Category: Columns
This month on Open Apple we sit down with Henry Courbis, co-proprietor of Ultimate Micro, serial entrepreneur, and Open Source guy. Henry is boldly going where no hobbyist has gone before, by making Apple II hardware his real day job. If anyone can do it, Ultimate Micro can! We talk massive modem phone bills, phreaking, warez, and statutes of limitations. You know… for a friend. Henry talks about how hardware first appealed to him, and how he has leveraged his…
This month on Open Apple, we round out the year with our annual tradition of sitting around a virtual table with some friends of the show, discussing whatever comes to mind. Mike and Quinn are joined by Randy Brandt of Beagle Bros fame, Charles Mangin of RetroConnector, and some guy named Carrington Vanston. We talk about connecting old things to other old things, connecting old things to new things, and how to pluralize German surnames. Mike manages to make several…
December 2015 At long last The Spy’s series The Throne is starting to see the light of day. The first book, Culmanic Parts was published in June. Now, the second, Rea’s Blood or Navy Girl is available from publisher Writers Exchange. See the URLs below. The third book Tara’s Mother is in publishers’s editing as we write, and the fourth The Paladin is undergoing second proofing before being made available to the Spy’s volunteer reader/correctors. These books are background…
This month on Open Apple we sit down with David Schroeder, author of classic Apple II games such as Crisis Mountain, Dino Eggs, and Short Circuit. We talk about the randomness of our passionate brand-loyalty, the logistical realities of early Apple II development, and the magical era of “one-person, one-game”. We get into a lot of the technical details of Crisis Mountain and Dino Eggs, so you might pick up some tips for your own Apple II projects! David also has great memories of…
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…
Yesterday morning I picked up my new iPad Pro. Since the first version of the iPad, I’ve been hoping for a bigger version. Yesterday my wish finally came true. The iPad Pro is physically very similar to the smaller versions – same thickness, nice curvy design, just bigger. Immediately you can feel the speed as everything opened fast and navigations are swift with no lag. The size is really good. I can read my eBooks and most PDFs at “real” size, including magazines and manuals that…
This month on Open Apple we sit down with Robert Bowdidge, one of three interns at Berkeley Softworks who ported GEOS to the best line of 8-bit computers. We talk about what a great place Berkeley Softworks was, along with the power of good tools and proper software engineering. Robert has great memories of the culture there, the GUI technology they had built, and the brilliant people who built it. Apparently GEOS existed for some other 8-bit computer as well, but we imagine…
A Word or Two November 2015 Apple’s sales saga continues to flummox many pundits. They forecast earnings estimates too low or too high, and when they miss, they criticize–not themselves, but Apple–as if it were Cupertino’s fault they aren’t more prescient. The latest take on this is that because Apple’s iPhone sales generate so large a percentage of the total income, and aren’t breaking records by a very wide margin these days, the company is somehow in trouble, and…
This month on Open Apple we sit down with Mike Westerfield, of The Byte Works’ fame. We talk about his adventures writing assemblers & compilers for 8/16 bit computers, and we see what he’s up to nowadays. We talk about small-system compilers, Logo, the perils of open source, and where to go for Byte Works’ products. It’s a compiler and assembler-themed episode of the one-and-only Apple II podcast. Tune in to hear Mike pine longingly for Lawless Legends, and hear…
by Rick Sutcliffe Back Up To The Old Tricks October 2015 Much has happened worth commenting upon in the months that this space has been devoted to explicating some of the features of Modula-2 R10 that make it safe, reliable, and extensible as a problem solving tool. For one thing, a few errors were noted in the June article. R10 uses NOT, but ~ is not a synonym, [DESCENDING] was removed for FOR loops and replaced by FOR selector–, and…
Hi everybody! . . . . and it’s time for RCR #108 where Paul, Ken, and Jack talk about funding Funding retrocomputing projects When you get a new idea for something related to retrocomputing (new electronics, new cases, coffee table books)—and it’s a great idea—but you can’t fund it all yourself, what are the options? Thinking back on such projects, what seems to you like it’s been most successful? What would you try (or never try again)? Also from the…
James and John have posted the latest edition of the RetroMacCast postcast. Episode 378 takes a look at the MacCharlie, an IBM compatibility box for the Mac. They also discuss the upcoming Apple event, their wild ebay finds for the week as well as the Steve Jobs movie poster. To listen to the RetroMacCast episode 378, go to the RetroMacCast website at: http://retromaccast.libsyn.com/rmc-episode-378-maccharlie
Adam Christianson has posed the latest episode of the MacCast. This weeks episode delves into the expected items from the upcoming Apple event as well as the problem of the 225,000 breached iCloud accounts. To listen to this week’s episode, check out the MacCast website at: http://www.maccast.com/2015/09/04/maccast-2015-09-04/
by Rick Sutcliffe Technology News and Views Since 1983 Modula-2 R10 Templates September 2015 Modula-2 R10 has been the Spy’s meat and potatoes in this space for a few months now. It is the fully modern dialect of Niklaus Wirth’s Modula-2 that he and Telecom engineer Benjamin Kowarsch have developed to address serious software engineering issues of safety, security, reliability, and extensibility. This month we consider the use of Generic templates to reach toward the software engineering grail of reusable…
This month on Open Apple, we sit down with Rebecca “Burger Becky” Heineman. Becky is a legendary Apple II developer (not to mention many other platforms), and was the keynote speaker at KansasFest 2015. We discuss Becky’s KansasFest experiences then and now, how the community has changed, and what she’s up to now. She has a lot of Apple II gold archived away, and we’re starting to see more and more of it as a result of the continued warmth…
John and James have posted the latest episode of the RetroMacCast. This episode, number 377, includes their EBAY finds which include a laser Beach Towel and an interesting collection of Apple memorabilia. They also take a look back atht eh August 1985 edition of MacWorld Magazine. To listen to the podcast, check out the RetroMacCast website at: http://retromaccast.libsyn.com/rmc-episode-377-pizzazz
In RCR Episode 107, Paul Hagstrom and Earl Evans discuss the Host Topic: The End Of Retrocomputing We here on the speaking end of these microphones have a pretty similar timelines with computers, having been young and eager when computers were just entering the “personal” era. No doubt a part of the current interest in re-exploring that time is nostalgia. Will people who were 10 in 2003 (Bart Simpson aside) play around with old Dell Windows boxes when the mid…
The MacCast, run by Adam Christianson, has posted their 537th episode. The current edisode covers a number of Apple related topics including the rumored Apple Car as well as the forthcoming expected September launch of the iPhone 6s. You can listen to the current MacCast Episode at: http://www.maccast.com/2015/08/17/maccast-2015-08-17/
The RetroMacCast Episode 376 has been posted. On this episode, James and John discuss a number of Apple related items including their always entertaining eBay finds: Apple poster, mug collection, NIB numeric keypad, and Mission Impossible poster. John interviews Cory Wiegersma from the 68k MLA, and discusses the Steve Jobs opera, as well as the new Jobs trailer, and its rumored Fall event date. Check out their podcast today at: http://retromaccast.libsyn.com/rmc-episode-376-68k-mla
Mike Maginnis has announced the availability of the 49th Episode of the Open Apple Podcast This month on Open Apple, we sit down with Laine Nooney, researcher of early computer and software companies. She has been digging into the history of such greats as Brøderbund and Sierra On-Line. In particular, she has done some awesome research on the infamous Soft Porn Adventure, including behind-the-scenes details on the infamous advertising photo. We talk about broken microfilm projectors, we talk about printer…
