Author: Bill Martens

A.P.P.L.E. Chairman of the Board and Club president -- Bill worked for the founder, Val J. Golding and A.P.P.L.E. from 1981 to 1982. In 1999, he began archiving the materials which were distributed and sold by A.P.P.L.E.. That project led to the group that remained of A.P.P.L.E. Bill was involved in the financial industry in Tokyo and has over 20 major office infrastructure projects to his name. In March 2001, he retired to write books and to spend more time pursuing personal interests. As the president of the users group, Bill is in charge of distribution of Call-A.P.P.L.E. magazine as well as the organization of this web site. Bill currently resides in Tokyo, Japan and Shelton, Wa splitting time between the places.

Mac Gui adds over 700 files to their library

The Mac Gui software repository has added over 700 new files to their library.  According to the site’s owner and curator, David Finnigan in CSA2, Of particular note are the files in the CP/M category; these came from a disk collection that I bought last year. If anyone is using Vista drives, I may have some useful files in there for you. Owners of Franklin Ace clones may also find some new disks there of use. This one is pretty…

Announcing Apple IIgs System 6.0.2

What’s new for Apple IIgs System 6.0.2After 22 years, 2 months, 2 days and 2 hours since System 6.0.1 was released, this is a summary of the visible changes. There have been many bugs fixed and many features added that are not immediately visible–they will enable developers to create better future products.  Be sure to also read the Shortcuts file on the SystemTools3 disk for more information. Finder (see also Finder Help)The list is FSTs now includes the RDOS 3.3…

Mac OS 7.5.5 on the Apple Watch with Mini vMac

Nick Lee (@nickplee on Twitter) has successfully put the Mini vMac Emulator on the Apple Watch.  Running Mac OS 7.5.5, the watch performs as a full blown mac.  However, the speed is rather slow and although it proves the concept, we doubt that there are many people who will have the eyesight to actually read anything but the largest text on the screen.  Still it is a cool proof of concept and well worth the viewing.

WWDC 2015 Kicks Off in San Francisco

WWDC 2015, the 26th edition of Apple, Inc.’s World Wide Developer Conference kicked off in San Francisco with Tim Cook and the Apple Team delivering a number of items to the Developers in Attendance. The annually held WWDC event gives developers around the globe a chance to rub elbows with the Apple Team and to meet other developers. For those of you who were not able to watch the Keynote live, it is now available online at Apple’s website at:…

Updates to Spectrum, Sam2 and Gazelle for the Apple II Posted

Press Release from Ewen (Speccie): I have today updated a few items on my website, and released a blast-from-the-past… SAM2 goes to v2.0.5. This is a very minor bug fix. Spectrum goes to v2.5.4. A bug was fixed, and a couple of minor adjustments were made. More importantly, Spectrum is now released as a stand-alone bootable 2mg disk image, that can be booted and used “as is”. A new Installer is provided on the disk, which allows Spectrum to be…

Quark Catalyst Scans Now Online

Quark Catalyst

Our friends in Miami and France have come together to provide the Apple II Quark Catalyst scans and disk images.  When asked about the project to bring this back out of the realm of the lost software, Javier Rivera said, “This is one package that many users had for their Apple II’s, but no one seemed to have it at this point.  When we finally found a copy of it, we made sure to get it into digital format as…

The Bride of the Wizard King — An Apple II Graphical Book

A graphical scene artist, Myles Stonecutter, is undertaking the publishing of a 90 page fairy tale book using graphics on the Apple II computer.  The book has taken Stonecutter more than a year to work out and according to his Kickstarter page, is nearing completion. All of the graphics were produced on an Apple II computer using the Blazzing Paddles software package and according to Stonecutter, “Took a lot of pixel picking to get the best out of the GUI…

New Apple II Sound Cards available from Korea

Ian Kim, a member of the Korean Apple II community has developed a new Mockingboard compatible sound card for the Apple II series computers.  According to the introduction document sent to A.P.P.L.E, Apple II Fans and Afficiandos, I’m am a member of the Korean APPLE II group in community. Having grown up with the APPLE II and having spent tons of time with it, I have a particular fondness for the machine, It was my first computer and if its…

Mini VMac on the Android Wear

While we normally do not talk about devices that are not Apple produced, this story of emulation caught our eye.  Corbin Davenport has managed to get the Open Mini VMac III emulator to run on his Android Wear.  While the sight of the old school Mac OS System 6.0.3 booting on an android device might be almost sacrilegious to the true Apple Fan, it is still pretty cool.  However, at the same time, Corbin seems to be a bit finger…

Apple Releases Camera Raw Compatibility Update 6.04

Apple has released an update to their Camera Raw Support package for Yosemite.  Update 6.04 adds RAW Compatibility for the a number of cameras including the following: Canon EOS 5DS* Canon EOS 5DS R* Canon EOS Rebel T6i / 750D / Kiss X8i Canon EOS Rebel T6s / 760D / Kiss 8000D Fujifilm X-A2 Hasselblad CFV-50c Hasselblad H5D-50c Leica C (Typ 112) Nikon 1 S2 Nikon D7200 Olympus OM-D E-M5 Mark II** Panasonic LUMIX CM1 Panasonic LUMIX DMC-GF7 Pentax MX-1…

