Now for something completely different. We have a bit of a gap between shows here on Open Apple, due to the timing of some interviews we have lined up. Rather than keep you waiting, we thought we’d try something wacky.

In this “episode” of Open Apple, Quinn and Mike sit down together and watch The Goldbergs. This is a sitcom airing on ABC that is garnering some critical acclaim. In particular, we watched episode 4 in season 2, entitled “Shall We Play a Game?”. This episode features an Apple II+ prominently throughout the show, including terrific shots of games and applications you will definitely recognize. The producers did their homework, and showed the platform genuine love and respect. It’s a very prominent feature of this episode, so we thought it might be fun to talk about it.

The format of this episode is rather like a DVD commentary track. However, we can’t legally include any audio or video of the show in the podcast, so you’ll need to set that up yourself. Queue up the episode of the show on your DVR, Hulu, or whatever other method you care to use, and listen to the podcast while you watch. We’ll tell you when to start playback of the show. We watched a version of the show with no commercials, so be sure and pause the podcast during breaks if you need to. We start watching at the opening line, “Growing up, my mom was many things…”.  Fair warning- the podcast by itself will not make much sense if you aren’t watching along with us!

For best results, we recommend a commercial-free version of the episode. See the show notes after the jump for some options.

We have no idea if this experiment is going to work for anyone, but we like to push the cutting edge of 30yo platforms here on Open Apple. Let us know what you think of this half-show. We probably won’t do it again, unless another TV show happens to spend half its screen time on an Apple II, but you never know. Stay tuned for the “real” November episode of Open Apple coming soon!

More information on The Goldbergs after the jump.

Links for Episode 40.5

• Shall We Play a Game? – Watch the episode for free on ABC’s site (pause the podcast during commercials).
• Shall We Play a Game? – Watch the episode commercial-free in HD on iTunes.
• Shall We Play a Game? – Watch the episode on Hulu.
• The Goldbergs – The official site.
• The Goldbergs – Everything you might want to know about the show.

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.

This month on Open Apple, we talk to Gary Little, prolific author of many technical reference books about various models in the Apple ][ line. In addition to writing great books that go deep on the hardware, Gary also wrote lots of great software, including such gems as AmDOS, and the popular Point To Point modem communication software.

We also catch up on all the news (there’s lots!) and take some cheap shots at other podcasters along the way. Join us as we talk about open source hardware, GS ports of great arcade games, the joy of redialing, and DClocks. So many DClocks!

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

Links for Episode 39

• Halt and Catch Fire – AMC Drama series set in the golden age of 8-bit computing.
• ImageWriter II cameo in Halt and Catch Fire – The prop used to represent the “Protonix OccasionMaster”.
• Rocky’s Boots cameo in Halt and Catch Fire – A classic Apple ][ game made to appear to be running on the Cardiff Giant.
• The Mac speaks for itself – The Mac speech demo that Quinn totally didn’t think was real. Jobs demonstrates his early flair for showmanship.
• Dagen Brock’s IIgs video series – Episode 0 of Dagen’s series on learning to program the Apple IIgs.
• Easy 6502 – A hands-on Java-based tutorial for learning 6502 assembly language.
• Western Design Center – Watch this space for information on the upcoming 6502-based hobbyist development boards.
• Western Design Center on Facebook – For all the latest announcements from our favorite chip maker.
• DuoDisk 3.5 Prototype auction – A genuinely rare and neat Apple ][ artifact for sale.
• Earlier DuoDisk 3.5 auction – The first one of two that appeared, which sold for impressive money.
• RAM Express & DClock combo auction – An incredibly rare and desirable pair of peripherals for the Apple //c Plus.
• Another RAM Express & DClock auction – Amazingly, a second auction for these rare items (not the same ones!).
• AppleFritter thread on CKeeper and CDrive – Internal hard drive and RAMdisk for the Apple //c. Meet the inventor!
• Open source 4MB RAM card for the IIgs – Apply your own engineering and get a tricked-out GS.
• Tech Note on //c Plus memory expansion compatibility – A small window into the black art of //c Plus RAM expansion.
• Second run of Carte Blanche? – Discussion about the ultimate prototyping tool for Apple ][ expansion cards.
• Ivan Drucker updates A2SERVER & A2CLOUD – The easiest-to-understand pair of products that exist on the Apple ][
• Quinn’s eBay score – A lower-right-logo carrying bag for her beloved //c Plus. All the bits are there!
• Apple //c box photo – The one that Mike and Quinn both thought included the carrying bag
• Quinn’s Apple ][ development pipeline – One click build-and-run of Apple ][ code (C or assembly) on your Mac
• Sensei – An amazing port of Karate Champ for the GS.
• Sensei gameplay – Don’t have time to install the disk image? Watch some video!
• Level 29 BBS – Relive the glory days of (re)dialing into magical far away lands with your Apple ][
• Activision resurrections the Sierra On-Line brand – “Badge engineering” at its finest.
• Gary Little – Author of many great Apple ][ programming books
• List of Gary’s books – A complete library of Apple ][ knowledge
• Inside the Apple //e – The canonical low-level programming tutorial for the Apple //e
• Inside the Apple //c – A similar book, this time focused on the Apple //c
• The Binary II file format – Gary’s solution to binary file transfer, officially adopted by Apple
• Apple Tech Note on the official adoption of Binary II (PDF warning)
• AmDOS – Gary’s “Amateur DOS”, for using 3.5″ disks in DOS 3.3
• Gary’s Apple ][ Pintrest – This stuff still catches his eye, and who can blame him?
• Summary of Gary’s telecommunication efforts – Call-A.P.P.L.E. does a rundown of modem software

