Open Apple

This month on Open Apple, we close out the year with our traditional Year-End Roundtable discussion. We’re joined by Eric ‘Sheppy’ Shepherd, Sarah W., and Carrington Vanston. We talk about alternate universes, our collective love of the IIgs, and Quinn takes cheap shots at Carrington. It’s the holidays, so Commodore users are given a respite. Well, a bit of a respite, anyway. Meanwhile, Sheppy solicits hatemail, Carrington calls shenanigans, and Sarah keeps everyone honest. Count the euphemisms! So many euphemisms!

As usual, we have lots of news to talk about as well. It’s been an amazing year for the Apple II, and we have new games, new hardware, and new video histories to share. I/O Silver is here, John Romero is there, and JSMESS is everywhere.

More information on everything discussed in the show after the jump.

• No Quarter – Mike and Carrington’s other thing.
• Drop /// Inches – Mike and Paul’s other thing.
• KansasFest – Of course!
• A2RetroSystems – Home of the upcoming Uthernet II, and other magic.
• CFFA 3000 – You either have one or you want one. Maybe you want more than one.
• 65xx SXBs – Western Design Center’s 6502-based hobbyist boards.
• ReactiveMicro – Makers of the upcoming TransWarp clones.
• Portal – No, not that Portal. Jimmy Maher talks about this obscure game.
• Penguin Software – Jimmy also talks about The Spy’s Adventure series…
• Carmen Sandiego – …and the competing series most of us know.
• PolarWare – The other side of the controversy, from the Spy’s Adventure folks.
• Crush, Crumble, and Chomp – Sheppy’s pick, not what Quinn thought it was.
• The Movie Monster Game – What Quinn thought it was.
• Task Force – One of the best IIgs games ever.
• Life And Death – One of the weirdest IIgs games ever.
• Scoot McNairy – The actor Quinn was trying to remember.
• Bill Bailey – The actor Sarah was trying to remember.
• TanRu Nomad – Home of Brian Picchi’s new Apple II games.
• Genius – New game by Daniele Liverani.
• Build Pipeline – Develop Apple II software the easy way.
• JSMESS – The future of retrocomputer emulation.
• I/O Silver – The remake is now available!
• Apple I Auction – Yet another one. Less money this time.
• Early Apple documents – An auction of Ron Wayne’s personal archive.
• Corey Cohen – NYT profile of the Apple I authenticator.
• Auction background – Corey talks about these auctions over on AppleFritter.
• Auction photos – The documents in Ron’s auction.
• ‘Iconic’ updated – Jonathan Zufi’s book gets a refresh.
• Young Guru – Beyonce’s engineer hearts the Apple II.
• JSBasic – Applesoft in your browser.
• vnIIc – Screen sharing to your Apple II.
• Woz reality show – About something something technology.
• What garage? – Woz speaks about the myth of the garage.
• BusinessWeek – Accompanying article for that video.
• This American Life – NPR speaks about all the myths about all the garages.
• Minicomputer Boom – Woz cameo in video series about the minicomputer boom.
• Kinja – Woz on some new thing that the kids today probably use.
• CFFA 3000 – Delayed until end of 2015. Sad face.
• Bill Fernandez – Apple employee #1(?) tells his story.
• GBBS Pro – The seminal Apple II BBS software gets GPLed.
• Sony Hack – Leaked documents reveal drama behind the scenes on Jobs movie.
• Drive-Thru RPG – Digital download service for paper RPG games like Traveller.
• Alternate Reality – The ambitious RPG series that didn’t quite fulfill the dream.
• Alternate Reality – More on these games.
• Task Force Swear Hack – At last, a user has rescued this. Download it now, while you can! (ShrinkIt Archive)
• The Bilestoad – John Romero talks about this famously weird Apple II game.
• The Manual – Instructions (you’ll need them) to play Bilestoad.
• Night Owl – The perfect portable LCD for your IIc.
• Teddy Top – Prototyping has begun on a device to laptop-ify your IIc.
• RetroConnector – Charles Mangin’s awesome Apple II products. Buy them!

This month on Open Apple we present an early holiday gift, in the form of an epic three hour episode. We sit down for a great conversation with Apple II legend Randy Brandt, perhaps best known for his work at Beagle Bros. We go deep on Beagle Bros, exploring the making of their quirky, innovative software and the wacky characters that produced it. Never one to rest on his laurels, Randy is now helping to produce a modern reboot of Beagle Bros’ only major game release, I/O Silver. The game will be released very soon as of when you’re reading this, and it runs on all major mobile platforms. Look for it in an Apple App Store or Google Play Store near you.

If that’s not enough, we have a huge pile of news to talk about this month, joined together by the most epic series of segues ever to grace the history of podcasting. We talk Transwarps, we talk Woz, we talk Neuromancer, we talk Wizardry, we talk to our listeners, and we talk smack. That’s just how we roll here on Open Apple. We also spend a lot of time pretending to know anything about Apple II mice.

In addition, we have the unfortunate duty to recognize the passing of some Apple II luminaries- Bob Bishop and Mike Pfaiffer. The Apple II community is great because of a lifetime of hard work by many talented people. Join us as we remember the contributions of two of those people.

Don’t worry, there’s much Apple II stuff to be thankful for in this month of American Thanksgiving. So put down the turkey leg and get caught up on ye olde stripey Apple. The biggest episode of Open Apple ever!

