Author: A.P.P.L.E.

Yesterday, we highlighted one of the entries for the Apple II Software Enthusiasts (A2SE) programming contest, TXTRIS by Mario Patino. Today’s entry into the fray comes to us from Eric Sperano. His entry, Spetris! or as he calls it, “Yet Another Tetris Clone”, is a multi-themed version of the traditional game of Tetris. Originally created by Eric as a 6809 game in a learning experience moment on the Tandy Radio Shack Color Computer 3 or COCO3 as it is known,…

A nifty little video cast called the Macintosh Librarian is now running through the Retro Macintosh channels. The Macintosh Librarian ( K.Fox ) in her latest video talks about the history of the Minnesota Educational Computing Consortium (MECC) with her digital Mac SE-30, Maccy. Taking you from the earliest days through to the hey day of the MECC, the Macintosh Librarian Episode 6 is well worth the twenty minutes of time to watch it and gives some interesting perspective, not…

Over the past 30 years, there is one game which has appeared time and time again in many forms on almost every platform known to man.  That game is TETRIS.  Hours in the arcades led us all to seeing the blocks in our sleep due to the fact that we were still trying to get the entire 4 lines completed over and over again in the game.    Thankfully, there is another fix for this re-iteration syndrome that we face. …

A few days ago, I read a post from a fellow programmer, Eric Clippert, and his blog post mentioned a weird little project that piqued my interest. Jeff Atwood and Eric Clippert have run through the entire book of the David H. Ahl produced BASIC Computer Games and is in the process of translating every single game in the book to nearly every modern programming language used in the mainstream, including Microsoft Visual Basic, Python, C#, Java Javascript and Ruby….

Steve Jobs would have been 66 today, Wednesday, February 24th, 2021. Born in 1955, Steve Jobs passed away at the age of 56 after a long battle with Pancreatic Cancer. The co-founder of Apple, Inc. and the primary reason for the company’s resurgence in the late 1990’s and 2000’s was known for his dedicated to detail, quiet philanthropy, his dedication to pursuing the ultimate in computing integration as well as a sharp tongue and ability to take those of us…

Last week, we highlighted Brendan Bellina’s Script-Central 2020 Special Edition which featured a slew of hypercard stacks and scripts. Included as part of that package was a game inspired by the EAMON series, The Dungeons of Fangborne Keep. Fangborne is an RPG which was developed completely in Hypercard and includes a number of features normally reserved for the bigger game development houses. Originally abandoned in 1995, the game was revisited by Bellina in October 2020 and a completion of the…

Over the past several years, we have been following along with James Savage and John Leake as they brought us the RetroMacCast Podcast. Since last year James and John have brought back the Video Cast of the RetroMacCast. Now, for those who prefer to actually watch video of the broadcasts rather than just listen, the Video Cast of the RetroMacCast Episode 561 is now available. Join James and John as they take you through the world of Retro Macintosh computing…

The Apple II Desktop project has released another alpha update to the program. Alpha 26 includes a lot of changes to the Desktop package and the Desk Accessories. Localization for English, French Italian and Spanish has also been expanded in the program. Some of the other changes in the program include: DeskTop Fix bad rendering when unknown file types are present. Allow Esc to close OK-only dialogs. Fix scrollbar calcs when repopulating window. Erase before redrawing header when opening via…

Apple II Diskbrowser version 1.55 has been released. The Apple II Diskbrowser is a disk image viewer produced by Denis Molony that allows users to view the contents of their Apple II disk images. Version 1.55 includes additional support for Applesoft Programs including better formatting and wrapping of Applesoft program listings. It also provides complete analysis of programs including variable and array listings. Appel II Disk browser handles many different Apple II series computer disk image formats including: DOS Prodos…

Bill Davis, a long time Apple user found a new way of asking the question “Why” this week and answering it with his own “because I Can!” He figured out the VidHD card was the perfect tool for connecting his Apple IIgs computer to the Apple, Inc. produced iPad Pro. Using the 1080p video output of the VidHD card and send it to the input port on the Hollyland Mars-X HDMI wireless video transmitter, he got the appropriate signal using…

