Category: Apple III

Infocom Adventures Native on the Apple III

Steve Nickolas has released a zip of modified Infocom adventure disks that allow them to run on the Apple III One of the problems over the years has been getting original Apple II games on the Apple III computer.  While the traditional startup disk and then swap floppy method has been the preferred manner for many years, the Infocom games were always a bit problematic for the machines. Steve Nickolas has resolved this issue and has released a zip of…

PLASMA Disk Images Updated

David Schmenk has updated the PLASMA disk images.   For those of you who have been running on the original version 1.0 floppy disk images, you will want to download the new disks.  Included in this update are a number of Keyboard related updates for both the Apple II and the Apple III version of the programming environment. To download PLASMA, Check out the GitHub page at: https://github.com/dschmenk/PLASMA

Drop III Inches Podcast Returns — Episode 18

The Drop III Inches podcast returned this month with their first episode in 3 months.   According to the posting on the Drop III Inches blog, We’re back, with an episode that was three months in the making. Mike and Paul talk (in November 2016) about the state of things in our Apple /// worlds, and then speak at some length with Don Burtis (in December 2016), who designed (among many other things) the Microsoft SoftCard III. Don Burtis, who is probably most…

ADTPro 2.0.2 Released

David Schmidt has announced the immediate availability of ADTPro 2.0.2.  The latest update includes ProDOS 2.4.1 as the base operating system as well as a host of other new features and bug fixes including: New functionality: Support added for Uthernet II based on new integrated IP65 library from Oliver Schmidt (http://oliverschmidt.github.io/ip65/) Integrated John Brooks’ ProDOS 2.4.1 as base operating system for all ADTPro actions (Speediboot, text bootstrapping, base disks, etc.) [VDrive] Uthernet II virtual Ethernet driver from Oliver Schmidt that…

Froggy Software Releases Pleins Gaz

Announcement from Brutal Deluxe Software: Brutal Deluxe Software, in partnership with Jean-Louis Le Breton (CEO of Froggy Software) and Richard Soberka (programmer, author of Zephyr), is happy to announce the release of the arcade game Pleins gaz for the Apple II. This color HGR arcade game was released by Froggy Software in late 1986. As the company shut its doors shortly after, the game was barely distributed. Version 1.2 presented here runs under ProDOS and is hard disk drive installable….

Drop /// Inches #13: Dr. Wendell Sander

This month on Drop /// Inches, Paul’s Apple /// has trouble connecting with the world outside, so he speculates on possibilities for WiFi connectivity, and Mike’s Apple /// has trouble connecting with any worlds at all. So, we turn our attention to literature, including the full Apple /// patent, a survey of Apple II users, an early interview with Trip Hawkins, and books on the Apple ///. Paul’s gotten himself a Cursor /// and some late-era PFS software, and unexpectedly managed…

Shining a Light on Retrobrite

After I gave a presentation on Retrobrite at KansasFest, people asked me to write about the process, never wrote about Retrobrite as there are so many articles and videos on the internet but finally found some time to write about it. There are many ways to Retrobrite.  I avoid submerging because it’s a waste of peroxide, and maybe toxic for the environment, also don’t wrap in plastic as it allows areas to wrinkle and get more concentrated than others, promoting…

Complete Open Apple Gazette Now Online

Mike Maginnis, the curator of the Apple II Scans website (http://www.apple2scans.net) has made available all of the issues of the Apple /// related Open Apple Gazette online.  The Open Apple Gazette was the newsletter produced by the San Francisco based Apple ///’rs, an Apple /// centric users group. You can download all nine of the issues of the Open Apple Gazette as well as the Promo edition from the Apple II Scans website at: http://www.apple2scans.net/magazines/open-apple-gazette/

David Schmenk Updates Plasma SDK

David Schmenk has posted an update to his self developed PLASMA SDK.   According to the posting on the Apple II Enthusiasts PLASMA for the Holidays (For all you programmer types looking to escape from the relatives this week) Just like last year, here is an update to the PLASMA sandbox (an Apple II IDE to play around with PLASMA). It is (sort of) self-documenting progression through some PLASMA example code. PLASMA has grown up a lot since last year. With…

