Open Apple

This month on Open Apple, Mike and Ken chat with David Finnigan, proprietor of the Mac GUI Web site and author of the upcoming book, The New Apple II User’s Guide. Our eyes are caught by another new book release, The Best of Creative Computing: Volume 3, as well as the upcoming biopic based on Steve Jobs, in which actors have been cast to play Apple’s two co-founders. Prince of Persia is still big news, with the source code for Jordan Mechner’s classic Apple II game having been salvaged, released, and modified, while classic games like Leisure Suit Larry, Dungeon Master, and even Repton are enjoying literal and spiritual remakes. On eBay, we crack open the case to examine broken Apple III boards and prototype Apple IIGS boards.

Click past the jump for links mentioned in this episode.

Introduction (0:00 – 8:33)

• Randy Brandt’s homepage
• Randy’s fried Beagle Bros Apple IIGS
• MS Challenge Talk podcast
• Mike Willegal’s homepage
• A conversation with PCB designer Howard Cantin
• Brain Board with Wozanium Pack
• Apple-1 Mimeo Project

User Login (8:34 – 15:35)

• David Finnigan’s Mac GUI City
• Usenet Archive
• GeoCities “Neighborhoods”
• Macintosh SE/30
• Microsoft QuicKBASIC

II News (15:36 – 1:17:52)

• The New Apple II User’s Guide book by David Finnigan
• Glenn Jones’ Uthernet
• Amazon CreateSpace print-on-demand service
• Steve Weyhrich’s Apple II History
• KansasFest
• KansasFest committee
• David Greelish’s Kickstarter
• The Best of Creative Computing: Volume 3, by Kay Savetz & David Ahl
• New Jersey-based non-profit Beyond the Walls
• Ashton Kutcher to play Steve Jobs
• Josh Gad to play Steve Wozniak
• Noah Wyle impersonating Steve Jobs at Macworld 1999
• Double Fine’s Tim Schafer goes indie with Kickstarter
• The lost Steve Jobs tapes (1985–1986), also available via the Fast Company iOS app
• KansasFest alumnus Stan Marks passes away
• Jack Tramiel, founder of Commodore, passes away
• The Apple II from Commodore? It almost happened
• Jordan Mechner Q&A (begins at 1:49:24) at PAX East
• Prince of Persia ported to Commodore 64
• The geeks who saved Prince of Persia’s source code from digital death
• Prince of Persia source code on GitHub
• The original Prince of Persia for Xbox 360
• Hacks and ports of Prince of Persia
• Jordan Mechner’s Deathbounce
• Al Lowe revives Leisure Suit Larry via Kickstarter
• Why funny games need a kickstart: an editorial by Al Lowe
• Repton remake for iOS (with YouTube gameplay video)
• ActiveGS
• Legend of Grimrock (not Grimlock) available on Good Old Games
• Shadowgate Classic for Game Boy Color
• The CRPG Addict and its GIMLET ranking system
• Alex Lukazi’s WALTR robot
• Brian Picchi’s Applesoft Action & Dogfighters of Mars
• Daniel Kruszyna’s DRIFT demo disk

Apple Pickings (1:17:53 – 1:32:27)

• Vintage Micros
• Appe III Logic boards — guaranteed to not work!
• Prototype ROM 3 Apple IIGS
• Wizardry I: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overload for Apple II + III
• Brian Fargo’s Kickstarter for Wasteland 2
• Wizard and the Princess reprint from Sierra (see also Wikipedia)
• Juiced.GS, a quarterly Apple II journal
• Mac GUI Vault

Join us as Open Apple celebrates the 20th anniversary of the founding of premier Apple II programming group, Brutal Deluxe, developers of such famous games as LemminGS, The Tinies, Cogito, and Blockade; utilities including Fishhead, T40, and Convert 3200; and projects such as the Apple Cassette Archive.

In this special podcast episode, Ken interviews Brutal Deluxe members Antoine Vignau and Olivier Zardini on the group’s history, what the Apple II and BBS scenes were like in France in the 1980s, how they acquired the rights and assets to popular licenses and ported them to the Apple II, their open source philosophy, and news from other French developers.

