Open Apple #40 (October 2014) : Chris Torrence, Printers, Celebrating Lode Runner

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.