Apple II Scans posts Apple IIc Users Guide

The AppleIIScans.net website has posted the Apple IIc Users Guide.  The guide originally published in 1984 by Brady Communications and authored by Gary Phillips and Donald Scellato  features the Picaso style Apple //c on the cover of the book.  It is available in PDF format from the Apple2Scants.net website at: http://www.apple2scans.net/2015/04/20/apple-iic-user-guide/

Ninjaforce Releases Kaboom 1.01 Update

Ninjaforce has released an update to their Bomberman clone, Kaboom.  Version 1.01 addresses a number of issues including: + Fixed a bug where the game crashes during play. + The game now stores settings and scores (oops). + Typos in credits fixed (plus some names we forgot). Kaboom is for the Apple IIgs and can be downloaded from the Ninja Force website at: http://www.ninjaforce.com/html/products_kaboom.html

Brutal Deluxe Adds Numerous Cassettes to Apple II Collection

Brutal Deluxe software has added a number of cassettes to their Apple II cassette collection.   The library, maintained by Antoine Vignau, has now grown to 633 cassettes over the life of the library.  New additions to the collection include the following programs: Creative computing software: Voodoo castle adventure Innovative computer programs (by Ron Graff): The patient professor Instant software: Oil tycoon Mad hatter software: Diet planning package MUSE: Maze game, Tank war, U-draw Program design: Preschool IQ builder (Same and…

Kansasfest Registration Opens

Registration for Kansasfest, the only convention dedicated to the Apple II computer has officially opened for Registration.  The 2015 event will include a keynote given by famed programmer Becky “Burger” Heineman.  According to the press release from the Kansas Fest comittee, KANSAS CITY, MO — April 10, 2015 — KansasFest, the 27th annual convention dedicated to the Apple II computer, is now open for registration. Users, programmers, hobbyists, and retrocomputing enthusiasts are invited to Rockhurst University in Kansas City, Missouri,…

Don Worth’s Disassembly of DOS 3.2 Posted on Apple2Scans.net

Mike Maginnis has announced the posting of Don Worth’s dis-assembly of Apple II Dos 3.2/  The document was scanned many years ago by Apple Historian David Craig and is a hand signed copy of Don’s personal copy of the dis-assembly.  You can download the document for free from the Apple II Scans website at: http://www.apple2scans.net/2015/03/19/david-t-craigs-copy-of-don-worths-dos-3-2-flow-of-control-annotated-disassemblies-and-notes/

Apple Watch to be Available in 9 Countries April 24th

Apple has announced that the Apple Watch, will be available in nine countries on the release date, 24 April 2015.  Those countries include Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, the UK and the US.  Apple has also announced that walkin pickup of the watches will not be available, that you must make a reservation online through the reservation system or pre-order online beginning April 10th. For more information about the forthcoming release, check out the Apple Website at:…

Marina TCP/IP Stack for Apple II Released

David Finnigan of MacGui.com has announced the availability of his latest software project, the Marina TCP/IP stack for the Apple II.  Marina is a stack which was written completely in 6502 assembly language and is written to work with the Uthernet,   According to the press release, Because I wanted to learn more about ethernet and TCP/IP networking, and because I was dissatisfied with existing TCP/IP implementations for the Apple, I decided to write my own implementation. It is called…

Open Apple Podcast # 45 Published

Mike Maginnis, host of the Open Apple Podcast announced the release of the 45th edition of the podcast.  According to his posting, This month, we sit down with Mark Kriegsman, author of Star Blaster, and a modern Apple II hacker. He has ported the awesome FastLED driver library to the Apple II, so you can drive many hundreds of 32-bit RGB LEDs with your Apple II. Meanwhile, we browbeat people into attending KansasFest, we rationalize our shame at developing on…

ADTPro 2.0.1 Released

Version 2.0.1 of ADTPro has been released.  This version has a fix that is important for users with native RS-232 serial ports (though they’re getting more and more rare all the time).  There’s also some help for  our friends that are trying to tune their audio settings, and a few  other bug fixes.  Initial text bootstrapping is faster due to some  screen trickery and denser packing of data. http://adtpro.sourceforge.net 2.0.1 – March 21, 2015 New functionality: * [Audio] Client sends…

Beneath Apple Dos Original Text Now Online

The original manuscript for the book, Beneath Apple Dos is now available for Apple II historians.  Apple2Scans.net curator and owner of 6502Lane Mike Maginnis has posted the text to his website with the help of the original author, Don Worth. For more information about the text, check out the 6502Lane website at: http://www.6502lane.net/2015/03/12/don-worths-beneath-apple-dos-original-text-files/