This month on Open Apple, we talk to Chris Torrence, the new Roger Wagner Volunteer Archivist on behalf of Softalk magazine. Chris is a lifelong Apple II fan, and has recently undertaken the valuable effort of producing a book containing all of Roger Wagner’s Assembly Lines columns. This will include all of the articles included in Roger’s original book (Assembly Lines: The Book) as well as columns never before available in book form. He’s not just republishing the articles, he’s annotating, footnoting, and expanding on them as needed. It’s a terrific service for the community. We’ll dig into that, as well as Chris’ start in computing, and how he got to where he is today. We manage to get through an entire show without taking a cheap shot at Commodore, so you won’t want to miss this. Wait- no we don’t.

We also mark the passing of Lode Runner creator Douglas E. Smith, we talk about printers for some reason, and we talk about more eBay auctions on this show that doesn’t talk about eBay auctions. You won’t want to miss this month’s Weird Gaming, where we run the gamut from incredible educational games that didn’t get their due, to horrifying shareware games that can’t be forgotten quickly enough. We talk AppleSoft source code in Tech, and lots more. So drop your machine two inches, and let’s go!

More information on everything mentioned in the show can be found after the jump.

Links for Episode 40

• Drop /// Inches – The Apple /// podcast. If you like us, you’ll like them, because one of us is one of them.
• Avery 5.25″ Floppy Labels – These are totally still a thing.
• Avery 5.25″ Template – There’s even a handy Word template for using them in your printer.
• 3.5″ Labels and Template – Why not, since we’re here.
• Hack-A-Day 10th Anniversary – Veronica ventures to Pasadena.
• Raspberry Pi – You too can make a fruit salad out of your Apple.
• Raspple II –  Ivan Drucker’s big pile of win for making Apple Pi.
• SoftTalk Magazine – A digital archive of one of the very best Apple II magazines.
• Roger Wagner – Author of Assembly Lines, one of the best programming columns for the Apple II.
• Roger Wagner’s Assembly Lines – The SoftTalk column that started many a programmer on their way.
• Assembly Lines: The Book – The first book made from Roger’s columns (no longer available).
• Apple Assembly Line – Bob Sander-Cederlof’s assembly programming newsletter.
• Asimov Archive of AAL – The huge version (large PDF warning).
• Chris Torrence Volunteers – SoftTalk’s announcement of the archiving effort by Chris.
• Merlin Assembler – One of the excellent software packages published by Roger Wagner.
• Merlin Manual – Want to use Merlin today? Here’s how!
• Lulu Print On Demand – Soon to be a way to get Chris’ book in your hands.
• Dagen Brock’s Video Series Ep 0 Followup – Dagen continues to crush it with these programming videos for the IIgs.
• …and Episode 1 – Dagen goes deeper, and it’s a wild 16-bit ride.
• TUAW’s Slices of Apple – A great documentary video series on Apple Computer.
• Douglas E. Smith Passes – We reminisce on Douglas’s seminal Apple II game Lode Runner.
• IGN Interview with Douglas E. Smith – An interview from 1999.
• Comp.sys.apple2 interview – A chat log from Matthew Jenkins of a recent conversation with Douglas.
• Lode Runner hacked to run on ProDOS – A great “modern” way to play this classic.
• Joe Ely’s B4 84 – An album recorded with an Apple II, including Liner notes by Woz.
• Interview with Joe Ely – San Antonio Current sits down with Joe.
• cbm8bit – The retrocomputing search engine.
• Apple Service Technical Procedures – Information on how to disassemble your Apple printers.
• Virtual II – The bestest Apple II emulator.
• Oregon Live Prototypes – Great photos of Apple prototypes and hacks.
• Lotus 1-2-3 Put To Rest – The app that killed VisiCalc is now sharing a bench with it in Spreadsheet Heaven.
• Oz KFest 2015 – Play with your Apple II, but.. like… upside down.
• Oregon Trail Live – Yup, it’s a thing.
• Wasteland 2 – The Kickstarter paid off and it’s available now. The true sequel to an Apple II classic.
• Prince of Persia Turns 25 – The Prince has aged very well indeed.
• Prince of Persia Source Code – This is pretty great 6502 code, and you should learn it.
• Dirty Harry Adventures – This will require a unicorn chaser. You’ve been warned.
• Robot Odyssey I – The greatest educational game that nobody has heard of.
• Slate – An article calling Robot Odyssey the hardest game of all time. They’re probably not wrong.
• DroidQuest – Thomas Foote’s amazing Java recreation of Robot Odyssey.
• GATE – Quinn’s tribute game based on Robot Odyssey.
• Jeremy Rand’s Apple II Pipeline – Jeremy one-ups Quinn and Carrington by extending the pipeline even further.
• Jeremy Rand’s 2048 – The well-deserved HackFest winner from KansasFest 2014.
• Applesoft Source – Finally, a single-page HTML cross-linked copy of the Applesoft source code.
• IIc Plus Prototype With CDrive Installed – A remarkable auction for a remarkable item.