Open Apple

This month on Open Apple, we sit down with Megan Lemmert, co-founder of 6502 Workshop. She and her partners (Mike Reimer, Bill Giggie, Robert Padovan, Gordon Mackay, and Galactagog) have been building Nox Archaist, a brand new story-driven tile-based role-playing game in the classical Ultima style. They’re pushing the hardware as far as they can with this new engine, working to break new ground in scope, story, animation, sound, and music. Early builds look great, and we’re really excited to see more!

Megan’s journey with the Apple II parallels a lot of us. The machine sparked an interest in programming, and a fascination with RPGs and tile engines in particular. Nox Archaist is the fulfillment of that childhood dream to build such a game from scratch. Megan shares her war stories (that many of us can relate to) of strewing our childhood computers with half-baked game engines that were doomed from the start. As she and her team are proving, it’s never too late to revive and achieve that dream.

KansasFest 2017 registration is now open! Early bird rates in effect as of this posting, so don’t wait. Attendance is limited to 100 this year. Sign up now!  Megan will be there and likely demonstrating Nox Archaist, so you won’t want to miss that.

Meanwhile, Mike and Quinn yammer on about new hardware, new old games, old new games, and of course Woz. Also back this month is the controversial Softalk segment. Read along with us in issue #4!

More information on everything discussed in this episode, after the jump.

This month on Open Apple, we sit down with Craig Peterson, who got involved with hardware and software development very early in the life of the Apple II. Craig integrated Apple II computers with a numerical control manufacturing system, producing G-code for the cutting machines in a factory. He was a pioneer in using the Apple II for what computers are actually good at- moving data around in an automated fashion and abstracting away sources of human error in a complex process.

Craig wrote technical articles for all the major Apple magazines, which led to him getting involved with Chinook. Craig wrote diagnostic and utility software for Chinook drives in the then exciting burgeoning new field of SCSI devices. Necessity is the mother of invention, and the need to precisely time SCSI drive interleavings prompted Craig to create a universal driver for the No Slot Clock.

KansasFest Early Registration is now open! Sign up now, because attendance is limited to 100 this year.

Meanwhile, listen as Quinn confirms that French people are from France, Mike spots the only Apple III in a hundred mile radius, and another boring Apple I auction happens. There’s double-hires, there’s outgoing preservationists, and there are lots of Australians. So many Australians.

A new episode of Computer Show! A new episode of Computer Show! A new episode of Computer Show! A new episode of Computer Show! A new episode of Computer Show! A new episode of Computer Show!

More information on everything discussed in this episode, after the jump.

• KansasFest early registration – Sign up now before the price goes up!
• Floppy Emu B enclosure – A community effort.
• Elk Cloner turns 35 – The author would really like us all to forget it.
• Apple I auction – Yup, another one. Blah de blah.
• Alien Downpour – Michael Packard is now taking pre-orders. Get yours now!
• GSPlus and more – Dagen Brock has been releasing his projects.
• Apple explores DRM – The infamous copy protection memos that are in the news.
• Nox Archaist updates – The Ultima-like continues to make strong progress.
• Oz KFest gets dates – Sign up if your country has spiders that eat birds!
• Brutal Deluxe to keynote – Come to KFest and meet the French legends.
• Dos 3.3 Sector Viewer – John Brooks builds it small.
• Virtual II updated – Full screen support is back.
• Apple IIc launch photos – New media turns up from the big 1984 event.
• Go go gadget preservation – Jason Scott makes things happen in the news.
• Exploring DHGR – Alex Lukazi plays with color theory.
• A new episode of Computer Show! – Go watch it now.
• Think iPhones cost too little? – Here’s a way to spend a lot more for some reason.
• Transputers revisited – A listener link that explains it much better than we did.
• Atari Transputing – Our listeners love these things, as it turns out.

This month on Open Apple, Mike and Quinn sit down with each other and catch up on all the news they’ve been neglecting lately.

Mike and Quinn discuss the disappointing 8BitDo controller, get excited about remanufactured printer ribbons, and pretend to know anything about EDD.

Follow along as we review Softalk volume 1, number 3. The ads are always the best part! Meanwhile, we manage to sneak in one more Kay Savetz reference, and a Boo Atari in the same breath. That’s the Open Apple Way.

You won’t want to miss this month’s Apology to Call A.P.P.L.E segment. We’re going to need a bumper for that (and the Australians) soon. Despite all this terribleness, please give us money. Because costs.

More information on everything discussed in this episode, after the jump.