Correction: In the show, we mention Sean Fahey’s DClock. Quinn misspoke on this- the DClock in question is owned by James Littlejohn. Quinn regrets the error, and Mike is already interviewing new co-hosts.

This month on Open Apple, we go deep on Lawless Legends with most of the team building it. We’ve managed to corner Seth Sternberger (of 8-bit Weapon fame), Martin Haye, and Brendan Robert (Dave Schmenk, we’re coming for you…) to grill them on this amazing effort. We also wish a fond farewell to co-host Ken Gagne, and welcome our new co-host Quinn Dunki. Listeners can look forward to more angry sarcasm and less professionalism here on Open Apple. Of course, we also ramble some more about KansasFest 2014. Because KansasFest.

Lawless Legends is a new wild west RPG game being built cross-platform for classic 8-bit computers, and possibly a few modern machines as well. Among its many outstanding features are a 2.5D free-roaming raycast engine, mipmapping, sprites, a high-level scripting language, and full modern pipeline for creating art and design elements. We gather up as many of the team as we can muster and pick their brains about how the game is coming along. We go deep into the process of building it, and take some cheap shots at Commodore along the way. It’s okay though, by the time their machines finish loading, this will all be ancient history.

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

Links for Episode 38

• KansasFest – The biggest and best retrocomputing conference there is.
• Lawless Legends on Facebook – Get the scoop on this game, and keep up with the latest news.
• Lawless Legends on Github – All the source code, ready to be forked around with.
• Outlaw Editor – The cross-platform retro game editor which is the beating heart of the Lawless Legends pipeline.
• JACE – The Java Apple Computer Emulator, which is the beating heart of the beating heart of Outlaw.
• The Tale of Big Blue – Follow a single pixel from editor to screen memory. Martin walks through the raycaster top to bottom.
• Blockly – The graphical code editor which was incorporated into Lawless’ design pipeline.
• “Burger” Becky Heineman – The legendary Apple ][ game developer by whom Lawless Legends managed to get noticed.
• Graphics Gems – Techniques for optimizing rendering engines that are as useful on the Apple ][ as they are on the PlayStation 4.
• 8-Bit Weapon – The chiptunes band with a soft spot for the Apple ][, and a love of retro RPGs.

This month on Open Apple, Mike chats with Quinn Dunki about her early programming experiences, and she gives us a brief overview of the development of her 6502-based homebrew computer, Veronica. Other topics this month: Apple IIc clones, KansasFest, Ultima VI on the IIGS, Quinn’s cease and desist from Origin Systems, Halt and Catch Fire, The Goldbergs and more.