David Schmenk’s new Virtual Machine for Apple II

Legendary Apple II virtual machine programmer David Schmenk has returned from his secret underground Apple II lair to reveal a pre-release announcement of the next-generation virtual machine for the Apple II family: PLASMA 123. It is so called because the same code segments will run, without change, on the Apple I, the II, and the Apple III. PLASMA is the system behind the upcoming game for Apple II, Lawless Legends. Mr. Schmenk states that he has developed new interpreter technology that is…

ADTPro 2.0.0 Released

ADTPro, the vintage apple disk imaging software, has been updated to version 2.0.0.  ADTPro allows users to image floppies from Apple II and Apple III series computers and allows boot strapping of machines directly from a disk image over bare wire.  The software handles a number of emulator image formats and supports many of the newer hardware items produced for the Apple II and Apple II series computers. New features in 2.0.0 included as specified in posting by David Schmidt…

ADTPro 1.2.9 Released

From CSA2 Announcment by David Schmidt:  For your consideration this Christmas day:ADTPro 1.2.9 has been released.  There are a few tweaks that came up under some heavy usage scenarios: Nibble sends now work in batch mode, and they are a little more tolerant of communications failures.  This gets really handy when you have, for example, a pile of 13-sector disks to image.  Linards Ticmanis’ 13- sector ADT13 was always an option, but due to the fact that DOS 3.2 and…

CFFA3000 Now on Sale Again

The CFFA3000 compact flash drive card for the Apple II series computers is now on sale again. Rich Dreher, the creator of the CFFA3000 has made a total of 575 boards available for the third run of the card. The new CFFA3000 RevC board also now works in the Apple /// computer and comes with the David Schmidt produced driver.  The CFFA3000 is available for $149.95 from the R&D Automation website at: http://shop.dreher.net/

New Email and Web Hosting service for Apple II Related items to open

David Finnigan, curator of MacGui and author of The New Apple II Users Guide has announced a web and email service for Apple II related materials.  The announcement on CSA2 states: Soon, the barrier to entry for starting an Apple II web site will be reduced to the time required to register an account at A2HQ.com, a site coming soon for all Apple II users! Anyone will be able to have a WordPress blog, photo gallery, and enough web space…

Apple2info.Net Website Revamped

After a long hiatus, Dave Touvell has revamped his Apple2Info.net website.  The Apple2Info.net website,  long the home of items such as the Essential Data Duplicator (EDD) has now become a Wiki type of website allowing for user contributions to the website.   According to the announcement on CSA2: After mostly ignoring it for the last several years, I’ve revamped it and it’s now a wiki. That should make it easier for me to update and hopefully others in the Apple II…

ADTPro 1.2.5 Released

A note from David Schmidt on CSA2 announced the arrival of the latest rendition of the ADTPro Disk Imaging software. Ok, here’s a few more goodies.  The time and date is synchronized with the host, and there’s two versions of the serial driver: one that hides between the BI and buffers, and another that stomps on the Disk II driver.  The latter is compatible with ProDOS utilities. There’s a little bit in there just for me – I don’t expect…

Open Apple #19 (Sep 2012): David Schmidt, iOS games, and more

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…

Apple ][ Scans Makes Guide to your Apple III Available

Apple ][ Scans has completed scanning the entire Obsorne / McGraw Hill Guide to Your Apple /// available on their website. According to Apple ][ Scans Curator, Mike Maginnis, the original scan had “the first two chapters of this book and made it available online.  It had some great notes from Dave Ottalini inserted in the PDF, but for whatever reason, it wasn’t the whole thing.  This new scan is the complete book and is higher quality than the first…

R&D Automation Makes 500 Units of the CFFA 3000 Available

Rich Dreher announced the availability of 500 more units of his popular Apple II card, the CFFA 3000.  The CFFA 3000 allows Apple II and /// series users to store programs on  compact flash and USB thumb drive, making the 8 bit Apples a seriously fast machine.  Programs and hard disk images can be easily transferred from PC to Apple II / III via the CF and USB thumb drives and the cards, bringing these old machines into the 21st…

New Apple ][ Series Users Guide to be released in 10 days

David Finnigan, the curator of the MacGui.com website has published a new Apple ][ series users guide. The guide (http://macgui.com/newa2guide/) is currently 10 days from being released to the general public and is already available for pre-order on the Barnes & Noble online book store at: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-new-apple-ii-users-guide-david-finnigan/1111384271 for the price of $13.50 USD Although the last books for the Apple ][ computer were published more than 20 years ago, there are many machines still available on the second hand and…