Sierra Games

Pegasus II

Last updated: October 9, 2026

Overview

Pegasus II is a side-scrolling arcade shooter for the Apple II, written by Olaf Lubeck and published in 1981 by On-Line Systems, the company Ken and Roberta Williams founded and later renamed Sierra On-Line.123 MobyGames classes it as a “Scramble variant”: the player flies over mountainous terrain, bombing ground installations and using lasers against rockets that launch from below.1 It was Lubeck’s second published game for On-Line Systems, after the Pac-Man clone Gobbler.23

The game shipped with a terrain generator. Players could draw their own landscape as twenty-one separate “frames” that the program then joined together at random.41 Creative Computing reviewed it in August 1982 and called it a “challenging, fast moving flying game with the option of user-definable terrain”.5 Years later John Romero remembered first seeing Pegasus II in the Apple room at Sierra College, and named its terrain generator as one of the earliest level editors he had used.6

Pegasus II entered Softalk’s Top Thirty best-seller list for the first time in the magazine’s November 1981 issue.7 It was sold on disk for 48K Apple II and II Plus machines at $29.95.89

Story Summary

The game has only a small amount of story, and it comes from On-Line Systems’ advertising. The player is “the pilot of the fighter PEGASUS II” and must destroy the base station of the enemy Gebellians, described as “an alien race best known for depositing its eggs into space”.8 If the Gebellians survive, the advertisement warns, they will take over the player’s “alliance of 30 worlds (best known as The Top Thirty)”. The line is a nod to Softalk’s best-seller chart.87 On-Line’s catalogue repeated the same premise in shorter form.9

The aliens’ name was a tribute. A 1983 Softline profile of Lubeck says the Gebellians came from “Lubeck’s admiration for the pioneering work of Nasir Gebelli”, the Sirius Software programmer.11 Retro365 adds that the egg-laying description refers to Gebelli’s game Space Eggs.3

Gameplay

Interface and Controls

The game can be played with paddles or a joystick, and it boots under either DOS 3.2 or DOS 3.3.4 With paddles, the dial moves the ship up and down, the A key fires the “lazer”, the S key drops bombs, and the space bar moves the ship forward or back across the screen.4 With a joystick, the stick moves the ship in all four directions.4

Creative Computing’s reviewers said the game “must be played with a joystick”. In their view the space bar did not give enough control for “the tricky terrain”. They also found a mistake in the instructions: in joystick mode the stick’s two buttons, not the A and S keys, fire the laser and drop bombs.5 Paddle players had their own complaints. In May 1982 a reader wrote to Softline calling Pegasus II “a great game except for one thing”: with paddles, the bombs and lasers stayed on the A and S keys.12

Structure and Progression

At start-up the player chooses between playing and generating new terrain. Next come standard or user-made terrain, a Beginner, Intermediate or Advanced tunnel, and paddle or joystick control.4 Creative Computing described the cycle of play like this:5

  • Target terrain: The plane flies over cities, plains, mountains and chasms. On the ground are radar detectors, surface-to-air missiles and targets the reviewers thought looked like alien robots. Each is worth 20 points. Birds (25 points) and flying saucers (50 points) attack from the air.
  • Outer space: After the bombing run the plane leaves for space and meets dragons with “exceptionally long, lethal tongues”. They are worth 100 points, but players can avoid them by staying at the left edge of the screen.
  • Refuelling: The plane meets a mother ship to refuel, then goes back to the target terrain at a higher speed.
  • The tunnel: Players who get far enough reach a tunnel guarded by comet-like “tunnel killers”, worth 100 points each.

The manual itself warns that “until you have considerable flying experience you will not reach the tunnel anyhow”.4 The player starts with five lives, and touching an enemy or the ground costs one.1

Puzzles and Mechanics

The ship carries two weapons. The laser fires straight ahead. Bombs keep the plane’s forward momentum, so as Creative Computing put it, “they don’t drop straight down”.5

To use the terrain generator, the player connects paddles, chooses (T) at boot, and sets the height of the horizon line frame by frame with the paddle dial. Each frame can be saved or redrawn.4 After the twenty-first frame the program asks the player to reboot and choose (U) for user terrain. The manual adds a rule: at least one third of the landscape must be level so the program has room to place the defence units.4 Creative Computing noted that a player could make the game trivially easy by drawing 21 flat frames, adding that “although the temptation was great, we did not succumb.”5

