Having gathered the treasures of 2012 and being tempted by the promises of 2013, the hosts of Open Apple are joined by Andy Molloy of Juiced.GS, Peter Neubauer of KansasFest, Vince Briel of Briel Computers, and Antoine Vignau of Brutal Deluxe to reflect on all that has happened with the Apple II and its community in the past year. We pick our favorite products, share memorable events, and make predictions for 2013. Topics include Apple-1 auctions, Kickstarter-funded sequels, progress in emulation, and more.

Click past the jump for links mentioned in this episode.

Introduction (0:00 – 4:58)

• Andy Molloy’s homepage
• Peter Neubauer’s homepage
• Vince Briel’s homepage
• Brutal Deluxe’s homepage

Hardware (4:59 – 17:43)

• Rich Dreher’s CFFA3000
• Mike Willegal’s SUPERPROTO and Apple-1 Mimeo projects
• Briel Computers’ A2MP3 card
• a2RetroSystems’ Uthernet card
• Cedric Peltier’s Smartport Virtual Hard Drive (SPVHD)

Apple-1 (17:44 – 26:02)

• Brain Board with Wozanium Pack
• Ray Borrill’s VCF 4.0 auction of an Apple-1

Emulation (26:03 – 33:32)

• Eric Shepherd’s Sweet16 emulator
• AppleWin
• Gerard Putter’s Virtual ][ emulator
• GSport, based on Kent Dickey’s KEGS
• Java Apple Computer Emulator (JACE) by Brendan Robert
• VICE
• Eamon Deluxe
• The Lost Treasures of Infocom for iOS

Software development (33:33 – 46:42)

• Ewen Wannop’s SNAP & SAFE
• Drift demo disk with custom floppy sleeves
• The Deadly Orbs game by Brian Picchi
• Martin Haye’s Structris
• Jordan Mechner’s Deathbounce
• Brutal Deluxe’s Fishhead copier
• Dagen Brock’s KansasFest 2013 demo

Game remakes and Kickstarter projects (46:43 – 54:11)

• Bard’s Tale for iOS (includes IIGS originals)

Publications & media (54:12 — 1:01:50)

• Dave Finnigan’s The New Apple II User’s Guide
• Kay Savetz’s Terrible Nerd memoir
• Rob O’Hara’s Commodork
• Jeff Atwood’s “I Was a Teenage Hacker”
• What’s Where in the Apple e-book
• Steve Weyhrich’s Sophistication & Simplicity
• Retro Gamer magazine
• Jimmy Maher’s Digital Antiquarian
• Juiced.GS: The Early Years

Podcasts (1:01:51 – 1:11:50)

• Retro Computing Roundtable
• 1 MHz by Carrington Vanston’s Monster Feet
• RetroMacCast
• Brian Picchi’s YouTube computer game reviews
• Not Another Apple Podcast?!
• Vintage Computer Festival Southeast 1.0

Top stories (1:11:51 – 1:18:02)

• Prince of Persia source code saved

KansasFest (1:18:03 – 1:27:19)

• Randy Wigginton to keynote KansasFest 2013
• Randy Brandt’s History of AppleWorks session
• Sara, an Apple III emulator
• Multi Emulator Super System (MESS)
• Melissa Barron’s Etsy shop
• ReactiveMicro.com — will it ever come back?
• Charles Mangin’s Mac mini inside a Disk II case

Participant picks from 2012 (1:27:20 – 1:34:12)

Predictions for 2013 (1:34:13 – 1:41:23)

• The now-defunct iDisk card

Parting shots (1:41:24 – 1:45:50)

This month on Open Apple, Mike and Ken chat with Kay Savetz, Internet publisher and author of the memoir Terrible Nerd. We cross enemy lines to review a book about the cultural, scientific, and philosophical implications of Commodore 64 programming, some of it applicable to the Apple II. Paul Terrell’s Polaroid snapshots of the first Apple-1 computers are cool, just like our reception to Jordan Mechner’s new Karateka game. On eBay, we discover the Androbot is not just another neat product from a Nolan Bushnell company, but another reason we prefer the Apple II to other platforms. And Ken’s accidental purchase of some Microzines produces the concept for a new and very expensive podcast!

