This month on Open Apple, Mike and Ken chat with Jimmy Maher, the historian behind the renowned blog The Digital Antiquarian. A published author, Jimmy provides us with his perspective on the pros and cons of going with a publishing house over the recent trend in retrocomputing toward self-publishing. We gripe about the Steve Jobs film sacrificing historical accuracy for mass appeal and recommend some alternative movies that get it right. We’re still loving iOS as a platform for classic gaming ports, from the adventure game Transylvania to the recently released Lode Runner Classic. Speaking of platforms, which is better: the Apple II or the Commodore 64? The answer may not be as obvious as you think! Finally, we offer a cautionary tale to vintage computer collectors whose inventory may be at the mercy of an avaricious landlord.

Click past the jump for links mentioned in this episode.

Introduction (0:00 – 13:45)

• Open Apple #1, two years ago this month
• No Quarter classic arcade game podcast
• The 1Up barcade in Denver
• 1Up purchases Twin Galaxies
• Funspot‘s American Classic Arcade Museum
• Going Cardboard
• MIT Medical
• PB403: Electronic Publishing at Emerson College
• Visual 6502
• Drift demo disk by Daniel Kruszyna, Antoine Vignau, Melissa Barron — and Wade Clarke!

User Login (13:46 – 36:23)

• Jimmy Maher’s The Digital Antiquarian
• The Future Was Here, an Amiga book by Jimmy Maher
• Jimmy’s posts about Oregon Trail and The Hobbit
• Let’s Tell a Story Together: A History of Interactive Fiction
• “Why You Should Follow the Digital Antiquarian“, by Jason Scott

II News (36:24 – 1:28:33)

• First look at jOBS biopic
• Steve Wozniak on what’s wrong with jOBS
• Feedback about jOBS on Facebook
• jOBS to feature Mike Willegal’s Mimeo!
• Micro Men, a BBC documentay about Clive Sinclair
• Sophistication & Simplicity book of Dr. Steve Weyhrich’s Apple II History
• Atari Inc.: Business is Fun by Curt Vendel
• The New Apple II User’s Guide by David Finnigan
• Every Apple TV ad (ever made)
• Atari files for bankruptcy
• Kickstarter in the UK
• Elk Cloner virus creator Rich Skrenta looks back
• RetroChallenge Winter Warmup
• ByteBagger
• A2Central Down-Under Chat, hosted by Andrew Roughan
• Samurai IRC CDA
• Lode Runner Classic for iOS, Android, Windows Phone
• Transylvania Adventure for iOS
• Choplifter for XBLA on Microsoft Xbox 360
• AtariAge asks what’s better: Apple II or Commodore 64?
• Super Crate Box coming to C64, as reported by CheckPoint

Apple Pickings (1:28:34 – 1:41:31)

• Pravetz 8C Bulgarian clone of Apple IIe
• Apple IIc prototype
• Sellam Ismail’s tale of woe