This month on the Open Apple podcast, our hosts chat with world video game record holder and Apple II game critic Brian Picchi, whose YouTube channel showcases the best and worst of Apple II entertainment. It’s a good time to be a convention-goer: registration has opened for KansasFest 2012, the lineup for Vintage Computer Festival East 8.0 has been announced, 8 Bit Weapon played at the Smithsonian’s opening of the Art of Video Games, and Jordan Mechner is keynoting PAX East. Kickstarter continues to be popular for reviving classic franchises, Ewen Wannop updates SNAP and SAFE on a shoestring budget, and Jordan Mechner unearths his Prince of Persia source code. On eBay, we found a rarer-than-the-Apple-1 copy of Akalabeth on cassette, a rare Apple IIGS-specific wristwatch, and a potential CFFA3000 scalper. Finally, we look at some gadgets that are new to us, including old iPads, new iPads, and DSLR cameras.

Click past the jump for links mentioned in this episode.

Introduction (0:00 – 5:58)

• What is the Apple IIGS scans
• The Australian Apple Review
• Marinetti
• Apple II Scans
• The Complex III (SHK)
• The new iPad
• JACE gets MIDI support

User Login (5:59 – 21:16)

• Brian Picchi’s video reviews on YouTube
• Sony Cyber-shot camera
• Matt’s Macintosh
• Dan Bricklin’s VisiCalc for PC

II News (21:17 – 1:09:21)

• KansasFest registration opens
• John Romero to keynote KansasFest
• John Romero proposes to Brenda Brathwaite
• Retro Computing Roundtable podcast
• Vintage Computer Festival East 8.0 lineup
• The Art of Video Games exhibition at the Smithsonian American Art Museum: Ken’s coverage with photos
• 8 Bit Weapon chiptune music group
• Chris Melissinos of PastPixels
• Billy Mitchell & Walter Day vs. Steve Wiebe in King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters
• Brian Picchi ranks for Galaga, Ferrari Grand Prix Challenge, T&C Surf Designs (with video!)
• Ken Gagne’s Xbox gamertag
• High Score 3 on Kickstarter
• Wasteland 2 on Kickstarter
• Double Fine Adventures on Kickstarter
• Follow your friends on Kickstarter
• Juiced.GS Volume 17, Issue 1 now shipping
• Ken has no work-life balance
• Legend of the Star Axe game review (courtesy Antoine Vignau)

Apple Pickings (1:09:22 – 1:27:29)

• Akalabeth on cassette (hat tip: Vintage Computer Forum)

This month on the Open Apple podcast, Mike and Ken chat with Andrew Roughan, Australian Apple II user and curator of the Marinetti Open Source Project. From Jordan Mechner at PAX East 2012 to John Romero at KansasFest 2012 to Nolan Bushnell at GameFest, we’re all about attending conventions and chasing luminaries. We squabble over how to pronounce “Karateka”, look forward to new Monkey Island and Wasteland games, and eagerly consume iBooks for Apple II users on our iPads. On eBay, we get a previously untold tale of an extravagant Australian lot, then take a small jump north to look at an Apple II J-plus, before marveling at how astounded major press outlets were over your typical Bell & Howell.

Click past the jump for links mentioned in this episode.

Introduction (0:00 – 10:32)

• Total Confusion
• A2SERVER
• Steve Howell’s Carte Blanche FPGA card
• Ewen Wannop’s SNAP newsreader
• Beagle Bros’ Program Writer
• Beagle Compiler
• Nibble Magazine
• Open Apple on the Internet Archive
• Boston Museum of Science’s former Computer Revolution exhibit
• Computer History Museum

User Login (10:33 – 23:51)

• Andrew Roughan’s blog & email address
• Australian BBS scene
• The Complex II docs
• The Complex III (SHK)
• Marinetti
• Marinetti Open Source Project docs & getting started
• Uthernet link layer for Marinetti
• TCP Snooper
• Downunder IRC chat
• Mt. Keira Fest

II News (23:52 – 1:05:42)

