Category: Vintage

Andy McFadden has announced the official release of Ciderpress version 4.0.3.   According to the official Ciderpress release page, the update includes the following changes: This is a minor update. Bug fixes and features since v4.0.2: Changed the behavior of file extraction so that file extensions are never added unless “add file extension” is checked. Previously, files whose contents were converted for use in Windows always had the file extension added. Added support for MouseText and inverse text in AppleWorks 5…

Tom Charlesworth has released a new experimental version of the Applewin Apple II Emulator.  Applewin Version 1.26.3.5 is available on the Applewin website and includes the following changes: [Bug #504] Full-screen: hide mouse pointer after 2 seconds of inactivity (and show again if mouse is moved) [Bug #469] New -no-printscreen-key switch to prevent the PrintScreen key from being registered. [Bug #488] New -fs-height=<best|nnnn> switch to select a better resolution for full-screen mode. best: picks the highest resolution where the height…

  I came across documentation about the popular Apple II copy program EDD 4 that experts like Anthony Martino at UltimateApple2, the creator of the “EDD 4 Plus” clone card, were not familiar with and asked me to share.  That information is within three documents I scanned and linked here as PDFs.  Highlights from those documents: EDD 4 Program Information List #4-13, February 1993:  download PDF This may be one of the last EDD program lists created.  It also mentions…

Andy McFadden, curator of the CiderPress GitHub repository, has made his latest changes to the app available through the CiderPress releases page.  According to his posting, this latest version includes the following changes: Changed the behavior of file extraction so that file extensions are never added unless “add file extension” is checked. Previously, files whose contents were converted for use in Windows always had the file extension added. For more information about current releases or to download the latest version…

Gil Megidish, known for his Apple II binary file emulator, has captured and released the Apple IIe Hebrew Character ROM.   This ROM allows the Apple II to display the Hebrew alphabet.   According to Antoine Vignau’s Apple II Documentation Project RTF file included with the files, “This is the Apple IIe Hebrew ROM kindly provided by Gil Megidish. It comes from an Apple IIe motherboard 820-188-A. You might need that when renaming the video ROM. The associated files are: 1. 8KB…

A few months ago i acquired an Apple IIgs, and to my surprise it had a Vulcan drive inside. The Vulcan was an internal combo of hard drive/power supply with a controller card. At that time, the only hard drive options were an external drive or an IDE card. The Vulcan was attractive by combining a strong power supply that also housed the hard drive. It was black colored and looked really nice replacing the internal power supply. The controller…

The Applewin Apple II emulator has been one of the longest surviving of the Apple II Emulators and this year has seen a particularly large amount of work on the program.   Driven by Tom Charlesworth, there have been a number of experimental releases including the latest 1.26.3.4 which contains a myriad of bug fixes and changes including Fixes to the UI Changes to the device features so that detached HDD’s give appropriate error message Status Indicator fixes Fixes to the…

The Apple II hacker, 4am (@a2_4am) has announced that the Apple II Disk Image cracking utility Passport has been updated.  Passport is a utility for the Apple II computer which automatically removes the disk protection schemes from the original disk, leaving the program completely unprotected. Passport v20171114 includes a host of new features and fixes including: Supports ProDOS RAM disks to read an entire disk at once (IIgs RAM disk, RAMFactor, RAMWorks, modern clones) NEW: DOS 3.2 support (MUSE, Edu-Ware,…

Ciderpress 4.0.3 a2 is now available from the Ciderpress releases page.   Ciderpress allows users to manipulate disk images and hard drive images on a windows machine. This update to the program in this minor alpha release ncludes the following changes: Added support for MouseText and inverse text in AppleWorks 5 WP docs. MouseText can be converted to similar Unicode symbols or ASCII. You can download the release from the Ciderpress website at: https://github.com/fadden/ciderpress/releases/

GGLabs has made their Apple II gs 8mb cards available as a kit through Ebay.   The kits which run $119.00 normally are currently available for $89.25 for the next two days. You can get more information from the GGlabs website and purchase the kits at: https://www.ebay.ca/itm/401110382201?ul_noapp=true  