Brendan Bellina has announced the release of his Script-Central 2020 Special Edition package of Hypercard scripts for the Apple IIgs. Script-Central 2020 is a 16 mb ProDOS, based disk image chocked full of Hypercard IIgs stacks and other related items. Included in the Script-Central 2020 release are more than a dozen new or updated Hypercard IIgs scripts including: Word Scrambler Stack Analyzer (a Mac HyperCard conversion) HyperTalk Tutor 101 with all 4 lessons Merlin GS, an enhanced emulation of the…

Brutal Deluxe Software has announced the immediate availability of the Tarot Version 1.0 English Release for the Apple II gs computer. Originally written in 1990 by Francois Uhrich with cards drawn by Jean-Francois Sauvage, Tarot was only available in French until today. Featuring absolutely brilliant hand drawn art work on the cards and real world sound effects, this game is not only entertaining but fun to play. Now, with the full blessing of Francois Uhrich, the English version of the…

The Virtual II Apple II Emulator has been updated. This update, Virtual II Version 10.2.2 is a major bug fix that is recommended for all users. Some of the items it fixes are: With some Mac configurations the screen updates showed intermittent delays due to a core image filter (“sharpen”). To mitigate this, the filter has now been made optional. It can be disabled in the View section of the application preferences. The “insert a disk image” sheet worked poorly…

for those of us who lived through the 1990’s and the computing world, the Flying Toasters screensaver was a common sight on many a computer screen during off hours or when people were not at their desks. The idea of a toaster flying across the screen to clear it, keeping the screen in good condition and preventing burn in was one that was not farfetched when one stopped to actually think about it. While initially on Macintosh and Windows computers,…

The 560th episode of the RetroMacCast has been posted to the RetroMacCast website. In this episode, James and John talk about their eBay finds including: MacEffects Mac Portable 8MB card, computer lot, and PowerBook 550c. John also takes the time to talk about a SCSI hard drive replacement, and news includes the Action Retro Libretto Hackintosh, System 7 Today return, Lisa X Fusion X 360 Project, Floppy Emu update, and recreating a Mac SE logic board. You can download the latest rendition of the RetroMacCast podcast at the RMC website…

TenFourFox, the Internet browser for G3, G4 and G5 processors has been updated. The TenFourFox Browser requires users to be using 10.4.11 on the G3 and G4 CPUs and 10.5.8 on the G5. TenFourFox is available in at least a dozen languages and is a free download. The browser does not support Flash or Java and does not run on Intel based Macintoshes. The latest release of TenFourFox, Feature Parity Release 30 SPR2 is a security and parity update release…

John Morris, creator of the Applesauce Floppy Disk Controller, announced the latest release of his Applesauce FDC software. Included in this release are a host of updates and fixes. John has released the following Press Release: I’m finally getting settled in some new digs and once again have some office space to get coding done. I’ve been able to carve out a bit of time to knock some tasks from my todo list for Applesauce. One of the bigger items…

Francois Vander Linden has performed what he is specifying as one of the last updates for a while to his 6502 Spreadsheet Assembler or SpASM. His latest release, version 1.2.1 includes a host of new features including: now supports commented code lines added ADI/DCI added SDI added INV/FLS/BLK added “HEX bytes,n” support added “HEX one_byte,” support moved Example in another workbook that will get updates only if needed The Spreadsheet Assembler functions in both Microsoft Excel as well as Libre…

Zane Kaminski has updated the configuration tool GWRAM, the utility program that is used to configure the RAM size of the Garretts Workshop produced “RAM2E II” and “RAM2GS II” Apple IIe and IIgs RAM cards. Version 1.2 of the GWRAM utility program includes a fix for an issue with the compatibility of the RAM2GS and some accelerator cards on the Apple II gs computer. You can download the latest version of GWRAM on the Garretts Workshop Github page at:https://github.com/garrettsworkshop/GWRAM.SYSTEM/releases/

Neu][ower is a port of the MS-DOS game Neut Tower, specifically for the Apple II series computer with 64kb of RAM. Running under ProDOS, the game puts you in the position of “Escaping” an office tower after an earthquake. “You are Jaye, a young programmer who has written Neut, a program made to explore the building’s labyrinthine security systems. Jaye and Neut must work together to find their way out, and help those in need that they meet along the…