Click past the jump for links mentioned in this episode.

Introduction (0:00 – 17:33)

• No Quarter podcast
• Arcade Explorers books
• Ken’s review of Max Brooks’ World War Z
• Organ Trail for iOS
• Ken’s Wii U unboxing
• Denver Apple Pi
• Colorado Macintosh Users Group

User Login (17:34 – 32:18)

• Kay Savetz’s homepage
• Terrible Nerd, from Savetz Publishing
• AtariArchives.org
• Classic Computer Magazine Archive
• Douglas Engelbart’s Mother of All Demos
• Kevin’s Free Printables & FaxZero sites
• Kevin on the Retro Computing Roundtable
• Name.com domain name registrar
• Liquid Web: Storm on Demand hosting company

II News (32:19 – 1:03:33)

• 10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10, by Nick Montfort, et al
• The 8 Bit Weapon Collection 1998-2012
• The early days of PCs as seen through DEAD TREES
• Remembering the EasyKey keyboard overlay for the Apple II
• Paul Terrell’s Polaroid photos of the Apple-1
• Help KansasFest by shopping at Amazon.com
• TIME‘s top 100 video games ever
• Elite Dangerous: Kickstarter
• Trade Wars
• Save the Day, an HTML5-based Choplifter remake (hat tip: Hanuman Welch)
• Karateka not so hot with Ken or Metacritic
• RIP, Tony Gonzalez of Ultima GS

Apple Pickings (1:03:34 – 1:18:44)

• Androbot Topo II robot, Apple IIe, sending unit, Toposoft software (video)
• The history of Androbot, Inc.
• Heathkit H.E.R.O robots
• Ken’s new Microzines, complete with case!
• Carrington’s DoubleTake podcast
• Jeri Ellsworth’s C64 Direct-to-TV joystick
• A modern PC inside a Commodore 64 case
• Curt Vendel’s Atari Inc: Business Is Fun, courtesy Kickstarter
• Commodore 64 games on the Nintendo Wii’s Virtual Console

This month on Open Apple, Ken takes the month off as Mike chats with Apple IIGS programmer Geoff Weiss, who does double-duty as both guest and co-host. Geoff discusses his work on the Spectrum Internet Suite and debuts some new Classic Desk Accessories for the IIGS, based on his KansasFest 2012 presentation. Mike and Geoff go over some recent Apple II news, such as Brutal Deluxe’s latest software offering, a missing time capsule, a visit to the Russian Apple Museum in Moscow, and Woz’s Ask Me Anything on Slashdot, as well as Apple II-related movie and TV items.

eBay items this month include a Franklin ACE-based educational unit and Geoff and Mike pause to puzzle over an Apple II Plus emulator for the Commodore 64. A discussion of recent Apple-1 auctions rounds out the episode this month.

Click past the jump for links mentioned in this episode.

Introduction (0:00 – 08:27)

• Geoff Weiss’s homepage
• Geoff Weiss’s Spectrum Internet Suite
• Ewen Wannop’s homepage
• Apple II History
• Spectrum Internet Suite at 16Sector Store
• Juiced.GS
• Geoff Weiss’ Classic Desk Accessories

II News (08:27 – 37:22)

• Apple II web hosting
• MacGUI City
• Brutal Deluxe’s I’m fEDD Up!
• krue’s fortycolumns gallery
• Woz’s AMA on Slashdot
• Alex Lee’s visit to a Russian Apple Museum
• The Gibson Light Pen
• Missing Time Capsule
• Person of Interest: Bad Code
• Wreck-It Ralph
• Petition to Apple to create a public visitor’s center at its new HQ
• Stanford’s Apple Collection Archives
• GShisen
• Shadowgate Kickstarter
• The New Apple II User’s Guide price reduction
• Castle Wolfenstein movie announced