A new release of Ciderpress is now on the GitHub repository for the application.   Version 4.0.3 alpha 1 contains fixes for a 64-bit math issue which was causing problems with disk partitions over 4gb in size. This version and other previous releases are available for download from the GitHub Ciderpress site. For more information or to download Ciderpress, go to the releases page at: https://github.com/fadden/ciderpress/releases/

A firmware bug which affects both the Apple IIc and the Apple IIc Plus has been discovered by programmer, Michael Guidero.  According to the posting on his blog, The bug, described in code and notes below came about as a result of his work on the Apple IIc and Apple IIc Plus emulation in MAME. The memory expansion firmware has the following code to test the size of the memory expansion card, if installed: numbanks equ $03bb ; screen hole…

Sapient Technologies, a company focused on the Apple Lisa, has announced a series of boards intended to extend the life of the Lisa computer nearly indefinitely.  The team members is a who’s Who of the Lisa computing world and brings a great wealth of knowledge and expertise to the project.  The team includes: Todd Meyer of Sapient Technologies James MacPhail of Sigma Seven Systems Ltd. Rick Ragnini(personal info private) John Woodall of VintageMicros Some of the boards which are being…

Mike Westerfeild, curator and owner of the ByteWorks and all related titles has announced the immediate availability of the Source Code for ORCALib and ORCA/C.   The GitHub Repository for the two titles contains all of the source code and is freely available for download and replication. According to the Facebook posting, this particular project was a long time coming and is “An Early Christmas Gift to all”.   You can download the libraries at: https://github.com/byteworksinc

6502 Workshop, LLC announces the launch of a Kickstarter campaign for Nox Archaist on September 16, 2017! http://kickstarter.noxarchaist.com Nox Archaist is an Ultima inspired 8-bit fantasy role-playing game with a classic Apple II look and feel, set in a world ruled by sorcery and swords. Players will explore a robust storyline within a non-linear world containing numerous castles, towns, dungeons, and NPCs. Nox Archaist features skills-driven character development and strategic turn-based combat scenarios which integrate with the game’s storyline. Nox…

Thomas Fox has announced the details of his Apple II gs memory card project on the Hack-A-Day website.   The project details using old 1M x 4-bit FPM DRAM chips to create a 4mb memory card for the Apple II gs.   For more, check out the project page at: https://hackaday.io/project/27231-apple-iigs-ram-card

Jeremy Rand has announced the release of a build environment for the Apple II gs.   According to his post to the Kansasfest list, During my lightning session at KFest 2017, I demonstrated a build environment for Apple //gs development which used Xcode.  At the time, I said it wasn’t ready for public consumption but would be available in two weeks.  To paraphrase Spock from Wrath of Khan, “weeks could seem like months” and here we are at v1.0 about two…

The Gryphel Project has announced the availability of a new version of Mini vMac, macintosh emulator.  Mini vMac 3.5.7 allows users to emulate a Macintosh Plus on a variety of platforms including Mac OS X, Windows and Linux.  A number of ports to other platforms are also available via the Grypel Project links page. According to the posting on the Grypel Proroject website by Curator, Paul Pratt, “Mini vMac 3.5.7 is now officially released. That is, it is now declared…

Brutal Deluxe Software have announced that Bitsy Rip, a new low-level copy program for the Apple II is now available.   According to the announcement by Antoine Vignau of Brutal Deluxe Software: Bitsy Rip is a low level disk imaging software using an Apple IIgs and a standard 5.25″ disk drive, no extra hardware is required! This 0.4 version is pre-alpha and really more proof-of-concept than a usable product. It requires 4 MB of ram and stores the disk nibble data…

– One of the simplest cards I’ve ever used, just connect and run! For a long time, the Apple II has enjoyed a plethora of hardware that extends, connects, and enhances it. Among them, speed accelerators have been sought and venerated. The Apple IIe had a few of them: the TransWarp, Titan, Speed Demon, Zip Chip, and Rocket Chip. These products have not been manufactured for 30+ years and hence they are sometimes expensive and hard to obtain, leaving some…