Author: Bill Martens

The Lisa Emulator website announced a version of the LisaEm for the Rasberry Pi.  The emulator, based on version 1.2.6 of the LisaEm product has been built to run on a number of plaforms over the years, however, this is the first update of the product in about 7 years or so.  You can download LisaEm as well as get instuctions on setup on the LisaEm website at:http://lisa.sunder.net/

The wildly popular novel series, Harry Potter is now available on the iTunes Book Store.  The entire series of the J.K. Rowling penned books are available.  Each book is a fully enhanced version of the Harry Potter books specifically created for iBooks and can be purchased on the Harry Potter page at: https://search.itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZContentLink.woa/wa/link?path=HarryPotter

Stephen Heumann, author of the virtual computing client, VNCview GS, recently announced an update and the open sourcing of his client software.  He updated the program to version 1.0b2 and simultaneously released the software on GitHub. From:    Stephen Heumann <stephen.heumann@gmail.com> Newsgroups:    comp.sys.apple2 Subject:    Announcing VNCview GS 1.0b2 – updated and open-sourced Date:    Tue, 29 Sep 2015 18:26:40 -0500 I recently dusted off the code for VNCview GS, the virtual network computing client for the Apple IIgs.  It allows you to…

The French Touch has released a new demo for the Apple //e computer.  Plasmagoria runs through a series of text and low resolution graphics demos accompanied by a musical score from Crawdaddy.  The demo runs on a Mockingboard enabled 128K Apple //e as well as most emulators. You can download the Plasmagoria Demo disk image from the French Touch website at: http://www.ctrl-pomme-reset.fr/french-touch/

Parallels has released an update to their Parallels Desktop for the Mac.  Version 11.0.2 addresses a host of issues and program stability.  Fixes to the program include the following: Resolves an issue with mouse cursor positioning in Windows 10 when using all displays in Full Screen Resolves an issue with dragging and dropping from a virtual machine to OS X in Coherence Resolves an issue with installing an OS X El Capitan virtual machine from the .app image Resolves an…

Tim cook sent and email out to Apple Employees this week mentioning the anniversary of Steve Jobs’ passing. Team, Today marks four years since Steve passed away. On that day, the world lost a visionary. We at Apple lost a leader, a mentor, and many of us lost a dear friend. Steve was a brilliant person, and his priorities were very simple. He loved his family above all, he loved Apple, and he loved the people with whom he worked…

The Apple-1 put up for Auction on 21 September by Bonhams Auction House has sold for a mediocre $365,000 USD.  While up to $500,000 was expected in the auction, interest seems to have waned somewhat since a record $905,000 was paid for a completely working system. The system sold by Bonhams was owned by Tom Romkey, owner of the Personal Computer Store in Florida and is believed to be one of the 50 or so systems purchased by the Byte…

This month on Open Apple we sit down with Mike Westerfield, of The Byte Works’ fame. We talk about his adventures writing assemblers & compilers for 8/16 bit computers, and we see what he’s up to nowadays. We talk about small-system compilers, Logo, the perils of open source, and where to go for Byte Works’ products. It’s a compiler and assembler-themed episode of the one-and-only Apple II podcast. Tune in to hear Mike pine longingly for Lawless Legends, and hear…

Charles Mangin of RetroConnector fame has been working on an interesting conversion project.   He has converted an Apple II Disk II drive to a Blu-Ray drive.  This particular hack is being done by Charles as a  special order item. For more on this hack and to view the photos of the hack, check out Charles RetrioConnector Blog at: http://retroconnector.com/updates/

Charles Mangin of RetroConnector fame has posted photos of his Apple //c Plus Headphone Jack.  At press time, the only information we have outside of the photos of the unit are a promise from Charles that installation video and documentation will be available soon. To view the Apple //c Plus Headphone Jack information, check out the RetroConnector blog at: http://retroconnector.com/updates/

