When I was little, I liked computer games and old stuff. An uncle, as a Christmas present, gave me his old Apple II+. He didn't give me all his disks with it at first, just ten or so games to make sure I liked it, and this page is about the first game from those ten or so that I ever played.
Sabotage dead simple. Plug in your paddle, put the disk in the drive, power the computer on, wait for the game to load, and you'll be greeted by the following:
THE OBJECT OF SABOTAGE IS TO SCORE AS MANY POINTS AS POSSIBLE BEFORE THE ENEMY DESTROYS YOUR GUN EMPLACEMENT. YOUR GUN MAY BE DESTROYED BY A HIT FROM AN ENEMY BOMB OR BY SABOTAGE WHEN ENOUGH PARATROOPERS HAVE REACHED THE GROUND. THE GUN MAY BE CONTROLLED WITH A PADDLE OR THE KEYBOARD. IF USING A KEYBOARD, PRESSING 'D' WILL MOVE THE GUN COUNTER-CLOCKWISE AND 'F' WILL MOVE IT CLOCKWISE. ANY OTHER KEY WILL FIRE A SHELL. FIRING A SHELL COSTS ONE POINT.
BOMB = 25 POINTS
HELICOPTER = 5 POINTS
JET = 5 POINTS
PARATROOPER = 2 POINTS.
DO YOU WANT STEERABLE SHELLS (Y/N)?
If you press "Y" for "Steerable Shells" then that lets you, by moving the gun, also move which way the airborne shells are going. It's pretty nice as an "easy mode" if you're into that but, c'mon, that's not as much fun!
I'm fairly sure I don't need to do much more talking, this screenshot will explain everything for you. You're that little turret on the bototm. The number below you is the score counter. Enemies, in the case a helicopter dropping paratroopers, are above you. If you press a button that isn't "Turn the turret" then you spend one point to fire. You can fire from horizontal-left to horizontal-right with You can keep firing at 0 points, you'll just be at 0 points. If four paratroopers land on one side of the turret, something about to happen here, three willform a little human staircase so the fourth can climb up and explode the turret. Game over.
Jets occasionally also fly across the screen, a little faster than helicopters, and they drop bombs. If a bomb hits you, it's instant game over. If you want points then you want jets to drop bombs because the bombs are worth a ton, it's just kinda risky because if you miss then you're screwed.
That's it. That's all there is to the game. It's entirely brainless but hey, sometimes that's fun! If you're just looking for a way to kill time, something little me did a lot because Steam needed to download updates but the internet speed was like 125KB/s max so even doing my homework wasn't enough waiting, it can be a pretty cool disk to say just leave in the Disk II and boot up if you're ever a bit bored.
At the moment, my current high score from June 19th, 2015 is 129 points. As there really isn't anything else to talk about, I'll just update this page if I ever get a better high score.
If you want to check Sabotage out for yourself, the Apple II Library on archive.org has it available!