Author: Bill Martens

Over the past several months, work has been going on behind the scenes in a big way with a complete update of the GBBS Pro Website. Spearheding this effort has been none other than Paul H. Lee. Yes, that Paul Lee, the programmer who brought you GBBS Pro version 2.4 as well as the latest updates and efforts in the Warp6 BBS realm. After many dozens of man hours, that new home for GBBS Pro has been realized and the…

Dagen Brock has announced the initial release of his homegrown MiniDisplayTester app for the Apple II. Version 1.0 of the program is available for download in both 5.25 inch floppy disk image as well as a 3.5 inch floppy disk image in .2mg format. According to the GitHub page: This is a program for Apple II computers to test various display modes. The tests are simple and are intended as an aid for people working on emulators or other hardware…

It is with a heavy heart that we convey the passing of a trailblazer in the adventure gaming community, Gerald Marshall Moore, known to most people as Shay Addams. Gerald’s extraordinary journey, spanning 76 years, concluded tragically on December 8th, 2023, as a fire consumed the childhood home that had been witness to the chapters of his remarkable life. Born in Manchester, GA, in 1946, Gerald was a man of diverse interests. Literature, writing, and exploration defined his essence. From…

In 2004, Bleu Rose, Ltd. released Black & Blue version 10, a product which was the combined work of three years of Gary Rice’s efforts. The software market was shrinking at the time and while the product was first class, many of the users were not. The release of Black & Bleu™ v10 marks the end of our participation in the Macintosh software marketplace. The shrinking number of Mac users, the increasing reluctance of those users left to actually pay…

The Classic Mac Holy Bible (Filemaker) by Darrell Johnson is an application that provides a full-text searchable version of the Holy Bible for classic Macintosh computers. This application can run on Mac OS System 6 through Mac OS 9. It will run on a Mac Plus 68K all the way to the PowerMac G4. It even runs on Mac OS X with the Classic Environment. Version 1.0.0 of The Classic Mac Holy Bible can operate as a stand-alone classic Mac…

Sellam Abraham has released a little demo package for Apple II users for New Years Day 2023. The demo program was created using the Greasy Graphics package and is a free download and can be found here

In 1977, I was playing a game on a teletype at Ansbach American High School which had been written several years before. The game was something called Oregon Trail and the objective was to get to Oregon without dying. Simple enough play, yet difficult to win, if there was any such thing with the game. From where I stood, it was more like the survival of running through the meat grinder. Most my fellow students who played the game did…

Apple released another update to the latest version of Mac OS Big Sur. The MacOS version 11.2 update includes the following: macOS Big Sur 11.2 Update 11.2 — Restart Required macOS Big Sur 11.2 improves Bluetooth reliability and fixes the following issues: External displays may show a black screen when connected to a Mac mini (M1, 2020) using an HDMI to DVI converter Edits to Apple ProRAW photos in the Photos app may not save iCloud Drive could turn off…

Kboo HK let us know this morning that there was a new update to the wDrive firmware as well as the DIY version of softSP. This update comes less than 48 hours after the previous update due to an unfortunate bug which had crept into the firmware. In his email, KBoo says”We have released a new wDrive firmware version 1.0b8. There is a bug in previous version that can cause dsk files to be unable to be written! This update…

The Virtual II Apple II Emulator has been updated. Version 10.1, released today by author Gerard Putter, adds support for Apple Inc.’s latest machines based on the Silicon M1 Chip. Further changes in the emulator include: The application has native support for Intel and Apple Silicon. Clicking an empty disk drive now shows a popup menu to insert or search for disk images. When creating a blank diskette image the default format is now .woz version 2. You can select…

Note from Scott Harvey about Nibble Magazine To All fans of Nibble Magazine, Thanks to everyone who has supported Nibble over the years.  As most of you know, my father passed away last fall after a very quick battle with lung cancer.  He wanted me to continue the Nibble legacy as we continue on, and I’m excited to tell some of the stories of Nibble from a different perspective.  The new website is up, and it’s a work in progress. …

