Some background: This archive contains the source code for the original Prince of Persia game that I wrote on the Apple II, in 6502 assembly language, between 1985-89. The game was first released by Broderbund Software in 1989, and is part of the ongoing Ubisoft game franchise.
For a capsule summary of Prince of Persia's 35-year history, and my involvement with its various incarnations, see jordanmechner.com.
For those interested in a fuller understanding of the context -- creative, business, personal, and technical -- in which this source code was created, I've published my dev journals from that period. I've also written and drawn a graphic novel, REPLAY (2023), in which I recount my Apple II game-development adventures in the context of my personal and family story (with a snippet of 6502 code on page 73).
For those who'd like to dig into the source code itself, I've posted an explanatory technical document at jordanmechner.com/library which should help. This is a package I put together in October 1989 for the benefit of the teams that were undertaking the ports of POP to various platforms such as PC, Amiga, Sega, Genesis, etc.
Beyond that, please don't ask me to explain anything about the source code, because I don't remember! I hung up my 6502 programming guns in October 1989, and after two decades working primarily as a writer, game designer, and creative director, to say my coding skills are rusty would be an understatement.
Thanks to The Internet Archive's Jason Scott and the late Tony Diaz for successfully extracting the source code from a 22-year-old 3.5" floppy disk archive, a task that took most of a long day and night, and would have taken much longer if not for Tony's incredible expertise, perseverence, and well-maintained collection of vintage Apple hardware.
We extracted and posted the 6502 code because it was a piece of computer history that could be of interest to others, and because if we hadn't, it might have been lost for all time. We did this for fun, not profit. As the author and copyright holder of this source code, I personally have no problem with anyone studying it, modifying it, attempting to run it, etc. Please understand that this does NOT constitute a grant of rights of any kind in Prince of Persia, which is an ongoing Ubisoft game franchise. Ubisoft alone has the right to make and distribute Prince of Persia games.
That's about all I know. If additional information becomes available, I'll post about it. My current social media account links are on the home page of jordanmechner.com, along with my monthly email newsletter and RSS feed. In the meantime, if you have questions -- technical, legal, or otherwise -- I recommend that you direct them to the community at large, whose collective knowledge and expertise far exceeds mine, and will only increase as more people get their eyes on this code.
As for me, it's time to get back to my day job of making new games and making up stories.
Have fun!
-- Jordan Mechner (Updated September 2024)
