Author: Brian Wiser
Seattle, Washington — July 22, 2016 — Apple Pugetsound Program Library Exchange (A.P.P.L.E.) and David H. Ahl are proud to announce the immediate availability of the book The Colossal Computer Cartoon Book: Enhanced Edition – “The best collection ever of computer cartoons from the 1970’s!” Produced in coordination with legendary editor and publisher David H. Ahl and originally published by Creative Computing in 1977, this Enhanced Edition features a cover by Ned Sonntag from the first printing, 117 pages…
Seattle, Washington — July 22, 2016 — Apple Pugetsound Program Library Exchange (A.P.P.L.E.) and Robert Tripp are proud to announce the immediate availability of the book What’s Where in the Apple – Enhanced Edition: A Complete Guide to the Apple II Computer. And now on November 23, 2020, due to popular demand, What’s Where in the Apple is available in additional versions and formats! First and foremost, our “Enhanced Edition” has more design readability enhancements, a few small corrections, and…
Seattle, Washington — July 22, 2016 — Apple Pugetsound Program Library Exchange (A.P.P.L.E.) is proud to announce the immediate availability of the classic book The Apple II Monitor Peeled by William E. Dougherty. Last published by A.P.P.L.E. in 1979, this release returns the book to print and for the first time in Hardcover. Writing programs for an Apple II computer is simplified by having a useful reference for the Apple II Monitor that describes how to make use of a…
Structris for iOS, released in 2016, is temporarily offline and will be available again for the iPhone and iPad for $1.99. Produced and designed by Brian Wiser and Bill Martens of A.P.P.L.E., collaborating with original Apple II programmer Martin Haye and iOS programmer Olivier Goguel, the game features easy-to-use touch controls, Game Center support, and background music from neo-classical composer Tomoki Takamori. It is sure to delight folks who love retro games, blocks, and pressing buttons! Check out our Santa promo…
Path Finder 7 is a file management utility that should be part of everyone’s resources. On the surface, it is a Mac OS Finder substitute offering traditional access to drives and files, as well as expanded technical access to file attributes, permissions, and other information. It is compatible with 10.7 Lion through 10.11 El Capitan. As Apple changes the Finder it’s nice to have an alternative approach, and one that incorporates its own substitutes for many tools. Basic text and…
The long-running, Apple-centric Call-A.P.P.L.E. Magazine has returned. Started in 1978 by Val J. Golding, the magazine has a long history with publication from 1978-1990 and 2002-2010. Produced by the Apple Pugetsound Program Library Exchange user group, the magazine focuses on Apple-related topics including retro Apple II and Mac computing, in addition to current Apple news and general technology. Volume 25 Number 1 of Call-A.P.P.L.E. Magazine is available to A.P.P.L.E. members today with a number of unique articles, book reviews, iOS…
The famous Mockingboard sound card for the Apple II has been cloned and is available from Ultimate Micro. Besides being a 100% compatible clone and featuring stereo music and a 6-voice sound synthesizer, the board has been updated with a 3.5mm audio jack and a computer speaker input.
Do you miss the days of 1-bit Mac games? Squishy Games is finishing Rogue Invader – their nearly-complete, modern side-scrolling shooter, due to be released February 2016 in 720p black and white. The early build I played looks impressive and shows a lot of promise. Creator Nathan Rees spoke with me as he was preparing to launch his Kickstarter: Brian Wiser: What inspired you to create Rogue Invader and use retro 1-bit graphics? Did you have a classic Mac growing up? Nathan Rees: I grew up with…
According to a detailed article by Patrick Wardle, OS X with Gatekeeper is vulnerable to attack from applications loading dynamic link libraries (DLLs) that don’t specify a path name. “The operating system looks for the DLL file in a number of well-defined directories. An attacker could thus ‘hijack’ the DLL by placing a rogue DLL file into one of those directories, so that the operating system will find the rogue DLL first….Unfortunately, by abusing a dylib hijack, an attacker can…
Mac users wanting to save a PDF of their TurboTax return or print to file, are forced to upload their data to Intuit via a silent connection. The Mac TurboTax license says, “You may save your return as a PDF file and understand it may be processed on Intuit servers, not as part of the Software.” In a February 19 Wall Street Journal article, Intuit blames Apple: According to Julie Miller, an Intuit spokeswoman, TurboTax made the…
A critical Network Time Protocol issue has been patched by Apple, and is available for OS 10.8 through 10.10.1 via the Mac App Store. While most Apple updates are user option installable, this particular update is being pushed out by Apple automatically in order to prevent machines from being hi-jacked by hackers. If you have not seen a notification on your screen, you can install it from the App Store.
Jeremy Rand has released Apple2BuildPipeline to simplify and facilitate making Apple II software on OS X with Xcode. Based on a project by Quinn Dunki, Rand says, “The big change is that I have created an installer which adds a template in Xcode for Apple II projects…So, the next time you are thinking of starting some new project in Xcode, you can think ‘should I build something for iOS, Mac OS X or maybe the Apple II.’ When you select…
Apple released a patch for the bash UNIX shell to address two serious security vulnerabilities known as ‘shell shock.’ The updates don’t appear to be in Software Update and can be manually installed for OS 10.7, 10.8, and 10.9. Two additional vulnerabilities have been discovered. Those not wanting to wait for Apple, or needing to patch OS 10.6, can refer to articles on MacIssues or WonderHowTo.
On September 9, Apple unveiled the long-anticipated Apple Watch, to be released in early 2015. It will be available in three designs – Apple Watch, Apple Watch Sport, and 18-karat gold Apple Watch Edition, starting at $349 presumably for the Sport version. As demonstrated, it is clearly the most advanced and innovative smart watch, featuring a reimagined iOS Multi-Touch interface and a Digital Crown for scrolling and navigation. Beyond technical features, Apple has endeavored to make the watch very fashionable…
