Author: A.P.P.L.E.
If you have not played a Davide Bucci adventure yet, you re really missing something. Created in the old style of Interactive Fiction games, Davide has created a number of adventures including his multi platform title, The Queen’s Footsteps. Synopsis of the game: “ Today is August 27th, 1904. Nine months ago, you, Emilia Vittorini, joined the Italian Archeological Expedition in Egypt led by Ernesto Schiaparelli, the director of the Egyptian Museum of Turin. You are now back in Genova,…
As many of our readers know, the one and only Dr. Macintosh, Bob Levitus, has retired from the active Mac World. Mac Users Group Network’s Chuck Joiner interviews Bob about his latest endeavors and the goings on now that he has discontinued his focus on the Macintosh. Check out the entire interview here:https://youtu.be/gv74NJeDJrA
This years Apple II Software Enthusiasts (A2SE) text based programming contest is producing a myriad of great new games for the Apple II computer. Raphael Rezende has submitted another entry worth mentioning in the pages of Call-A.P.P.L.E.. His new game Escape pits you against a monster in a dungeon in which, “ You found in a mine, a precious stone, and when you were returning toward entrance, there was an earthquake, that released a monster which was keeping the treasure!…
For those of us who are Apple and Macintosh fans, we are partial to our machines no matter what age they are. We always hate to see people destroy perfectly good machines. I think Luke Miani knows this as a real Macintosh fan as he has managed to turn an old iMac into an M1 Silicon based iMac with just a few turns of the screw. Having an old iMac and a new M1 Mac Mini, Luke has decided that…
If you have one of the early Macintosh computers in the 128K, the 512K or the Plus series and are missing a keyboard, then this video from Mac84 also known as Steve Matarazzo takes you through the building process of creating an adapter for a PS/2 type keyboard to be able to connect to the older Macs. This original series of Macintosh computers used RJ-45’s or phone cable type connectors and the keyboards are not very prevalent. Now, you no…
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…
