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.

Call-A.P.P.L.E. Complete Collection Now Available on DVD

Press Release 19 November 2003 A.P.P.L.E. Releases Call-A.P.P.L.E. Complete Collection (Seattle, Wa.) – Apple Pugetsound Program Library Exchange is pleased to announce the release of the Call-A.P.P.L.E. Magazine Complete Collection. This collection is a 15 CD Set which includes every issue of Call-A.P.P.L.E. Magazine released from 1978 through 1990. This collection has been two years in the making and now thanks to the efforts of David Craig, Bill Martens, and Val Golding, the collection is now available to all Apple…

Programmer’s Corner – Pilot Revisited Part 1 of 3

Tiny Pilot (Scott Knaster)

Over the years, there have been many programming languages, which have come and gone, sometimes in the blink of an eye. However, one programming language which has has a nice long legacy and continues to be used on some platforms today is the simple language Pilot. The language itself has come in several flavors over the years, both in full-blown compiler size and the mini size. N. Dealy programmed one of the first versions of Mini-Pilot in 1978. Scott Knaster…

A.P.P.L.E. Glimpses

A.P.P.L.E. Glimpses Apple Computer releases QuickTime 6 Preview Apple Computer Inc. released the latest beta version of its popular video playing software, Quicktime 6 to the public this month. While the software is expected to build upon the changes that were in the last release, it still has some distance to cover before catching up with the other players in the market. The latest version includes support for MPEG-4 file format as well as AAC Audio from which is an…

Ebay Buys PayPal

Ebay has purchased the online payment services company PayPal for a reported $1.5 billion USD. The purchase was made using stock swaps based on the July 5, 2002 value of PayPal’s stock and is still subject to the stockholder approval and the regulators. While the acquisition appears to solidify Ebay’s online services, it also presents a problem with respect to the amount charged for transaction fees as well as the quality of service. Until now, Ebay was forced to advertise…

The Editor Still Bytes Back

This month, I am writing “The Editor Bytes Back” while Val Golding takes a short hiatus. In trying to figure out what to write, it occurred to me that no one ever talks about the early software companies that rose up out of the Apple II world. With this revelation, I figured I’d attempt it, having been one of those teenage programmers that the Apple II world so readily reflected in the 1980s. The day the music died Like all…

Programmer’s Corner

Loading and Saving Graphics Screens on the Apple II Series Part 2 While last months article covered some nifty graphics manipulation techniques, I missed making a few points about some extremely important items which must be made in order to make our program work well. Every Apple II has some calls built in the rom of the machine which when called, perform tasks which we would normally have to assign basic statements to. A perfect example is the disk access…

The Marketplace

Normally, we would be listing a product item or a press release in this column, however, this month we found an item which deserved a closer inspection. We were looking at G4 notebooks online and naturally ran to Ebay to try to find a good deal on that new titanium G4 notebook. What we found was that the section for Apple G4 Powerbooks was rife with fraud waiting to happen. There were several listings for the 667mhz version of the…

First Looks: The Apple XServe

A Star is Born In the world of corporate servers, there are the haves and the have-nots among manufacturers. Until 14 May 2002, Apple Computer Inc was among those have-nots. This changed with the introduction of the Apple Xserve. A server in an unusual for Apple, industry standard 19-inch rack mount 1U case, the Xserve introduces a form that is a great standard to follow. Long criticized for not having a server that was useable in the corporate world, the…

Steve Jobs Officially Puts OS 9.2 to Rest

At this months WWDC Keynote speech, Steve Jobs once again announced the impending death of an Apple Computer product. Steve has been well known over the years for doing this well ahead of the actual death of a product and this is no exception. Walking onto the stage where a coffin containing a large mock up of the OS 9.x product, Steve opened the coffin, set the box up so that all could see. While people laughed at the analogy,…

An A.P.P.L.E. Interview – Dominique Goupil: Filemaker Today and Tomorrow

On the 20th of May 2002, A.P.P.L.E. had the pleasure of sitting down with Dominique Goupil, the president of FileMaker Corporation and talking with him about the company. Dominique has been the driving force behind the incredible rise in stature the company has enjoyed over the last several years. With a background in business and Aerospace, Dominique brings his European upbringing with the Asian perspectives to FileMaker. A.P.P.L.E.: Thank you for taking the time to speak with us today. To…