• Gingerbread Apple II – Delicious, if not nutritious.
• Eight-Bit-No – Turns out the controller we were all excited about is kinda meh.
• Assembly Lines #42 – Chris Torrence reviews the 8BitDo controller.
• Assembly Lines #43 – Another follow-up on the 8BitDo.
• Apple II on an AVR – Emulating a small system on another small system.
• The new Portal on the old II – That Kerbal guy strikes again.
• Imagewriter II lives again – Yes, you CAN still get those color ribbons!
• Virtual II updated – The best OS X emulator is now even better.
• Some guy buys a Porsche – At least he spent too much.
• Lemonade Stand as a chatbot – A very modern way to play a very old game.
• GBBS Pro now GPL – All the gees, bees, and pees.
• Wade Clark saves a teenage legacy – You should do this with your stuff too.
• Quinn saves her own legacy – In two parts.
• More Burroughs on Apple II – Michael Mahon continues to update his nifty toy.
• WOzFest PR#6 – The Australians are doin’ stuff again.
• Sweet16 status – Sheppy let’s us know what’s up.
• Teen collector extraordinaire – Sells his collection to keep a dream alive.
• Apple II on a C.H.I.P. – No, not the Mega II. A different “chip”.
• RetroConnector – The presumed source for the enclosure on the above project.
• Transputer for the Apple II – It turns out “transputing” is a thing.
• Origin of the Transputer story – A2Central, as always, gets the scoop.
• Fixing Three Mile Island – The game, not the infamous power plant.
• I’m fEDD Up 2.2 – An update to the floppy archival tool of choice.
• The EDD Project – Paul Hagstrom tells the story of trying to save floppies at high-res.
• Tony Diaz speaks – He tells the story of the GS/OS 6.0.3 file typing bug.
• Ryan Suenaga’s software – A valuable archive, preserved!
• Rare 13MHz UltraWarp – The accelerator that nobody has heard of.
• Softalk Vol 1 No 3 – Follow along with us!
• John Romero’s Alien Attack – A great writeup on this early production.
• Floppy Days podcast – The HP85 series is especially interesting.

This month on Open Apple, we round out the year with our annual tradition of sitting around a virtual table with some friends of the show, discussing whatever comes to mind. Mike and Quinn are joined by Jeremy Barr-Hyde, Jorma Honkanen, Kate Szkotnicki & Chris Torrence.

We have a really fun mix of Apple II fans from all walks of life and all parts of the world this month. Sit down with us as we discuss our history with the machines and how they fit into our lives today. Can retrocomputers be teaching tools for kids today? Can an Apple II serve a practical role in modern life? What was your unicorn accessory or software package back in the day? How do we get new faces to KansasFest? We chat about all this and more, so don’t miss it!

More information on everything discussed in this episode, after the jump.

• Jeremy – Retro Blog and Google Drive full of Apple II scans.
• Jorma – The FinApple, source of all things Apple II in Finland.
• Kate – Streaming console gaming and soon Apple II, on Twitch.
• Chris – The Assembly Lines video podcast, and the Hyperduino project with Roger Wagner.
• Mike – As always, his scanned document site is a great resource.
• Quinn – Blondihacks blog, with Apple II projects and crazy otherness.

This month on Open Apple, we sit down with Glenda Adams, better known on the Apple II as The Atom. She was a cracker of some note back in the 1980s, and she shares great stories with us of her exploits in boot tracing, cracking, and distributing software in the glory days of the Apple II BBS scene.

We talk about the journey from programming to cracking, and back to programming again. We talk about the politics of the Apple II scene, and the unique experience of cracking software remotely. Think fixing your grandparents’ printer over the phone is hard? Trying cracking a game!

Can you deduce the release date of Fontrix by time-lining Apple II crack screens? We leave that as an exercise to the listener. Meanwhile, Glenda shares stories of porting Space Rogue, parties at Lord British’s house, and the old-school feel of early iOS development.

More information on everything discussed in this episode, after the jump.