• PAX East 2012
• Jordan Mechner to keynote PAX East 2012 (hat tip: Phil Cheetham)
• Wil Wheaton keynotes PAX East 2010
• Karateka gets rebooted
• How to pronounce Karateka by Jordan Mechner
• KansasFest registration now open
• KansasFest videos on Vimeo, YouTube, iTunes, Internet Archive
• 3.5 hours of Nyan Cat
• AirServer — bring AirPlay and AirTunes to your Mac
• Smithsonian’s Art of Video Games exhibition & GameFest event
• Double Fine, Tim Schafer & Ron Gilbert’s Kickstarter
• Brian Fargo to create Kickstarter-funded Wasteland 2
• Official Wasteland 2 site
• Infocom’s Trinity
• Kelvin Sherlock’s Shrink-Fit X
• DOS 3.3 Launcher
• Kim Howe reclassifies his IIGS software as freeware
• Uthernet card — sold out!
• Pascal for iPad
• PCWorld: Kevin Huffman still running his business on an Apple II
• Superior Watch Service
• Linotype: The Film
• Lim Thye Chean’s Virtual GS Book for iBooks
• Steve Weyhrich working on Apple II History print book
• Jason Scott’s Lumarca trailer
• A look at Cortland
• 1980s Apple vintage advertisements
• Not Another Apple Podcast?! (also via iTunes)

Apple Pickings (1:05:43 – 1:26:10)

• $75,000 lot of Australian Apples
• Wayne’s Computer, by Wayne Bibbens
• Kensington ADB Turbo Mouse
• Walter Isaacson’s Steve Jobs
• Apple II J-plus with Videx card
• Apple IIGS ROM 01 w/6 MB RAM
• Bell & Howell Apple II, as reported by Engadget & TUAW
• Dumpling-64 printer buffer
• Woz-autographed Apple-1 schematic, courtesy SignedByWoz.com
• Andrew Roughan’s autographed PowerBook

This month on the Open Apple podcast, Mike and Ken chat with Michael J Mahon, software and hardware developer extraordinaire and creative genius behind both recent DMS Drummer software and the ever-popular AppleCrate parallel processing computer. We talk about 8 Bit Weapon, the chiptune music scene, and the importance of commenting and documenting one’s code, whether it be commercial or open source. Michael’s not much of a gamer, but Ken and Mike are enjoying new versions of classic games, including Eamon, Choplifter, and possibly Rescue Raiders. We consider entering a Robot War competition, despite our poor showing at the RetroChallenge contest. Several new pieces of hardware to convert video signals are now available, which you can use with a pair of complete Apple IIGS systems, for sale and shipping for free from Bulgaria.

Congratulations to Bryan Letcher, who won a set of Microzine issues by completing our listener survey!

Click past the jump for links mentioned in this episode.

Introduction (0:00 – 12:00)

• iCade
• iMAME
• The making of an Apple II holiday ornament
• Red vs. Blue Season 9
• Apple II at the Boston Museum of Science
• The history of AppleWorks
• Denver Pi presentation attended by Randy Brandt
• Randy Brandt visits Mike Maginnis
• Discovering NAUG’s AppleWorks Forum magazine
• Scans of NAUG’s AppleWorks Forum

User Login (12:01 – 33:03)

• Homepage of Michael J Mahon
• Juiced.GS interview with Michael
• IBM 1620 Data Processing System
• The Burroughs 220 computer
• KIM-1 computer
• 8 Bit Weapon, chiptune musicians and vendors of DMS
• RT.SYNTH
• 8bit Generation chiptune documentary (see also: Reformat the Planet)
• State Shirt music video
• AppleCrate II parallel computer
• NadaNet network
• NadaPong video demonstration from KansasFest 2007
• More details on NadaPong

II News (33:04 – 1:38:24)

