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

By Dan HendersonReleased 02 February 2020 (AKA 02022020) About Planet Invasion 2020 Some people will be familiar with the classic ‘Defender’ game from the 1980’s, yet weirdly, I know the game as ‘Planet Invasion’ on the ‘Dragon 32’ computer.  It has become apparent that the game was either copied or bought under licence. Anyway, I always thought it would be interesting to do a Low Resolution version of the game on the Apple II.  That being said, my not being…

David Schmenk has released another update to the PLASMA 2.0 Development Platform for the Apple II. PLASMA Version 2.0 Developer Release 4 includes several fixes and changes including: Improved editor auto-indenting Compiler fix for terneray operator precedence Machine check for HGR library About PLASMAPLASMA is a medium level programming language targeting the 8-bit 6502 processor. Historically, there were simple languages developed in the early years of computers that improved on the tedium of assembly language programming while still being low…

The Applewin Apple II Emulator has been updated. Applewin 1.29.8 was released with the following updates and changes: [Bug #749] Hotkeys to change emulation speed using Ctrl+n: now ignored if ALT is pressed. [Bug #748] DiskII: data latch returns a rand() value when no disk is in drive. [Bug #746] Debugger: correctly repaint Apple II screen when showing it from debugger. [Bug #745] WOZ: Support for large tracks. [Bug #743] Added new command line switches: -left-alt-control-buttons : left-ctrl=button0, left-alt=button1 -right-alt-control-buttons : right-alt=button0, right-ctrl=button1 -swap-buttons :…

The latest episode of the John Leake and James Savage produced RetroMacCast has been released. Episode number 511, Mac Muzzle, includes the following items: Mac Portable mug, TAM in box, and Mac Sales Training Guide. They look back to January 1990 via Macworld, and news includes Mac Mini, iPhone-20SC hack, BeOS, Powerbook-Mini, and Dubai Mac collection RetroMacCast Website You can listen to this episode as well as older episodes of the RetroMacCast at:http://retromaccast.ning.com/

Mike Harvey, the founder and publisher of Nibble, has passed away. Born May 25, 1938, Mike was best known for his Apple II publication Nibble Magazine as well as his Macintosh and PC magazines Nibble Mac and PC Hands On. A very successful author, Mike already had a successful career in high technology and computers before the morning when he decided to start Nibble. He had spent five years in sales with IBM and had the top sales record in…

The Applewin Apple II Emulator for Windows has been updated. Applewin is a highly developed Apple II emulator managed by by Tom Charlesworth along with a host of other developers. Applewin version 1.29.6 is a major bug fix release with the following changes made to the program: [Bug #724] Fixed so that 6502 interrupt is delayed by 1 opcode when interrupt occurs on last cycle of opcode. [Bug #711] Fixed Mockingboard initial “stretched” music playback (regression introduced at 1.28.7.0). [Bug…

Clock Signal Emulator, also known as CLK has been updated. The latest release includes fixes for bugs including: corrects an overflow issue within the graphics pipeline that could cause a crash when using almost any emulated machine, though it was much more likely to do so when using a machine with a user-selectable colour border. Some of the features and stated aims of the Clock Signal CLK emulator include: single-click load of any piece of source media for any supported…

Anti-M v1.6 is out: https://github.com/a2-4am/anti-m/releases/tag/v1.6 Anti-M can boot any 5.25-inch Apple II disk on any Apple II, including – 13-sector disks – SpiraDisc on //c or IIgs – games that require a ][+ or 6502 – booting from drive 2 Version 1.6 of the Anti-M program adds support for Personal Software 13-sector disks.

The Applewin Apple II Emulator has been updated. Version 1.29.4 was released with a variety of fixes including: [Change #702] Debugger: In soft-switch display (row-80), show a red ‘x’ when AltZP (and AltLC) is enabled. [Change #666] Debugger: When video-scanner position is off-screen then show v,h as yellow (was red). [PR #710] Debugger: Added BPMR and BPMW to break on a read or write (respectively) to a memory address or range. The Applewin Github Site You can download the Applewin…

Over the past few years, many users have asked about running Apple II Diskbrowser on Windows. While the package was developed for Mac OS X by Denis Molony, the desire for some users to push the envelope of what the program is capable of has never waned. Now we have an answer to the issue thanks to enterprising Diskbrowser user and Apple II Enthusiasts group member François Vander Linden. Users can acquire Apple II Diskbrowser from Denis Molony’s Github page…