This month on Open Apple, Mike and Ken chat with Evan Koblentz, producer of Vintage Computer Festival East. VCF East 9.1 is happening this spring, and Evan has an inside look at the event’s founding, growth, and lineup. Margot Comstock has been announced as the keynote speaker of KansasFest 2014, prompting us to reflect on the history of Softalk magazine. The Apple2pi card is now shipping, and it reminds us of other small devices that left a big impression, like the Replica-1 and even the Apple Newton PDA — which still has an active user group! Finally, Steve Jobs is appearing in all kinds of icons, from e-waste portraits to unlickable postage stamps. When will Woz get the recognition he deserves?

Click past the jump for links mentioned in this episode.

Introduction (0:00 – 10:10)

• Underground Retrocade
• American Classic Arcade Museum at Funspot
• Bob Lawton and his business card
• Pinball Wizard and its Groupon
• Wreck-It Ralph’s Fix-It Felix Jr. game
• Danger!awesome makerspace in Cambridge, MA — and its Kickstarter
• Denhac hackerspace in Denver, CO

User Login (10:11 – 37:42)

• Evan Koblentz
• Evan’s article for Juiced.GS
• Vintage Computer Festival East 9.1
• Mid-Atlantic Retro Computing Hobbyists (MARCH)
• InfoAge – Science History Learning Center and Museum
• Viva Amiga

II News (37:43 – 1:25:44)

• KansasFest 2014 teaser shared on Facebook
• Margot Comstock of Softalk to keynote KansasFest 2014
• All KansasFest keynote speakers, ever!
• Softalk Apple Project by JiM Salmons
• Computer Gaming World #101 (December 1992), page 192: Wizardry’s Family Infotree (hat tip: Reggie C. of World 1-1)
• Social media is not good for archiving
• Apple2pi card by David Schmenk
• Boston PDA User Group
• Bug in Silvern Castle v9.5
• Swashbuckler from Datamost
• stitch by krüe
• Software Automatic Mouth (SAM)
• mspysu79’s Apple II unboxing videos on YouTube
• Dan Budiac’s unboxing photos on Flickr
• Highretrogamelord89 on YouTube
• Elgato Game Capture HD used to record Let’s Play Retro Fever
• Steve Jobs rejected George Diamond’s medical app in 1977
• Dealers of Lightning by Michael A. Hiltzik
• Jason Mecier’s portrait of Steve Jobs made entirely out of e-waste
• Steve Jobs slated to grace US postage stamp in 2015

This month on Open Apple, Mike and Ken chat with Sean Fahey, proprietor of A2Central.com and KansasFest committee member. Sean and James Littlejohn distribute a plethora of Apple II hardware and software every year to KansasFest attendees, and next year’s haul will be bigger than ever — we have the details why. Glenn Jones is working on a new Uthernet card, and we can’t wait to see what new software it makes possible. The Mac turned thirty years old last month, and we reminisce about the first time we added a non-Apple II Apple to our inventory. Madden NFL, the football game that got its start on the Apple II, is the subject of both preservation and litigation — but we’d rather be playing Silvern Castle.

Click past the jump for links mentioned in this episode.

Introduction (0:00 – 10:03)

• Retrochallenge Winter Warmup
• Apple Sophisticated Operating System (Apple SOS)
• Gamebits on YouTube
• Elgato Game Capture HD
• Quinn Dunki’s Mac mini arcade

User Login (10:4 – 31:01)

• A2Central.com — Your total source for Apple II computing
• KansasFest
• AppleWin
• The return of Sean’s Garage at KansasFest 2011
• Michael Mahon donates Apple II collection

II News (31:02 – 1:28:43)

• Glenn Jones working on Uthernet II
• Brian Picchi’s Retro Fever
• Zéphyr unboxing
• Jeff Fink’s Silvern Castle
• Epic Apple II versus Commodore 64 chess match
• Penguin Software (and announcement)

At the dawn of 2014, Open Apple engages in its annual tradition of reflecting on all that has transpired in the Apple II community in the past year. Ken Gagne moderates a panel of Mike Maginnis, Andy Molloy, Ivan Drucker, and David Schmenk to look at topics in news, emulation, hardware, software, conventions, and publications. Popular themes include the Raspberry Pi, the S-Prize, social media, JSMESS, the Jobs film, and KansasFest 2013.