Reception

Contemporary Reviews

Creative Computing covered Pegasus II in “Apple Arcade Games”, a round-up in its August 1982 issue. Its software profile summed the game up as a “challenging, fast moving flying game with the option of user-definable terrain”.5 The reviewers praised the terrain option: “Pegasus II adds a unique touch found in very few games”. They were less impressed by the presentation, which had “good, hires graphics, some color but not much in the way of sound effects”. They still concluded that “Pegasus II is a challenging game and one which had our player panel coming back for hours.”5

The game also sold well. Softalk reported that five programs reached its Top Thirty for the first time in November 1981, and the first one it named was “Pegasus II from On-Line Systems”.7 The same list credits the game to “Olaf Lubeck, On-Line Systems”.7

Modern Assessment

Pegasus II has had little modern critical attention. MobyGames shows no Moby Score and one player rating, an average of 3.2 out of 5.1 Retro365’s 2021 collector’s article calls it “an excellent Scramble clone”. The author describes it as “one of the first, if not the first Scramble variant available on personal computers” and “one of the very first computer games to feature a built-in level editor”. Both are the blog’s own judgements and have not been checked against other sources.3

Development

Origins

Olaf Lubeck got his first Apple in 1980, while he was still in the Navy, and wrote his first complete program on it in the spring of 1981.11 He came to On-Line Systems through its advertising for programmers: his wife Pam saw one of the ads, and Ken Williams signed his maze game Gobbler.113 Atari objected that Gobbler infringed its Pac-Man rights, and the game was pulled. The dispute carried on over its replacement, Jawbreaker, until the parties settled out of court.11

According to Softline, Jawbreaker’s royalties are what got Lubeck started on this game. “Jawbreaker did better than I ever expected,” he said. “I started getting royalty checks and I got all fired up and started work on Red Alert and Pegasus II.”11 (Red Alert came out through Broderbund.)13 Retro365 places the game in its arcade context. Konami’s Scramble was a hit in 1981 but had no official home computer ports, so clones began to appear. Pegasus II was one of them, released “later that year”.3

Production

Pegasus II was written in machine language. On-Line’s advertising promised “Fast Machine Language”, “Hi-Res animation and sound”, and “Full Ship Movement” with control over the craft’s speed and altitude.85 By 1983 Lubeck was working with supercomputers at Los Alamos National Laboratory and programming games at home.113 By then he had also written Cannonball Blitz and an Apple II version of Frogger for Sierra.1114

The Sierra Chest places the game in its “SierraVision” group. It records the engine as machine language and the US packaging as a small folder holding a single Apple II disk.1015

Technical Specifications

Apple II Version:4516

  • Media: 5.25” floppy disk
  • Memory: 48K
  • DOS: Boots under DOS 3.2 or DOS 3.3
  • Input: Paddles or joystick
  • Players: 11
  • Packaging: Small folder / cardboard sleeve1516

Version History

VersionDatePlatformNotes
Original1981Apple IIOn-Line Systems release; advertised in Softline in September 1981 at $29.9581
Catalogue listingc. 1982Apple IIStill listed at $29.95 in a later Sierra-era catalogue alongside the company’s other arcade titles17

The Sierra Chest gives a first-release date of 1 January 1982, which looks like a placeholder for an unknown date. Advertising and best-seller coverage show the game was on sale in autumn 1981.1087 No ports to other platforms are recorded.116

Legacy

Pegasus II’s longest-lasting influence may be on John Romero. In an interview with David Lightbown about TEd, the tile editor Romero later wrote, Romero recalled first seeing “Pegasus ][” at Sierra College. He said he “thought that it was pretty cool that it has this tool built in to generate gameplay”, and added: “It’s funny to think now that this is one of the earliest games that let you generate mods.”6

The game sits among Olaf Lubeck’s early run of arcade-style games for On-Line Systems and Sierra. The Giant List of Classic Game Programmers credits him with Gobbler, Jawbreaker, Pegasus II and Cannonball Blitz for On-Line/Sierra, and Red Alert for Broderbund.1413 Wikipedia’s list of Sierra Entertainment video games includes Pegasus II as a 1981 Apple II release from On-Line Systems.18

Collections

Pegasus II has not appeared in any Sierra compilation, and it has never been sold digitally. The Apple II disk and a boot video from the 4am preservation project are on the Internet Archive.1920 MyAbandonware also lists it as a 1981 Apple II release.21

Downloads

Purchase / Digital Stores

  • Not available on any digital storefront

Download / Preservation

Manuals & Extras

See Also

Pegasus II is one of the early arcade-style games that On-Line Systems published for the Apple II in 1981–1983, before the company became known mainly for adventure games. Olaf Lubeck’s other On-Line and Sierra titles are Gobbler, Jawbreaker and Cannonball Blitz.

