Open Apple

This month in Open Apple, Mike and Ken chat with Apple II historian Steve Weyhrich about strategies and philosophies for scanning, preserving, and publishing the story of the Apple II. Hardware hacks for the Apple IIc and expansion cards making their KansasFest debut caught our attention this month, as did the American Humanist Association recognizing Steve Wozniak, who earned a musical tribute from Jonathan Mann. Watches, shirts, boxes, and Risk topped our eBay auctions, while games ran the gamut from text adventures to Xbox spiritual successors to IIGS classics, with a few decorative posters thrown in for good measure. In addition to Dr. Steve, former KansasFest logo designer Chris Lackey makes not one but TWO guest appearances this month!

Congratulations to Jeremy Rand, who correctly named the game as Out of this World! He wins a $25 discount off KansasFest 2011 registration or a free KansasFest shirt. Next month’s winner will earn a 20% or $50 discount off one ReactiveMicro.com order.

Click past the jump for links mentioned in this episode.

Introduction (0:00 – 23:21)

• Taking the Apple II online with Uthernet
• Ken’s blog post about Jeri Ellsworth
• Triangulation podcast interview with Jeri Ellsworth
• 6502 Lane
• Transmit FTP client for Mac OS X

II News (23:22 – 52:02)

• Apple IIc mass storage Smartport hack
• Apple II Weather Display
• Rich Dreher’s CFFA3000
• Vince Briel’s A2MP3 card at KansasFest
• Jonathan Mann’s “That’s Just the Woz” song
• Song-A-Day: The Album by Jonathan Mann — Kickstarter
• Steve Weyhrich’s audio parody
• RetroMacCast #200
• David Greelish’s Retro Computing Roundtable
• Carrington Vanston’s 1 MHz
• Vintage Computer Festival East 7.0
• What’s an “Atari 64”?
• BYTE.com
• iWoz, by Gina Smith

Apple Pickings (52:03 – 1:01:20)

• Vintage Computer Museum collection
• Englebart mouse
• Apple boxes
• Letting the Boxes Go: A Tale of Sadness, by Blake Patterson

Name the Game (1:01:21 – 1:19:53)

• Out of this World coming to iOS
• Outland for Xbox Live
• Portal: The Flash Version
• Wolfenstein 3D turns 19 (and acknowledging its roots)
• Catacombs 3-D
• Creating Interactive Fiction with Inform 7 (and Jason McIntosh’s review)
• Usenet group rec.arts.int-fiction
• Trizbort, the Interactive Fiction Mapper
• Retro videogame propaganda posters
• Panic’s lost 1982 artwork. Found.
• OverClocked Remix fundraiser

Apple II podcaster, programmer, writer, editor, and event coordinator Ryan Suenaga has passed away. In this special episode, Mike and Ken remember their friend.

Click past the jump for links mentioned in this episode.

• Ryan’s last LiveJournal entry
• Ryan’s wish to establish a scholarship
• Ryan’s podcast, A2Unplugged

The third monthly episode of Open Apple, recorded on April 3, 2011, has Mike and Ken joined by KansasFest committee member Peter Neubauer. The three look forward to attending KansasFest and VCF and reading Juiced.GS, 300 Baud, Twisty Little Passages, and Don Lancaster’s Assembly Cookbook; review favorite edutainment software; gawk at outrageous eBay “Buy It Now” prices; and discover remakes of classic games Ultima, King’s Quest, SimCity, Lode Runner, Wizardry, Choplifter, and more.

Winning a two-day pass to VCF East is Marvin Malkowski Jr., who correctly named the game from last month’s episode! The prize for this month’s contest is a $25 discount off KansasFest registration or a free KansasFest 2011 t-shirt, both courtesy KansasFest sponsor 16Sector.

Click past the jump for links mentioned in this episode.

Introduction (0:00 – 10:46)

• Retro Computing Roundtable
• RetroMacCast
• Earl Evans of Retrobits on Twitter
• KansasFest committee roster
• Thomas Compter
• PAX East 2011 in pictures, by Andy Molloy
• Littlejohn Systems

II News (10:47 – 31:10)

• KansasFest 2011 opens for registration
• Steve Wozniak’s Facebook comment on attending KansasFest
• KansasFest Vendor Fair
• Peter Neubauer’s KansasFest 2010 session on Alan Floeter’s Macrosoft
• Vintage Computer Festival East 7.0
• Jay and Silent Woz shirt
• Juiced.GS Volume 16, Issue 1 (March 2011)
• Nick Montfort’s Twisty Little Passages
• 300 Baud magazine
• Mike Willegal’s Brain Board
• ProFUSE
• Kelvin Sherlock
• Uthernet Ethernet card
• ADTPro
• Don Lancaster’s Assembly Cookbook

Retroviews (31:11 – 40:07)

• Popular Mechanics article on Logo
• Homepage for Brian Harvey, author of multiple academic texts on Logo
• 3D Logo
• The Computist Archive
• Warren Robinett’s Rocky’s Boots