Click past the jump for links mentioned in this episode.

News (0:00 – 17:49)

• Ivan Drucker’s Raspple II
• David Schmenk’s Apple II Pi
• Craig Johnston & John Romero’s Apple Time Warp podcast
• Rich Dreher’s CFFA3000
• John Romero’s KansasFest 2012 keynote speech
• Eric Shepherd’s S-Prize for the SMB protocol
• Juiced.GS
• UltimateApple2 and ReactiveMicro.com to re-open

Emulation (17:50 – 25:09)

• GSport
• Sweet16
• JSMESS
• Option8’s RetroConnector
• CFFA for Apple-1

Hardware (25:10 – 36:24)

• Nishida Radio products
• iDisk Bluetooth card
• Replica 1 Ten

Software (36:25 – 50:55)

• Lamb Chops!
• RetroChallenge Winter Warmup
• Lawless Legends 3D Ray casting engine demo 1.0
• Software by Martin Haye
• Ewen Wannop’s software
• No Quarter podcast

Conventions (50:56 – 1:00:46)

• KansasFest
• Vintage Computer Festival East 9.1 (2014)

Books (1:00:47 – 1:06:46)

• Iconic, by Jonathan Zufi
• Sophistication & Simplicity: The Life & Times of the Apple II Computer, by Steven Weyhrich
• The First Apple, by Bob Luther
• The WOZPAK Special Edition: Steve Wozniak’s Apple-1 & Apple ][ Computers, by Steve Wozniak, Bill Martens, Brian Wiser

In Memory (1:06:47 – 1:07:39)

• Gina Saiken
• Wayne Green
• Lewis Kornfeld

Predictions (1:07:40 – 1:17:24)

• Aaron Sorkin’s Steve Jobs film

Participants’ Picks (1:17:25 – 1:23:37)

• Juiced.GS
• KansasFest
• comp.sys.apple2 (csa2) Usenet newsgroup
• Apple II Enthusiasts on Facebook
• Apple II Enthusiasts on Google+
• Gallery of Undiscovered Entities

Parting Shots (1:23:38 – 1:26:28)

• Apple II games on MobyGames
• A dog riding a Roomba (hat tip: Monica Castillo)

This month on Open Apple, Mike and Ken chat with Andrew Schultz — gamer, FAQ author, and Interactive Fiction Competition participant. Text adventures are enjoying a resurgence in popularity and access, and Andrew guides us through the tools and resources available for aspiring game authors. Both Steve Weyhrich’s history book and the Steve Jobs movie are available for home delivery, but there’s only one we want to find under our Christmas tree. Jason Scott has integrated the JSMESS emulator into the Internet Archive, granting users unprecedented access to historical software right in their browsers. Finally, Ken, in his quest to be more Woz-like, adopts his hero’s fashion sense.

Click past the jump for links mentioned in this episode.

Introduction (0:00 – 10:16)

• Apple II guest speakers at Emerson College
• Super Megafest 2013
• Ken’s unboxing videos on YouTube
• Xbox One first impressions with Lon Seidman
• Floppy Days by Randy Kindig
• ANTIC Atari podcast

User Login (10:17 – 52:09)

• Andrew Schultz on GameFAQs
• Wade Clarke’s Leadlight
• Creating Interactive Fiction with Inform 7, by Aaron Reed
• Eamon Adventurer’s Guild Online
• The Interactive Fiction Database
• Andrew Plotkin’s Hadean Lands: Interactive Fiction Kickstarter
• GET LAMP panel at PAX East 2010
• Spring Thing

II News (52:10 – 1:45:31)

