Apple II Bits

A year ago, Jalopnik published the story "Autonomous Cars Will Rob Us Of Our Freedom To Be Unproductive", showing a motorist using an Apple II behind the wheel. The unlikely choice of computer could be attributed to the article’s author, Jason Torchinsky, a well-known Apple II enthusiast. If you can work any computer into your writing, why not choose your favorite?

This past October, Jason upped his game. "The EPA May Have Found A Second Secret Defeat Device In Diesel VWs" revealed that Volkswagen may have rigged their vehicles to past certain environmental quality tests. Here’s the picture Jason used, Apple III and all:

But Jason took it one step further by revealing the source code Volkswagen used to cheat the Environmental Protection Agency:


10 REM SECRET CHEAT CODE #2 STARTS HERE
20 PR#2: REM SET OUTPUT TO INTERNAL CENTER STACK SCREEN
30 PRINT "ARE YOU CURRENTLY TESTING EMISSIONS FOR THE EPA? HIT HORN FOR 'YES', TAP BRAKE FOR 'NO'" : INPUT A$
40 IF A$="HORN" THEN EM$="YES"
50 IF A$="BRAKE" THEN EM$="NO"
60 IF EM$="YES" THEN POKE 232, 64: REM TURNS CLEAN EMISSIONS ON
70 IF EM$="NO" THEN POKE 232, 0: REM GO AHEAD AND RUN IT DIRTY
80 END


Not only are the cars dirty, but so’s the code: a more elegant hack could be written in half as many lines. But given that it’s likely been decades since any Jalopnik reader saw Applesoft BASIC, it’s impressive that Jason got away with including any code at all!

(Hat tip to Jayson Elliot)