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

Links for Episode 41

• Randy Brandt – An Apple ][ figure who needs no introduction. But just in case, here’s an introduction.
• Randy on A2H – An overview of Randy’s career on Apple II History.
• Beagle Bros – Everyone’s favorite software company.
• Beagle Bros Archive – A repository of Beagle Bros software, created by A.P.P.L.E.
• GPLE – The Global Program Line Editor, by Beagle Bros.
• D Code – The AppleSoft compactor and debugger, by Beagle Bros.
• Timeout – The series of AppleWorks add-ons from Beagle Bros.
• AppleWorks – An excellent rundown on the history of this product by Dr. Weyrich.
• Bubble Sort – The first sort you learn in Computer Science, and then never use again.
• Quicksort – A much more sophisticated sort, in common use today.
• Beagle Bag – Beagle’s first foray into gaming
• I/O Silver – Beagle’s first full blown game, playable in your browser.
• I/O Silver instructions – Complete text of the manual courtesy of Archive.org
• I/O Silver reboot – I/O Silver coming very soon for iOS and Android!
• I/O Silver video – Gameplay video of the reboot of I/O Silver for iOS and Android
• Platinum Paint – The best image editor for the IIgs, in Quinn’s humble opinion.
• Mr. Robot – A new computer hacking drama on USA.
• Transwarp GS reboot – Reactive Micro is cloning the precious, precious accelerator.
• Reactive Micro – The wizards of reverse engineering old Apple cards.
• Reactive Micro on Facebook – Check here for the latest updates on their projects.
• Apple I Auction – Yet another crazy price, blah blah blah.
• The Woz in Oz – We never get tired of saying that.
• Tezza on YouTube – A great video blog on vintage computers.
• Computers in the News – A breathless look into what the “normals” thought of computers at the time.
• Woz on the Net – Popular Mechanics opens the floor to Woz for thoughts on how we got here.
• Prince of Persia’s Rotoscoping – Jordan Mechner’s original home video of his brother performing the Prince.
• Let’s Play Neuromancer – In tribute to William Gibson’s newest book, a fresh look at Neuromancer GS.
• Neuromancer GS – The canonical version of this terrific game by legendary developer Burger Becky. Play it here if you can.
• Neuromancer – You can also play in double-hires on your IIe and IIc.
• Rogen as Woz – Seth Rogen is rumoured to be playing Woz in the upcoming Jobs biopic.
• Bale not as Jobs – Christian Bale has opted out of playing Steve Jobs.
• Stickers – The Apple commercial with the secret tribute to the past.
• …that you can buy – A great list of all the stickers in that commercial, and where to buy them.
• VisiCorp turns 35 – We never get tired of talking about the first ever killer app.
• VisiPi – Egan “Datajerk” Ford computes Pi with VisiCalc on an Apple ///.
• VisiOn – VisiCorp’s brief entry into the GUI productivity tool world.
• Wizardry I Disassembled – Detailed analysis, verdict is that it’s still not as good as Ultima.
• Apple Poster 3.0 – Because you can never have too many posters with Apple IIs on them.
• Ellen Leanse – The under-recognized first Apple user evangelist.
• Colette Askeland – Drop /// Inches talks to Apple’s first PCB layout designer.
• Mike Pfaiffer – A tribute to the president of A.P.P.L.E.
• Bob Bishop on A2H – A terrific summary of Bob’s career by Dr. Weyrich.
• Bob Bishop at KFest – KansasFest remembers Bob’s contibutions.
• Bob Bishop in Juiced.GS – Mike interviews Bob for Juiced.GS.
• Something Ventured – A documentary about the early funding of Apple and other tech startups.
• Gravis Apple II Joystick – The single best way to play Autoduel. And not much else.
• Traveller – The coolest 1980s sci-fi RPG, still available today.
• Magic Window – The virtual 80 column word processor for early IIs.
• Magic Window Image – Try it out for yourself!
• Ultima Dragons – The long-running Ultima fan club.
• Platinum Hack – Removing the capacitors on the Platinum IIe that prevents game port accessories like NadaNet from working.
• Apple II Mice – A great rundown of all the meeses that you might find on eBay. Buy the right one!
• BitMouse Card – The rare PC mouse card for the Apple II. Hard to find information on this one, but here’s a mention.
• GEOS – The most under appreciated GUI in history. So much better on the Apple II than it was on the Commode Door.
• GEOS in depth – A very deep dive on the entire history of GEOS.
• Alter Ego – A terrific deep dive on this bizarre abomination of a game, courtesy of Jimmy Maher.
• Alter Ego follow up – Dorte Maher’s much-needed female perspective on this weird game.
• Castle Smurfenstein – A weird mod to an Apple II game with a blue chip on its shoulder.
• Task Force – The original game, among the best for the IIgs. We’ll link to the Swear Hack version if we can ever find it.
• Magic Goto – Ivan Drucker’s black magic for symbolic AppleSoft.
• Slammer – Ivan Drucker’s tool for embedding assembly directly in AppleSoft programs.
• Slammer demo – Ivan Drucker demonstrates and explains Slammer at KansasFest.
• Woz still optimizing – Woz is still thinking of new ways to optimize and improve the Apple II.
• Classic Computing on caps – An in depth discussion of capacitor maintenance and repair on vintage gear.
• Capacitor reforming – An alternative to replacement in your power supplies and such.
• Capacitor plague – The bane of every retrocomputerist’s existence.
• IIc Plus teardown – Quinn inspects the capacitors on her IIc Plus .
• Battery leakage – A sample of the cancerous effect of alkaline. Remove that IIgs battery!

A final note on GEOS – we really really tried to provide a download link for GEOS in this episode. It was released as freeware in 2003, and is thus completely legal to download and run on your Apple II. Unfortunately, all download links online point to Breadbox, the current owner of the IP. Breadbox has scrubbed their site of any mention of Apple GEOS, however, and we’ve been unable to locate the images on asimov or anywhere else. We’ll provide links in a future show if we can find them.

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)