• Steve Weyhrich’s Sophistication & Simplicity, based on the Apple II History site, now available from Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble
• Amazon Prime Air drones
• Chrisann Brennan’s book about Steve Jobs, The Bite in the Apple
• Jobs now available on iTunes
• Jobs on Rotten Tomatoes — 26%
• Apple Time Warp podcast with John Romero and Craig Johnston (also available on iTunes)
• The Romero Archives
• John Romero interviews Nasir Gebelli
• Apple II game developer reunion 1998
• Building an Apple-1 replica from scratch
• Briel Computers’ Replica 1 Ten
• Ivan Drucker’s Raspple II
• David Schmenk’s Apple II Pi
• The Interactive Fiction Competition
• Charles Mangin’s joystick adapters, courtesy option8
• PAX East 2013 retro console room
• Jason Scott of The Internet Archive debuts the Historical Software Archive based on JSMESS
• Ars Technica’s Casey Johnston reviews Karateka, 30 years later
• Virtual Apple
• Strong Museum Museum of Play
• The Art of Video Games (TAOVG)
• Generational hardware gaps
• Do not approach your loved one while in your fighting stance or she’ll kick you in the head.
• Computer History Museum releases Apple II DOS source code
• Slashdot tours the Goodwill Computer Museum
• An entire Apple museum on eBay!
• Steve Wozniak endorses SCOTTEVEST jackets
• Woz-i-sodes playlist one and playlist two
• Eric Shepherd’s Sweet16 emulator
• good morning son”>Tower of Myraglen
• Brian Picchi releases Lamb Chops
• Andrew Schultz’s Copts and Robbers FAQ

This month on Open Apple, Mike and Ken chat with Bill Martens of Call-A.P.P.L.E. Preserving our community’s software and documentation is important not just to the users, but to the people doing the preserving; Bill explains why. We look at how the media can never get enough of Steve Jobs, examining his early career and denoting his boyhood home as a historical landmark — but Woz gets his time in the spotlight too, on panels about Atari, the Jobs movie, or a Homebrew Computer Club reunion. Highlighted eBay auctions include the ten rarest and most expensive games and yet another Apple-1. Finally, Brian Wiser joins us to discuss The WOZPAK Special Edition, a book that made its debut at KansasFest 2013 alongside its creator, Steve Wozniak.

Click past the jump for links mentioned in this episode.

Introduction (0:00 – 11:07)

• November, by Thomas Hood
• Apple2Pi by David Schmenk
• A2CLOUD & A2SERVER, by Ivan Drucker
• BrickPi combines Raspberry Pi with Lego Mindstorm

User Login (11:08 – 39:37)

• Bill Martens of Call-A.P.P.L.E.
• The history of A.P.P.L.E., founded by Val Golding

II News (39:38 – 1:25:36)

• Wendell Sander’s Apple 1 Project
• iPod interface to Apple 1 Cassette Board
• Apple IIc clear case prototype
• Charles Mangin’s Apple IIe Card Y-Cable
• Jeri Ellsworth’s castAR Kickstarter
• Time capsule buried by Steve Jobs in 1983 finally found
• Steve Jobs’ Crist Drive, Los Altos house reviewed for historical designation
• Steve Wozniak, Dan Kottke & Andy Hertzfeld discuss the film Jobs
• Steve Wozniak and Atari founder Nolan Bushnell recall Steve Jobs and early Apple memories together
• 8 reasons why Woz still matters
• Wheels of Zeus
• US Festival 1982
• A.P.P.L.E. presents: The Woz Speaks DVD
• Sound of the dial-up modem explained and pictured
• Secrets of the little blue box
• Ron Rosenbaum’s “Steve Jobs and Me”
• Homebrew Computer Club reunion Kickstarter
• VCF Europe & VCF Midwest
• Jonathan Zufi adapts the Shrine of Apple into Iconic coffee table book, as featured in the Wall Street Journal
• 9 museums that want your legacy tech
• How LucasArts fell apart
• Top 10 most valuable computer games for the Apple II on eBay
• Apple-1 computer for auction at Breker (w/YouTube video)

Retroviews (1:25:37 – 1:54:42)

• Brian Wiser’s previous appearance on Open Apple
• The WOZPAK Special Edition
• RetroMacCast‘s look at the original WOZPAK
• Done the Impossible: The fans’ tale of Firefly & Serenity
• Wil Wheaton — Why it’s awesome to be a nerd