Brutal Deluxe Releases DeluxeWare CD As Free Download

An announcement was recently made that is of importance to anyone who is still interested in the Apple IIGS computer. Brutal Deluxe Software, producers in the past of many wonderful software titles for the Apple IIGS, has recently made freely available their DeluxeWare CD-ROM that they originally released in 1996.

This CD-ROM contains 650 MB of public domain software for the Apple IIGS. It can be downloaded from http://www.brutaldeluxe.fr/products/apple2gs/deluxeware/ and is available as a .DMG image which can be directly used on an Apple IIGS Computer or an Apple IIGS emulator, and may be translated to .ISO for other platforms.

When you download the software from the Brutal Deluxe website, it is received as a .ZIP file. When you un-zip the compressed file, the resultant file is a .dmg, or disk image, file. I run Sweet16 as my Apple IIGS emulator of choice on my MacBook Pro. This .dmg file can be directly mounted by running Sweet16, and then from within the program, mounting the disk image.



A screen shot of the DeluxeWare disk open on the Apple IIGS Desktop running in emulation using Sweet16
I was surprised when I opened the disk to discover that everything is in French, but it is easily translated. When you open up the disk you are presented with 10 folders. The first one is an empty folder called ".Trashes", but after that there are folders called "Apple", "Demos", "Documentations", "Graphique", "HyperMedia", "Icons", "Jeux" (games), "Musique", the "System" folder, and "Utilitaires". Here is a brief look at what is inside.

A Look Around

Inside the "Apple" folder appear folders for various Apple IIGS ProDOS systems. System 4.0, 5.02, 5.04, and 6.01 are all included. In addition there's a folder for HyperCard IIGS. So if you want to see what it was like to run previous systems on the Apple IIGS you can play around with the systems in these folders.

In the "Demos" folder there are two folders, "Fun", and "Logiciels" (Software). Inside the "Logiciels" folder are such gems as ANSITERM 2.0, a communications program, DBMaster Demo, a premiere database program, Deluxe Tetris, Super Mario Brothers, and ProTerm 3.1, a premiere communications program.

The "Documentations" folder has four folders inside: "Informations", "Magazines", "Programmation" (programming), and "Sources". Inside the "Magazines" folder are eight folders: "Apple.II", "GS.on.the.Rock", "PongLife", "PowerGS.3", "PowerGS.4", "PowerGS.5", "Stack.Central.0", "ToolBox.Mag". "Stack.Central" is the HyperStudio magazine. Inside the "Programmation" folder there's even a tutorial for programming in the C-language.

The graphics folder has four folders: "Animations", "Images", "Logiciels" (Software), and "Slideshow". Inside the software folder are all kinds of picture converters including SHRConverter, a super high-resolution converter, PS.Convert, the PrintShop graphics converter, and others as well. There are also Mandelbrot programs.

The "Hypermedia" folder has two folders: one for programs and one for stacks.

The games folder has 174 items. So there are a lot of games that you can play.

The music folder has two folders, one for programs and one for music. The programs folder has many different music programs including NoiseTracker, SoniqTracker, ModZap, etc.

If you dig down through the "System" folder to the "Fonts" folder, you will find you have access to 170 TrueType fonts.

In the "Utilitaires" folder there are nine folders including "Archivers", "Communication", "Editeur.Texte" (text editors), "Programmation" (programming), "Resource", and "Utils". In the text editors folder there are such famous text editors for the IIGS as CoolWriter, Emacs, GS.Write.2.0, Teach, and WordWorks. Inside the "Utils" folder is "DBMaster.V5" containing DBMaster. If you are not familiar with it, this is a very powerful database program. Also you will find Diversi.Cache.3, DOS.3.3, GS.Font.Editor, IconEd.2.0, and Sneeze.2.2

The programs will only run under ProDOS. To use them, you need to copy them to another disk image that has been formatted under ProDOS so that you can run it from that disk. They will not run from the DeluxeWare disc, which is an HFS format disk.

I have barely scratched the surface listing the treasures found on this disk image. The bottom line is you can enjoy hours and hours of time with your Apple IIGS when you get this monstrous collection of software from Brutal Deluxe. And it is all free!