• Apple II Crack Screens – A list that includes many greats, including The Atom.
• Fontrix – You can play with this still-neat tool on Internet Archive.
• Call A.P.P.L.E Books – Here they are!
• Buckshot – Dagen Brock’s GUI for Bill Buckels’ image converter.
• SD MIDI II+ – Ian Kim’s clone of a classic MIDI card.
• Open A.P.P.L.E. – We accidentally wrote a column for a magazine.
• Magazine scans – Jeremy Barr-Hyde scans A2 Central and Open Apple (not us).
• WozFest 5.25″ recap – It happened! Fun was had! It was recapped!
• Caverns of Mordia re-released – Play it again, Sam! Or Quinn or Mike!
• Apple training videos – A great archive of rips of internal VHS materials. 80’s hair!
• Applesoft webserver – Thanks to the untapped potential of the Uthernet II.
• Uthernet II – buy one and put your Apple II on the internet.
• Alien Downpour – Work continues on Michael Packard’s upcoming game.
• Apple Graphics And Arcade Game Design Enthusiasts – A good book despite the name.
• Apple’s abandoned businesses – The things Apple doesn’t love anymore.
• Corey Cohen takes over Apple I clone support – Mike Willegal is frying bigger fish.
• Blake Patterson’s holiday demos – An annual retro tradition.
• Repairing Convict – Recording lost floppy data the hard way.
• Rev 0 Apple II #0025 – Some photos of a verrrry early II.
• Analysis of Apple II game rankings – A great state of the industry on the Apple II.
• AppleSoft BASIC book in BlindSpot – Turns out it’s this book (Cover photo).
• Apple IIc Introduction to AppleSoft – Slightly more modern version of above book.
• CFFA 3000 ordering – Get your name on this list so he will make more of them!
• Halt & Catch Fire online – Watch on AMC’s website. Season 4 will be the end of it.

Don’t copy that floppy!

This week on Open Apple, we run a special piece of extra content, courtesy of friend-of-the-show Mike Whalen. Mike brought his mobile audio production gear to KansasFest back in July, and he captured a series of interviews and biographies during the event. He has graciously agreed to let us run it here on our feed. It’s wonderfully produced, and a great way to get a feel for what KansasFest is all about. If you’re on the fence about attending KFest in 2017, this will certainly sway you into joining us for all the Apple II fun.

This month on Open Apple, we sit down with Alex Lee, purveyor of the canonical IIgs reference site What Is The Apple IIgs?  We talk about what it was like being one of the brave few with this machine, and that feeling of living in a secret world of incredible graphics and sound that nobody else seemed to know about.

Alex walks us through the history of IIgs emulators, and all the ways that the IIgs Finder was actually better than the Mac. He also talks about the legal challenges of running an archive site like this, which luckily are not too serious for this obscure machine. We finish up with talk of the future of the site, and the difficulty of finding some really rare software packages- help contribute content!

Alex is also working on an Apple IIgs coffee table book. Help encourage him to finish it, because we all want to buy it very very badly. Just saying.

Keep listening, because you won’t want to miss Alex casually dropping the phrase “Late nineties and early naughties” in his charming Australian accent. Tune in as well to pine along with Quinn for the never-to-be Ultima VI.

Our apologies for this episode being a bit late. Combinations of illness, holiday commitments, and technical difficulties all conspired against us this month.

More information on everything discussed in this episode, after the jump.

• Apple II Scans – Mike’s repository of Apple II documentation and related media.
• What Is The Apple IIgs? – Alex Lee’s wonderful site, including all the games we discuss.
• Retro Hour with Lord British – An interview on how he loved the II a bit II much.
• Simulating a Burroughs 220 on an Apple II – Michael Mahon expands his KFest showing.
• Nox Archaist: Shattered Sword – Vignettes showing off their engine progress.
• New editions – This and this are fresh from Call A.P.P.L.E.
• ADTPro 2.0.2 – A new update to everyone’s favorite imager and bootstrapper.
• System 6.0.3 bug – Antoine Vigneau identifies a big auxtype problem.
• Huibert Aalbers – Recovered software, and the story behind it.
• Brutal Deluxe tapes – Somehow they keep finding new Apple tapes.
• New System Disk – John Brooks updates System Master with ProDOS 2.4.1.
• DOS 3.1 – It has been compiled from source and reborn!
• Apple Commander – Now living on Maven, great for cloud-assisted build pipelines.
• VCF Zurich – It’s a thing that happens and happened.
• Computer Pirate Shirt – The shirt that twitter hath wrought.
• FinApple – A new Finnish site for our favorite fruits.
• Hackaday 1kb challenge – An Apple II is a shoe-in to win this.
• Veronica – Because can’t resist a chance to link to this.
• Jimmy on Willy – Digital Antiquarian goes deep on Neuromancer and William Gibson.
• UltimateApple2 now Facebook – The latest on IDEA2C and other projects.
• Apple II manager interview – Computer History Museum sits down with a veteran.
• Washington Apple Pi online – Most of their newsletters are now scanned.
• Kickstarter for Woz – Help make a documentary about Woz’s music festivals.
• Softalk V1N2 – Read along with us through the back catalog of this magazine.

This month on Open Apple, we share an excerpt of an interview with John Brooks, courtesy of Juiced.GS.  John talks about how and why he updated ProDOS, and his experiences getting back into the community.