Apple Pickings (37:22 – 51:20)

• Mimic Spartan Apple II Plus emulator for the Commodore 64
• Photos of a Spartan by Tony Diaz
• KEGS emulator
• GSport emulator
• 1982 Vintage ED-LAB Microcomputer Lab Franklin Apple clone teaching system
• Apple-1 Auction
• Apple-1 a no-sell at Christie’s auction

This month on Open Apple, Mike and Ken chat with Ewen Wannop, British programmer of 16-bit telecommunications programs such as Spectrum, SAM, SNAP, and SAFE. The hosts share feedback galore from the last episode and contemplate how to record a live show. After catching up on some headlines from last month, we plow forward, celebrating the return of an interactive fiction publication and grumbling that even beginner IF can be as obscure as the medium is infamous for. The September 2012 issue of Juiced.GS just shipped, and with it, a look at what features a hypothetical System 7.0 operating system would include. Is it reasonable to consider that a software upgrade warrants a hardware bump, and what the next model of Apple II would look like? Photos of Steve Jobs in his natural habitat show an Apple stronghold as Spartan as ever, but you can decorate yours with Melissa Barron’s screenprints from Etsy. There’s a Disk II floppy drive on eBay that holds within it a working Mac mini — a cool hack, but is it worth a cool grand? We question the value of purchasing free software on eBay and marvel at everything from lighters to thumb drives in the shape of an Apple II.

Click past the jump for links mentioned in this episode.

Introduction (0:00 – 13:08)

User Login (13:09 – 29:02)

II News (29:03 – 1:11:57)

Apple Pickings (1:11:58 – 1:36:59)

This month on Open Apple, Mike and Ken chat with David Schmidt, the programmer responsible for ADTPro. Beyond his own program, David has also contributed to the development of Davex, GSport, AppleCommander, CiderPress, OpenEmulator, DiscFerret, CFFA3000 — and much, much more. Collectively, the show’s hosts marvel at the deluge of Apple II games that are being ported to iOS, Apple’s mobile operating system … though we question the direction Jordan Mechner is taking the classic Karateka. Apple-1 computers continue to fetch exorbitant prices at live auctions, while iPads and IMSAIs fail to sell on eBay — though the latter may soon get a Kickstarter from Vince Briel. Finally, Ken quietly broods while Mike and David enthusiastically sing the praises of their favorite computer, the Apple III.

Click past the jump for links mentioned in this episode.

Introduction (0:00 – 11:20)

• Randy Brandt’s “History of AppleWorks” KansasFest session

User Login (11:21 – 24:55)

• ADTPro
• Franklin ACE user manual scan
• University of Texas Video Game Archive’s Quest to Preserve Ultima II
• Apple3.org
• GSport emulator

II News (24:56 – 1:13:09)

• Ewen Wannop’s Spectrum now freeware
• Spectrum Internet Suite
• Age of Reason BBS closes
• Steve Wozniak at Fusion-io
• Inoperable Apple-1 may fetch $126K at Christie’s auction
• Mike Willegal’s Apple-1 registry
• Huffington Post calls Apple-1 an “original Macintosh”
• 2012 White House Correspondents’ Dinner
• ActiveGS pulled from App Store?
• iShisen
• The Bard’s Tale for Mac & iOS
• Spy vs. Spy for iOS
• Lode Runner Classic
• Karateka coming to iOS
• Chop! Chop! with Parappa the Rapper’s Master Onion
• “The greatest Easter egg of all time was exclusive to the Apple II“
• Dungeon Master Java courtesy PCWorld
• The Rock-afire Explosion documentary via Netflix

Apple Pickings (1:13:10 – 1:41:28)

• Evan Koblentz speaks to CNN, as blogged by Ken Gagne and mentioned by Carrington Vanston
• 1st-generation iPad, still in shrinkwrap
• Dan Budiac spends $2,553 for an unopened Apple IIc
• Huston Bros’ IMSAI
• The Apple II’s nuclear etymology
• Low serial-number Apple III