Petar Puskarich has announced the immediate availability of the latest beta 4 build of hfs.fst for GSOS. This release FIXES many of the old corruption issues found over the years. Mount the .po file Drag the new hfs.fst to your System FSTS folder. INACTIVATE the old hfs.fst or remove it from the folder. Only one hfs.fst should be active at any given time or some odd things happen with format/erase and fst selection during subsequent mounts. I have been doing…

From the Apple Press Release: Cupertino, California — Apple today announced it will host its annual Worldwide Developers Conference in June. Now in its 31st year, WWDC 2020 will take on an entirely new online format packed with content for consumers, press and developers alike. The online event will be an opportunity for millions of creative and innovative developers to get early access to the future of iOS, iPadOS, macOS, watchOS and tvOS, and engage with Apple engineers as they…

Jeff Jetton has made the most of his past month and come up with a proverbial classic game for the Apple-1. 15 Puzzle for the Apple-1 is available in three flavors including a Javascript version which is compatible with Will Scullin’s Apple-1 Emulator via the Apple Tape format. The other two are the standard Apple-1 Binary and the Woz Monitor ready format or flat text format. Source code in 6502 Assembly Language is available for 15 Puzzle. For more information…

The Applewin Apple II Emulator for Windows has been updated. Tom Charlesworth has released another update due to a couple of bugs in the previous release. The fixes in Applewin 1.29.9 include: [Bug #752] Fixed double-clicking a registered file-type issue (regression introduced at 1.29.8.0). [Bug #750] Fixed Ctrl+Alt+Break wasn’t emulating CTRL+OA+RESET (regression introduced at 1.29.8.0). For more information about Applewin or to download the latest version of the program, check out the Applewin Github page at:https://github.com/AppleWin/AppleWin

Apple II Disk image data conversion program, Applecommander, has been updated. Version 1.6.0 includes some nifty new features including. Ability to load a text file with conversion to Apple format with highbit off (see ac -ptx …). See #33. An ac build for Java 1.5 is available (AppleCommander-ac-1.6.0-java5.jar). See #29 for discussion. Applecommander is an aplication for multiple platforms which allows users to not only view the data on Apple II disk images but to also export the files from the disk image to the local…

David Schmenk, creator of the PLASMA development system for the Apple II and III series computers, has released the latest version of the PLASMA Environment. PLASMA 2.0 Developer Preview 3 is the latest pre-release version of the environment and includes the following changes: File manipulation utilities fixed for Apple /// SOS vs ProDOS differences More optimizations for HiRes graphics libraries Spiders From Mars hires demo game You can download this and other versions of the PLASMA system from the PLASMA…

The dates for the 2020 rendition of the Vintage Computer Festival Pacific Northwest have been announced. When: Saturday, March 21st and Sunday, March 22nd 2020 (Load-in on Friday, March 20th, 2020)Where: Living Computers:Museum in Seattle, Washington If you would like to attend or to be a vendor or exhibitor at the event, check out the VCF PNW webpage at:http://vcfed.org/wp/festivals/vintage-computer-festival-pacific-northwest/

There is a new version of the firmware for the Apple II BOOTi Card. Version 0.9K fixes a bug that was affecting users of the card on the Apple II Plus. The old version was causing a problem for users who did not have a disk image in the Virtual Slot 1 on the card. This new version, coded by Marko Ramius, also increases the boot delay for those users who are using the VidHD card in their Apple II’s….

The latest update to the Apple II Desktop is now available for download and testing from the Apple II Desktop GitHub Page. Version 1.2 Pre-Alpha 9 is contains a bevy of changes and bug fixes including the following items: DeskTop Fix resource leak opening/closing windows – #19 Fix off-by-one year bug for pre-Y2K dates Clear screen before launching to avoid garbage – #174 Add AuxType display to File > Get Info – #148 Fix display of alerts – #165 Control Panel DA Fix overflowing…