Tune in to hear Quinn lose 20 years of time perception around the Tiger Learning Computer, then pretend to know stuff about power supplies. Meanwhile, Mike waxes nostalgic about high school computer labs and tries to unload his excess Apple IIs on unsuspecting community members.

We try out a new segment this month, and we hope you like it! No spoilers- you’ll just have to listen and see what we’re up to.

More information on everything discussed in this episode, after the jump.

• Juiced.GS interview – Ken Gagne chats up John Brooks about ProDOS 2.4.
• ProDOS 2.4 – The “official” home of John’s update.
• Tiger Learning Computer – The educational toy with an Apple II under the hood.
• Tanru Nomad – Brian Picchi’s Apple-II-centric YouTube channel.
• Steve Jobs in images – Images of Steve Jobs. No, really.
• A2Heaven’s Apple II VGA Scaler – Finally, a VGA solution for people with slots.
• Bluetooth controller with Apple II theme – With a 9-pin dongle for Apple II use!
• Quinn’s Apple II gamepad – Make your own modern style controller.
• Dynacomp 240V dissection – Find out how that Aussie power supply works.
• ReactiveMicro Docs – Henry Corbis shares all his reverse engineering.
• The Goldbergs go deep – A fantastic Apple II classroom callback that gets it right.
• Chris Zuhar’s Apple /// clone – Step 1: make a blog!
• Retrochallenge 2016/10 – Happening now! Apple II projects expected to win.
• Egan “Datajerk” Ford – Update to Apple II Disk Server!
• Terry “Tezza” Stewart – The Kiwi with the cool videos.
• Cider Press rewrite – Andrew Wells rewriting it in C#.
• Apple II canned – A very unique tribute.
• Vintage BBS List updated – For all your redialing pleasure.
• Quinn’s digital archeology – Includes her sad attempt at a BBS.
• Plamen needs a IIc Plus – Lend him one for awesome product development.
• Rack mount portable IIgs – You probably can’t get one, but neat!
• Ben Heck’s IIgs – The gold standard of IIgs portables.
• That’s not all – Other IIgs portable efforts.
• Softalk Vol 1, No 1 – Follow along as we dig through the classic magazines.

This month on Open Apple, we sit down with Kate Szkotnicki, long time Apple II fan and new addition to the retro community. We chat about her first impressions as a newcomer to the community, and the big splash she made at her first KansasFest. Kate is a cosplayer and frequent attendee of anime and comic cons, so she brought a very fresh set of skills and perspectives to KansasFest. Her presentation on making plastic parts (and candy!) with silicone moulding was very popular. Throw away your 3D printers- this is easier and better.

We also talk lots about John Brooks’ excellent work on updating ProDOS, Quinn says a bunch of stuff about Commodore that probably isn’t true, and Mike falls on his sword for getting everything wrong about Australian Apple II gatherings. Mike gets a record number of Apple /// references into this episode, so be sure to tune in and ignore that.

Breaking news! Between us recording and releasing this show, John Brooks has updated ProDOS to 2.4.1. Also, we worked out that the MegaBeep ROM is in fact compatible with it, contrary to the opening of the show. Listener James reported an issue that we believe was actually a bad ROM. If you are a MegaBeep owner, don’t hesitate to use it with any version of ProDOS, including John Brooks’ excellent new 2.4 updates.

Thanks to Brian Wiser of Call A.P.P.L.E. for permission to use the interview clip with Mike Harvey and John Leake.

Happy 30th birthday, Apple IIgs!

