Browse / Games: Action · Games: Free/Shareware
Pole Position
| Year | 2026 |
|---|---|
| Publisher | a2cogs |
| Developers | Rob Perissi (IIgs version); Namco (original, 1982) |
| RAM Requirement | 1 meg RAM |
| Control | Keyboard |
| Other Requirements | Runs on a stock IIgs; an AppleSqueezer or other accelerator makes it a lot smoother. Two-player needs a CoGS card on Wi-Fi or Ethernet in each machine. |
| System 6 Compatible | Yes (boots its own GS/OS 6.0.2) |
| Hard Drive Installable | No (boots from its own disk; there is no quit back to the Finder) |
| Release Status | Free download. Pole Position is copyright 1982 Namco Ltd. and a trademark of Bandai Namco; this is an unofficial hobby conversion, not for sale, taken down on request from the rights holder. |
About
Pole Position is Namco's 1982 arcade racer, the one that set the template for every road-behind-the-car game that followed: one lap of Fuji Speedway to qualify against the clock, then the race against the other cars for as many laps as the time allows, with the billboards, the GOODYEAR blimp towing PREPARE TO QUALIFY across the sky, and the explosion when you clip another car or a sign. This is a 65816 conversion of it for the Apple IIgs, done in 2026. It boots on a stock GS. At 2.8 MHz the frame rate is low (a couple of frames a second in MAME); on an AppleSqueezer or another accelerator it plays properly.
It boots into attract mode the way the cabinet does, title then a demo lap then the title again. Any key starts a race. The up arrow is the gas, the down arrow or Option brakes, left and right steer, and space or Open-Apple shifts between LO and HI. Esc pauses; from the pause, R restarts and Q goes back to the title. H swaps the road between full and half vertical resolution if you want the extra speed on a stock machine. Q on the title or the demo quits. Speed is in miles an hour like the US cabinet.
With a CoGS card in the machine the title gains a line, N RACE ANOTHER GS THROUGH COGS. Press N, type a name and Return, and the card opens a connection to the Game Room lobby at lobby.a2cogs.com and waits for the next GS that does the same, anywhere on the internet. The lobby pairs the two and the race starts on both: you on one side of the grid, the other player on the other, their car in green on your track. Each GS runs its own race and sends its car's position a few times a second, so the link has little to carry. The second HUD row shows AHEAD or BEHIND and the gap, and when both races are over it shows YOU WIN, DEAD HEAT, or the other player's name and WINS. If the other player leaves, the row says RIVAL LEFT and you finish alone. Without a card the extra line does not appear and the game is the single-player one. Milestones 2000 and Doom are the other two head-to-head games in the Game Room.
The download is an 800K ProDOS-order image, GS/OS 6.0.2 trimmed to what the game needs with the game as System/Start, so it boots straight into the title. It is a boot disk only; there is no quit back to the Finder, so it is not one to copy onto a hard drive. CoGS owners can boot the same image from the card's disk catalog (Browse, Games, Pole Position) with nothing else in the machine. The .2mg is the same image with a 2IMG header for emulators that want one.
Downloads
- polepos.po (800K ProDOS order, boots; the image in the CoGS catalog)
- polepos.2mg (the same image as a 2IMG)
- Game Room lobby: who is playing ↗
Screenshots