Reflections: The Pace of Technology

Over the years, I have watched the computer industry grow, from the little world that the 1960’s and 1970’s hobbyists had built, into the multi-trillion dollar industry it is today. In 1977, we had about three or four choices as to the type of computer that we could buy and really only one or two of those choices were realistic. Today we have hundreds of choices of platform, style, size and capability. Yet, even though the 1990’s brought the computer…

Bytes From The Apple

This month we take a look at the internal workings of A.P.P.L.E. over the last several weeks. While most people are downsizing in this day and age, we actually were upsizing. We have migrated our systems to a brand new Cobalt 4 server, which gives us a good bit of power and hard disk space for our future plans. The new server once configured and completely installed will be the cornerstone of our efforts here. We have spent over 150…

The Editor Still Bytes Back

Mystery Monologue Having written these past couple of months on A.P.P.L.E.’s accomplishments in various fields brings us to this month’s harangue\\ …er, monologue. Today, we’ll talk about A.P.P.L.E. software. Lest the reader go away thinking we have done nothing but pat ourselves on the back, we should set the record straight. For the benefit of those of you who are hearing about the club — A.P.P.L.E. (Apple PugetSound Program Library Exchange) and the later A.P.P.L.E. co-op and Tech Alliance –…

Programmer’s Corner — Loading and Saving Graphics Screens on the Apple II Series

This is a new column which we are introducing this month to supplement our Apple II coverage. Each month, you will find hand tips and tricks in this column which are specifically for the Apple II series computers. While primarily focused on the beginning programmer, even the more advanced programmers may find a nify trick or two in this column which may be helpful. This months tip concerns saving the graphics on Hi-Res screens. On the Apple II series computers,…

Jef Raskin Interview

Digital photo taken 1999 by Aza Raskin (Agfa 1280 Camera). Jef is holding a model of a computer he designed in the mid-1980s.  Notice the handle in the palm rest. The object to the right of the display was a removable, hot-swappable, storage module. The model was built by Ralph Voorhees. Jef’s haircut by Adobe Photoshop. Jef found it much easier to trim his hair and beard on the computer than in a mirror.(comments by Aza Raskin) Over the years,…

Reflections – What Ever Happened to BASIC

When I started programming in 1976, the computer world already had several programming languages. There was Fortran, Algol, Cobol, PL/1, Assembler, and half a dozen others. Apart from the scientists and engineers that used these languages, there was the one language which was supposed to be for the common man. BASIC. Beginners All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code. The language, which anyone could learn and understand in short order. The BASIC of those days was simple, useful and could perform complex tasks,…

Bytes From The Apple

Every month there seems to be some new toy which just absolutely must be had. For us in the Macintosh and Apple world, those toys have come from Apple Computer, Inc. for the most part. Good, Bad, or indifferent, we have always awaited the announcements from Apple concerning the latest little gadget or computer that has been run through the rumor mill. This month has been no exception and just to settle some of the hype, we have included a…

A.P.P.L.E. to Host Terry Allen’s Apple II Site

PRESS RELEASE – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE June 14th 2002 Seattle — Apple PugetSound Program Library Exchange (A.P.P.L.E.) has completed arrangements which will see the extensive Apple II site created by Terry Allen of Australia being hosted and maintained by A.P.P.L.E..  The web Site which was formerly hosted at http://www..educate.net.au/~apple2 will be transferred and integrated with the current A.P.P.L.E. web environment to complement their existing Apple II content. Earlier in 2002, Terry, an Apple II user since 1981, announced in the…

August 2002 Issue to Feature Bill Fernandez Interview

Press Release   9 July 2002 – Seattle, Wa – The August issue of Call-A.P.P.L.E. Magazine will carry a 5 page interview with Bill Fernandez, also known around the world as Apple Computer, Inc. employee number 1. Call-A.P.P.L.E. Magazine is the monthly magazine produced by Apple PugetSound Program Library Exchange (A.P.P.L.E.) and carries information for all of the Apple computers. Bill Fernandez developed much of the software, which was available for the early Macintosh computers as well as the Lisa….

Terra Soft Ships YDL 2.2

Extend the life of your PowerPC machine with Linux Loveland, Colorado — 26 March 2002 — Terra Soft Solutions, Inc., the leading developer of integrated PowerPC Linux solutions announces shipment of Yellow Dog Linux 2.2, the most mature and complete PowerPC Linux distribution available. Yellow Dog Linux 2.2 offers an array of improvements over v2.1 with the most advanced, stable release of the 2.4 kernel, improved support for the Apple ADC monitors, and accelerated video. The screen brightness and volume…