domain Software book from 1985.
More at:
https://retrocomputing.stackexchange.com/a/14228/71

And David, this site was useful, but did you give it permission to host your book?
https://vintageapple.org/apple_ii/pdf/The_New_Apple_II_Users_Guide_2012.pdf

Cheers,
Nick.

[D Finnigan]

Nick Westgate wrote:
>
> And David, this site was useful, but did you give it permission to host
> your book?
> https://vintageapple.org/apple_ii/
>

Nope.

[James Davis]

A man can change a lot in 38 years, but I think that picture is not of him.

[Nick Westgate]

On Sunday, 12 April 2020 17:35:25 UTC+10, James Davis wrote:
> A man can change a lot in 38 years, but I think that picture is not of him.

I thought not. Thanks for confirming, James.

Cheers,
Nick.

[Antoine Vignau]

Great! David's book was removed.
At least, the link is a dead end,
av

[martindo...@gmail.com]

Even better, the link now points to https://macgui.com/newa2guide/ :)