• Ivan Drucker’s A2SERVER
• Rich Dreher’s CFFA3000
• David Schmidt’s ADTPro
• Egan Ford’s Apple Game Server Online!
• How to build a NadaNet adapter
• Brutal Deluxe’s Fishhead
• FTA’s Photonix
• History of FID
• Ewen Wannop’s SNAP v1.1.1
• Gerard Putter’s Virtual II v6.4.1
• Apple II Oasis
• Ivan Drucker’s Structured Applesoft
• Don Knuth
• Eamon Adventurer’s Guild Online
• GEnieLamp interview with Tom Zuchowski
• Wade Clarke’s Leadlight
• The Magnavox Odyssey Pong console
• Stan Freberg
• Choplifter HD
• Interview with Dan Gorlin
• Steve Wozniak’s Fusion-io
• Rescue Raiders Mobile — coming Winter 2011?
• Rescue Battlefield
• Silas Warner’s RobotWar
• Jimmy Maher’s Robot War challenge
• Computer Gaming World Museum
• VCF East 8.0, keynoted by Dan Kottke and Thomas Kurtz
• TWiT Triangulation interviews Dan Kottke
• The biennial ROFLCon at MIT
• Chuck Peddle at VCF East 4.0
• AUSOM’s magazine archive
• Rhode Island Apple Group
• The Commodore 64 Scene Database
• Star Trek: TNG — “A Matter of Honor”
• David Greelish interviews Bob Cook of Sun Remarketing
• Apple Lisa museum
• Steve Howell’s Carte Blanche FPGA Card
• 12-bit color output
• Apple II Colour Demodulator
• RetroChallenge Winter Warmup
• Mike Maginnis’s RetroChallenge update

Apple Pickings (1:38:25 – 1:57:18)

• Ultima IV
• CFFA3000
• iDisk
• Apple IIe Platinum w/books, software, games
• Apple IIe Platinum w/games, software, books
• BootZero
• 8 Bit Weapon’s Bits With Byte album
• “Apple Core II“
• Smithsonian’s GameFest
• Nolan Bushnell

This month on the Open Apple podcast, Mike and Ken chat with David Greelish, co-host of the Retro Computing Roundtable podcast and recently published author of the book The Complete Historically Brewed. In the news is the Retrochallenge Winter Warm-up, which we each want to enter but just can’t find the time for. Larry Marcus has an office full of dead technology we both admire and question, and we offer a similar reaction to a questionable statue made in tribute to Steve Jobs, whereas Ron Wayne we admire and pity. An Apple-1 didn’t sell on eBay, but the Leather Goddesses of Infocom did, with Mike blogging about this and other Infocom games. But the highlight this month is David discussing with noted Apple II historian Steve Weyhrich the role of former CEO John Sculley at Apple Computer Inc. and in the fate of the Apple II — a topic about which David recently interviewed Sculley himself! We recommend you listen to that episode of the Classic Computing podcast first, though it’s not mandatory.

Click past the jump for links mentioned in this episode.

Introduction (0:00 – 10:01)

• Open Apple‘s end-of-year roundtable

User login (10:02 – 22:08)

• Retro Computing Roundtable
• Steven Levy’s Hackers
• David Greelish’s The Complete Historically Brewed book
• Historically Brewed‘s Kickstarter campaign
• Nelson DeWitt’s A Kickstarter’s Guide To Kickstarter
• Stan Veit’s History of the Personal Computer

II News (22:09 – 54:33)

• The Complete Historically Brewed on Amazon
• MiD DAY’s interview with Steve Wozniak
• Retrochallenge Winter Warm-up
• Larry Marcus’s Museum of Dead Technology
• 8-bit iTunes
• Warp Six BBS
• Garriott’s Ultimate RPG could become Ultima Online 2
• Ultima Online
• Funspot‘s American Classic Arcade Museum
• Apple’s founding contract sold at Sotheby’s for $1.35M
• Ronald G Wayne
• SignedByWoz.com
• Stanford establishes Apple archive; photos by MSNBC
• Juiced.GS Volume 16, Issue 4 (December 2011) ships
• Steve Jobs gets a Hungary statue
• Recording Academy grants Steve Jobs a 2012 Special Merit Award
• ActiveGS
• OpenEmulator
• Apple Game Server Online!
• The Lisa Emulator Project

Apple Pickings (54:34 – 1:05:20)

• Apple-1 for $175,000
• Apple III Plus
• Original Apple II computer — low serial #
• Retr0Bright
• Apple IIe Platinum, new in box
• Leather Goddesses of Phobos
• Blogging Ultima
• Blogging Infocom

Retroviews (1:05:21 – 1:38:43)

• David Greelish interviews John Sculley, Part 1
• David Greelish interviews John Sculley, Part 2
• Steve Weyhrich’s previous Open Apple appearance
• Steve Weyhrich: John Sculley Was Our Friend
• Personal computer market share 1975-2005
• John Sculley’s Odyssey: Pepsi to Apple: A Journey of Adventure, Ideas, and the Future
• Visionary Apple Chairman Moves On (16-Oct-93)