• Kate on Cult of Mac – Kate’s shiny new GS makes an appearance as well.
• Silicone Moulding and Resin Casting – Kate’s KansasFest presentation.
• Kate’s Apple II dress from BaltiCon – More photos here and here!
• Kate’s victory in the tie contest – A tough act to follow.
• VCF West photos – Holding out for a H.E.R.O.
• Cauzin SoftStrip – Reverse engineered, so… neat.
• Inventor of Cauzin – A great interview over on ANTIC.
• Halt & Catch Fire sets – Lots of cool 80s tech in the background.
• Apple I auction – Rare example sold to people you won’t like.
• ProDOS 2.4 – John Brooks updates the classic OS (2.4.1, now!)
• Manila Gear IIgs VGA – Careful- may not be what you think.
• ByteBoosters Transwarp enhancements – Juice up your juicer.
• 4Play Joystick card – You can now actually buy one.
• VNCView GS updated – Remote desktop for your 16 bitter.
• ADTPro to the rescue – Is there anything it can’t do?
• Mike Harvey of Nibble – Interviewed by Call A.P.P.L.E.
• Mike Harvey on RetroMacCast – Audio of the above interview. Thanks John & Brian!
• Bejeweled update – Jeremy Rand’s HackFest entry, now with more features!
• NuShrinkItX updated – Now swiftier.
• WozFest, OzKFest, etc – Mike and Quinn get it all wrong again.
• Patching DOS 3.3 – Yes, you can boot it on an external IIc drive.
• Possible Apple /// clone – Or at least, a neat way to start a home-brew project.
• Veronica – Quinn’s home-brew computer which inspired the Apple /// clone.
• Steve Jobs quits & returns – Cult Of Mac says stuff about it.
• Rev 0 Apple II – Market engineering at its finest.
• WeeGUI – Quinn’s mouse text-based GUI library for Apple II.
• Roland Gustafsson – The co-author of Gumball’s operating system and copy protection.
• ReactiveMicro news – A new way to keep up to date on their progress.
• Apple Graphics and Arcade Game Design Enthusiasts – For fans of a great book
• Apple Graphics and Arcade Game Design – That would be this book.

This month on Open Apple, we sit down with Mark Pilgrim, one of the most active software preservationists in the Apple II community. Mark has been spending his free time working on Passport, an automated cracking tool. It automatically detects and defeats copy protection schemes on Apple II disks, producing copyable disks that are otherwise completely intact. This is a boon for preservation of software that has only been (poorly) cracked by hoodlums of the past, or is previously uncracked. The latter is very common with educational software, business packages, and other things that the old crackers weren’t interested in. Mark’s skills and perseverance are making it possible to use more and more Apple II software on sites like Archive.org and VirtualApple.

KansasFest 2017 will be July 18th-23rd at Rockhurst University!

Meanwhile, tune in to this show and listen to Quinn and Mike bumble through news of various festivals, discuss lots of new hardware, and utterly fail to be respectful of the passing of a computer science legend. We’re sorry, Mr. Papert- you will be missed, and Logo touched all our lives.

There are a record number of amazing announcements of hardware and software this month. You won’t want to miss Passport, Ancient Legends, 4soniq, CP/M Turbo 7, SD-MIDI, and more. It’s an incredible month for spending money on your Apple II.

Go download Passport and archive all your floppies. Start now, or you’ll be up very late.

More information on everything discussed in this episode, after the jump.

• Mike Willegal : Home of the Apple 1 Registry, among many other things.
• Mark Pilgrim : Cracker, writer, preservationist extraordinaire.
• Passport : Mark’s automated cracking and preservation tool.
• Passport Intro : Mark’s amazing presentation at KansasFest 2016
• MECC : The educational software consortium that is a target of Passport for preservation
• Ship of Theseus: The most literary (and Quinn’s favorite) guest-uttered metaphor.
• Passport workflow : A great sample of how to use this powerful utility.
• GEnie and Delphi : Archived for all time.
• KansasFest 2017 : Next year’s dates already announced. Book it now!
• KansasFest 2016 : This year’s sessions and notes now online.
• Cult of Mac does KFest : The mainstream is all up in our business again.
• WOzFest $04 : It happened! Read more about it.
• Apple II Festival France : It also happened!
• VCF West : Guess what? It happened!
• Space 4048 : A charming lo-res vertical shooter in production now.
• Call A.P.P.L.E books : More reprints from ye olde user group.
• Marina IP : Perhaps the final update to this remarkable piece of TCP/IP software.
• GitHub Collation : A nice round-up of every Apple II project on github. Great reference!
• Logo Inventor Passed Away : Seymour Papert’s pen has gone down for the final time.
• Ancient Legends – Brand new, finished game by the Lawless Legends team. Yes, really.
• Halt And Catch Fire Season 3 : It’s baaaaa-ack. Play spot-the-Commodore.
• Inner Circle : Former member of a hacker group tells all. Again.
• MIDI, VGA, RAM, oh my! : Plamen is at it again with great new hardware.
• SD-MIDI : Ian Kim’s MIDI card.
• CP/M Turbo 7 : Another marvel from Ian Kim, coming soon.
• 4Soniq : Manila Gear’s marvelous IIgs sound card now available.
• Mugs and stuff : Retrobright guru Javier has made mugs and stuff.
• French Touch : Playing music while loading from a floppy disk. Yes, really.
• Kaboom! updated : Now supports 4-PLAY joystick card.
• Nox Archaist contest : Winners of the tile art contest have been announced.
• Woz-autographed Apple I : Up for auction. Get out your chequebooks.

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