Apple Pickings (40:08 – 44:30)

• Apple IIGS Woz Signature Edition
• Sammy Lightfoot
• Bob Bishop’s Bomber
• Panic.com converts iPad audio to Applesoft
• Make Your Own Murder Party
• Apple Adventure (disk only)
• Apple Adventure (Buy It Now)
• Apple Adventure (disk & manual)
• 5.25″ Kraft Disk Notcher

Name the Game (44:31 – 59:48)

• Flash-based Ultima IV FAQ
• AGD Interactive — free, licensed, downloadable remakes of Sierra point-and-click adventures
• Sarien — free, licensed, online remakes of Sierra point-and-click adventures
• Ultima II and SimCity for the Apple IIGS?
• Micropolis — open-source version of SimCity
• Super Crate Box
• Spoonbill Software — remakes of Frogger, Lode Runner, Firebird, and more
• Wizardry: Well of Souls for PlayStation Network
• Choplifter remake for PlayStation network

In the second monthly episode of Open Apple, Mike and Ken are joined by Ivan Drucker: two-time KansasFest alumnus, Juiced.GS staff writer, and Mac consultant based out of New York City. News this month includes a look forward to Vintage Computer Festival (VCF) East 7.0 by two of its alumni, an Apple-1 expansion card for the Apple II, and controlling Apple II emulators via an iOS VNC; reviews of our favorite Beagle Bros programming utilities; the exorbitant prices Apple II hardware and software are fetching on eBay; and new iterations of our favorite adventure, role-playing, and text-adventure games.

Congratulations to Wade Clarke, who correctly guessed Karateka for last month’s “Name the Game” contest! His prize is a free Juiced.GS Concentrate, courtesy Juiced.GS publisher Gamebits. The prize for this month’s contest is a free two-day pass to VCF East 7.0, courtesy Evan Koblentz of MARCH.

Click past the jump for links mentioned in this episode.

Introduction (0:00 – 11:56)

• Apple II Scans
• Computer History Museum memberships
• IvanExpert

II News (11:57 – 35:45)

• Vintage Computer Festival East 7.0
• ReactiveMicro.com
• Maximum PC‘s 25 Most Important PCs in History
• Mike Willegal’s Brain Board demo
• ActiveGS for iOS
• Apple iPad 2
• Sweet16
• Mini vMac
• II in a Mac
• Mocha VNC Lite
• A2Command
• Starring the Computer movie database

Retroviews (35:46 – 43:20)

• Slammer
• GPLE
• Program Writer
• Space Ship of Death
• BBEdit Language Module Library
• Super-Mon
• Apple IIGS Laptop Project

Apple Pickings (43:21 – 53:17)

• Apple IIGS College shirt
• Microsoft Adventure
• Castle Wolfenstein original cover art painting
• John Benson’s art reproductions
• Auction Sniper
• Ultima I
• Ultima I w/original Ziploc bag
• Pawn Stars episode “Wise Guys”
• Apple IIGS as seen on Pawn Stars

Name the Game (53:18 – 1:06:31)

• Apple II in Minecraft
• Ultima 4: Flash Version
• xu4 — Ultima IV Recreated
• Play It Again for the First Time — King’s Quest I
• The Magic Candle adventure log
• Sword & Sworcery
• PAX East 2011
• Interactive fiction at PAX East 2011
• Learn Inform 7
• Frotz Z-Machine interpreter

Welcome to the inaugural episode of Open Apple, the Apple II community’s first co-hosted podcast. In this show, hosts Mike Maginnis and Ken Gagne reflect on their Apple II history before welcoming guest Andy Molloy. Segments include “II News”, a roundup of the latest events in the Apple II community, such as a CompactFlash adapter for the Apple IIc, the downsizing of the Apple II’s Usenet newsgroups, public appearances by Bill Budge, Bob Bishop, and Steve Wozniak, and a classic game now available for iOS; “Apple Pickings”, a review of Apple II software, hardware, and accessories on eBay and Craigslist; and the audio trivia challenge “Name the Game”.

Links mentioned in this episode:

Introduction (0:00 – 9:09)

• Trekcast, a Star Trek podcast
• Open-Apple newsletter reclassified under Creative Commons
• Dan McLaughlin’s Appleslices blog

II News (9:10 – 25:55)

• Robert Justice’s Apple IIc Smartport Compact Flash Adapter
• RFD: Apple II Usenet downsizing
• Bill Budge to receive AIAS Pioneer Award
• Bob Bishop to keynote KansasFest 2011
• Computer History Museum
• DigiBarn Computer Museum
• AppleTrek for iOS
• Retrochallenge 2011 Winter Warmup

Apple Pickings (25:56 – 31:52)

• Raster Blaster
• Microsoft Adventure
• Apple IIGS College shirt

Name the Game (31:53 – 37:34)

• Major Nelson’s Xbox podcast
• American Classic Arcade Museum
• Pinball Wizard Arcade