James Savage and John Leake have released the 503rd episode of their RetroMacCast podcast. Join them as they discuss the latest Apple and Mac related eBay finds: Tempest Mac, Apple leather wallet, and iMac cat bed. They discuss iMac G5, and news includes connecting an original Mac keyboard to an iPhone, SE/30 webserver, redesigned Airpods, and the new Apple Card. To download the latest episode of the RetroMacCast, check out their website at:http://retromaccast.ning.com/

The new game Mad Max and the Revenge of the Killer Pumpkins has been released by game author Daniel Henderson. For the Apple II gamer, Mad Max offers users a high speed arcade game that is both fun and not just a walk in the park. According to the author, Mad Max is “A Halloween themed dog game featuring Evil Pumpkins and written in compiled Basic. I used a sprite drawing program rather than shape tables written by Sellam Abraham…

The A2osX team have announced their first Release Candidate of the A2osX Operating System for the Apple II. Build 1643 is the latest build of the A2osX Operating System and is available as a 140K floppy, an 800K floppy, and a 32mb Hard Drive image. For more information about the A2osX project or to download the latest release images, go to the A2osX Github page at:https://github.com/burniouf/A2osX

A new version of Apple II Diskbrowser is now available for download from the Diskbrowser Github page. Version 1.39.0 includes sorted ProDOS directories and includes several fixes and cleanup items. You can download the latest version of the Apple II Diskbrowser from:https://github.com/dmolony/DiskBrowser/releases

A new alpha version of ProDOS for the Apple II has been released. ProDOS 2.5 Alpha 7 has a number of new features and fixes and include a new version of Copy II Plus on the disk. Included in the ProDOS 2.5 Alpha 7 Release are: ProDOS 2.5a7 kernel ProDOS BASIC.system 1.7a10 Copy II Plus 8.5a1 For further information or to download the latest release, check out the web page for ProDOS 2.5 at:https://prodos8.com/releases/prodos-25/

The French Touch, an Apple II programming group in France, has released their latest graphics demo foR the Apple II computer. The latest release demonstrates a new slideshow effect for a 128K Apple IIe with Mockingboard. Featuring music from CNGSOFT after TONAL CHAOS, the demo is a fast paced feature film that demonstrates the real capabilities of this nearly 40 year old computer. To download the film or for additional information, check out the French Touch Vault website at:http://fr3nch.t0uch.free.fr/

Packard has announced the immediate availability of his new game for the Apple II computer, Darkstar Unhinged. According to the press release, You’re Deuce Darkstar, and you’ve saved the universe time and time again from alien invaders set to wipe out all the cute alien races who have pleaded for your help. They cheered you to victory, and stiffed you on your bill. Again and again. No more. You’re done. Let them burn…better yet, MAKE THEM BURN. You are Deuce…

The Applewin Apple II emulator has been updated. Applewin version 1.29.2.0 was released with a bevy of updates and fixes including: [Change #678] Hotkeys to change emulation speed: [Change #671] Register .woz extension with AppleWin. Updated AppleWin.chm & DELREG.INF. [Bug #685] Fixed support for French Touch’s “CHIP” demo (Mockingboard / multi-TIMER interrupt support). [Bug #677] Loading a save-state wasn’t restoring the pending IRQ. [Bug #672] For WOZ images: all even disk I/O read accesses will now read the data latch….

John Keoni Morris has announced the update to his Applesauce Floppy Disk Controller client software. Version 1.2.0 of the Applesauce FDC Client includes a bevy of fixes and enhancements. Some of the new features and changes included in Version 1.2.0 include: Massive amount of work in .woz generation for 5.25 disks. More improvements to 3.5. Detects the proper width of tracks so that protections like the EA fat track are now properly preserved. Support for locating data on half tracks….

Denis Molony has updated his java based Apple II Diskbrowser program. The free program which allows users to view a variety of disk images for the Apple II, has gone through a series of updates this month adding more accurate WOZ support for the application. Version 1.0.38 of Diskbrowser includes the following changes and improvements: Support for WOZ 2.0 format 3.5 Inch Floppies Display options for Applesoft and Assembler listings added. Diskbrowser also supports multiple flavors of Apple II floppy…