James and John have posted the latest edition of the RetroMacCast postcast.  Episode 378 takes a look at the MacCharlie, an IBM compatibility box for the Mac.   They also discuss the upcoming Apple event, their wild ebay finds for the week as well as the Steve Jobs movie poster. To listen to the RetroMacCast episode 378, go to the RetroMacCast website at: http://retromaccast.libsyn.com/rmc-episode-378-maccharlie

Brutal Deluxe software has updated the Apple II cassette tape collection with a new addition.  Curator and Apple II aficionado, Antoine Vignau announced this week that Creative Computing’s Mission Impossible has been added to the collection bringing the total number of tapes to 634.  To view or download the collection, check out the Apple II Cassette Collection website at: http://www.brutaldeluxe.fr/projects/cassettes/

Adam Christianson has posed the latest episode of the MacCast.  This weeks episode delves into the expected items from the upcoming Apple event as well as the problem of the 225,000 breached iCloud accounts.   To listen to this week’s episode, check out the MacCast website at: http://www.maccast.com/2015/09/04/maccast-2015-09-04/

Another Apple-1 computer is being auctioned by Bonhams Auction House.  The Apple-1 owned by one Tom Romkey, a personal computer store owner in Florida, has owned the computer for the past 39 years.   The board, having sat on a shelf for the majority of that time, is in pristine condition and is expected to draw 300,000 to 500,000 USD at the auction. The Apple-1’s were built by Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs in the garage of Steve Jobs home in…

Press Release via Ken Gagne SEPTEMBER 1, 2015 — LEOMINSTER, MA — Gamebits, publisher of premier Apple II magazine Juiced.GS, is proud to announce its partnership with software developer The Byte Works to sell Opus ][: The Software and Opus ][: The Source. These products, which collect the majority of The Byte Works’ products and source code, are available immediately on CD and USB and as downloadable disk images, starting at $25 each or $40 for both. “Juiced.GS’s collaborations with…

This month on Open Apple, we sit down with Rebecca “Burger Becky” Heineman. Becky is a legendary Apple II developer (not to mention many other platforms), and was the keynote speaker at KansasFest 2015. We discuss Becky’s KansasFest experiences then and now, how the community has changed, and what she’s up to now. She has a lot of Apple II gold archived away, and we’re starting to see more and more of it as a result of the continued warmth…

Ciderpress version 4.0.1 has been released.  The update to the disk utility was posted on the Ciderpress website, however change notes were not available at press time.  Ciderpress is a Windows based utility for manipulation of Apple II disks and runs on all Windows system from XP to the latest version. Updates in Version 4.0.1 include the following items: Added support for displaying hi-res images compressed with LZ4FH. Fixed handling of semicolons in Merlin assembly source conversion. Fixed “find” feature…

John and James have posted the latest episode of the RetroMacCast.  This episode, number 377, includes their EBAY finds which include a laser Beach Towel and an interesting collection of Apple memorabilia.  They also take a look back atht eh August 1985 edition of MacWorld Magazine. To listen to the podcast, check out the RetroMacCast website at: http://retromaccast.libsyn.com/rmc-episode-377-pizzazz

Oliver Guinart has announced a new Visual Studio language reference for the Merlin32 Assembler.  The announcement appeared in Oliver’s twitter feed last last night and promises some big things for the future of Apple IIgs programming. Prototype of a Visual Studio language service for Merlin32. Similar to the CC65 integration I demo’ed in France. pic.twitter.com/oZ2b2kBmzd — Olivier Guinart (@OlivierGuinart) August 26, 2015

Option8 has announced that the Audio Connectors for the Apple II are now shipping.  Introduced by Option8 owner Charles Mangin at Kansasfest 2015, the Audio Connector allows the user to connect headphones or external speakers to the Apple II series computers. For more information, check out the Option8 website on Tindle at: https://www.tindie.com/products/option8/speaker-connector-for-apple-ii/ You can also check out the RetroConnector blog at http://retroconnector.com/