References

Footnotes

  1. MobyGames – Pegasus II – 1981 Apple II release, On-Line Systems publisher, credit to Olaf Lubeck, “Scramble variant” description, five lives, 21-frame terrain generator, joystick/paddle input, 1 player, player rating 3.2/5 ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7 ↩8 ↩9 ↩10 ↩11 ↩12 ↩13

  2. Wikipedia – Gobbler (video game) – On-Line Systems later became Sierra Entertainment; Olaf Lubeck also wrote Cannonball Blitz ↩ ↩2

  3. Retro365 – “Pegasus II, an excellent Scramble clone” (2021) – Lubeck’s second published title, Scramble context, Gebellians and Space Eggs reference, terrain editor, Los Alamos, the blog’s “one of the first” assessments ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7

  4. Internet Archive – Apple Manual: Pegasus II – original instructions: DOS 3.2/3.3 boot, paddle and joystick controls, tunnel difficulty options, terrain generator procedure, 21 frames, one-third-level rule, point schedule ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7 ↩8 ↩9 ↩10 ↩11

  5. Creative Computing, August 1982 (Vol. 8 No. 8) – “Apple Arcade Games”, p. 22 – software profile and review: gameplay cycle, point values, joystick recommendation, manual error, terrain option, graphics and sound, verdict ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7 ↩8 ↩9 ↩10

  6. David Lightbown – “Classic Tools Retrospective: John Romero talks about creating TEd” (Gamasutra, 2017; PDF on rome.ro) – Romero first saw Pegasus ][ at Sierra College; terrain generation as an early mod/level tool ↩ ↩2

  7. Softalk, November 1981 (Vol. 2 No. 3) – Top Thirty – Pegasus II named among programs reaching the Top Thirty for the first time; listed as “Pegasus II, Olaf Lubeck, On-Line Systems” ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5

  8. Softline, September 1981 – On-Line Systems advertisement – ad copy: Gebellians premise, “alliance of 30 worlds”, machine language, paddles or joystick, terrain control, Apple II or II Plus, $29.95 ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7

  9. Internet Archive – On-Line Systems Catalog – catalogue entry: Gebellians premise, terrain utilities, paddle or joystick, 48K Apple II/II+ DOS 3.2 or 3.3, $29.95 ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  10. The Sierra Chest – Pegasus II: General – SierraVision group, Arcade/flight combat genre, Apple II, machine-language engine, listed first-release date 1982-01-01 ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  11. Softline, September–October 1983 – “Profiles in Programming: Olaf Lubeck” by Andrew Christie – Lubeck biography, Gobbler/Jawbreaker history, quote on starting Red Alert and Pegasus II, Gebellians as tribute to Nasir Gebelli, Los Alamos, “Lubeck Index” of his games ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7

  12. Softline, May 1982 – reader letter “Sunk without a Paddle” – reader complaint about bombs and lasers being on the A and S keys in paddle mode ↩

  13. Eli’s Software Encyclopedia – Olaf Lubeck – Lubeck’s works: Red Alert (Broderbund, 1981), Gobbler, Pegasus II, Cannonball Blitz ↩ ↩2

  14. James Hague – The Giant List of Classic Game Programmers – Olaf Lubeck entry: Pegasus II (1981, Apple II, On-Line) alongside Gobbler, Jawbreaker, Cannonball Blitz, Frogger, Red Alert ↩ ↩2

  15. The Sierra Chest – Pegasus II: Packaging & content – US Apple II disk release by On-Line Systems in a small folder ↩ ↩2

  16. Eli’s Software Encyclopedia – Pegasus II (Apple II, 5¼” Disk) – 1981 copyright, cardboard sleeve, 48K RAM, paddle support, developer Olaf Lubeck ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  17. MOCAGH – Sierra catalogue (PDF scan) – Arcade Games list including Pegasus II, Apple, $29.95 ↩

  18. Wikipedia – List of Sierra Entertainment video games – Pegasus II listed as 1981, Apple II, On-Line Systems ↩

  19. Internet Archive – Pegasus II (Apple II software library) – preserved disk image and screenshots ↩ ↩2

  20. Internet Archive – Pegasus II boot video (4am collection) – preserved boot video of the Apple II original ↩ ↩2

  21. MyAbandonware – Pegasus II – 1981 Apple II, United States release, action/shooter classification ↩ ↩2

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