Category: Software

Programmers Tools: Four FREE text editors for OS X

Apple and the BSD folks have included two of the four editors as part of the base install packages. The first goes by two names and is accessed via the terminal (Applications –> Utilities –> Terminal). They are either pico or nano (note the lowercase). These are almost as basic as one can get and still refer to them as full screen editors. The other editor included by Apple is Textedit. This is entirely accessed by the GUI. It has…

iPhone App of the Month

The A.P.P.L.E.  iPhone app of the month is the program Mailroom.  (http://www.usemailroom.com/) For those of you who have used the Mailplane app, this program will look quite familiar.  This program allows the user of the app to control a number of GMail accounts at the same time. While the developers are different, there has been a cooperation between the authors of the two programs in order to make the iPhone based Mailroom just as good as the Mac based Mailplane…

How To: Set up a Mac to store files for another computer

The reason why people would want to set up one computer to store files for another computer are varied. For example I backed up my Linux box (PC) to a Mac before the power supply died. In my case the choice of a Mac comes down to two reasons. Ease of set up and stability. A common access method is to use ftp (file transfer protocol – note the lowercase letters). In OS X go to the System Preferences and…

5th Release of Applewin-NTSC Available

The latest version of Applewin-NTSC from Sheldon Simms is available for download.  This version of the program is now in its 5th release. The latest version of the program includes the following improvements: You can download the program from the Applewin-NTSC website at: http://wsxyz.net/applewin.html Sheldon also has mentioned the source code being on Berlios Soon

Brutal Deluxe adds Don Fudge’s Hi-Res Secrets

Brutal Deluxe has once again provided a golden item from the Apple ][ era to its website.  Don Fudge’s Hi-Res Secrets is available for download from the site, complete with Manual and Disk images. You can download the program at: http://www.brutaldeluxe.fr/documentation/

Update to ActiveGS submitted to App Store by FTA

For those who downloaded the now famous ActiveGS “Best of the FTA” iPhone Application this week, there is a piece of good news that all will appreciate.  Oliver Goguel, the author of ActiveGS has already submitted version 1.21 to the App Store for approval. According to the post on the FTA Group on Facebook, “version 1.21 (build 3.3.298) being submitted to the Appstore : CRT display (as in the desktop version), 60FPS support on iPhone4 & iPad, and runtime option…

FTA’s ActiveGS Emulator now on iTunes App Store

After 1.5 years of development and numerous rejections by Apple, the Free Tools Association (FTA) has finally broken through and had the Best of the FTA ActiveGS emulator approved by Apple.  The emulator is an Apple IIgs emulator with apps produced by the FTA during the 1980’s and 1990’s.  Further development of the app is ongoing and the new enhancements should be available soon in the App store. The Best of the FTA App is available for free download at:…

AppleCommander Release Candidates Online

Dr. John Matthews posted a note this evening about AppleCommander release candidates being available online.  AppleCommander allows users to manipulate disk images on the Mac in a Java based environment.  For more information, you can check out the AppleCommander website at: http://sites.google.com/site/drjohnbmatthews/applecommander

A2Command 1.0 released

Payton Byrd of the A2Command Development team released the following post on CSA2 about the release of A2Command 1.0 earlier today: Release Notes Introduction This is the full release version of A2Command 1.0, dated February 21, 2011. These notes supersede any prior version’s notes. All prior releases may be found on the project’s website at http://a2command.codeplex.com/releases/ where you can read the release notes for older versions as well as download them. This version of A2Command is intended to replace any…

The history of The Oregon Trail Game

Just in time for the 40th anniversary of the creation of the Oregon Trail Game, Jessica Lussenhop has written what is likely the most thorough history of the game and the three men who created it. While the game started out as just a lowly text type mainframe based game, it became an icon of American Education over the past 30 or so years of its history once the graphical version was produced by MECC in 1985.  You can read…

Tetris in Applesoft

By Mark Phosis Philip Lord was looking for a basic listing of Tetris in a recent post on Comp.Sys.Apple2 and this was the program listing by Mark Phosis.  The program was written in 1992 and could definitely be optimized to run faster. The drawing primitives are at lines 200 and 225.  It looks like the subroutine at line 800 does collision detection. ============ 10  GOSUB 1000 100 W = W + 1: IF W > LV THEN W =  0:…

Super Star Trek for the Apple ][

by Wade Clarke This is my ‘new’ (IE previously unreleased anyplace) version of Super Star Trek for the Apple II Time to share another old game of mine with folks in the internet age 🙂 You can download the disk image here: http://home.iprimus.com.au/bloomer/STARTREK.zip In 1995 I put together this version of ye olde ‘Super Star Trek’ game, using pseudo-animated mousetext graphics and some nice sound effects.  The interface is also friendly, you just tap a key to do most things….

Silvern Castle Version 9.4 Released

By Jeff Fink After almost two years without a release, I’m happy to announceSilvern Castle version 9.4. This is a very minor update to the program.  Changes in version 9.4 include: Bugs Fixed in v9.4:* In some cases the encumbrance display at camp incorrectly displayed the penalty. Stuffed Changed in v9.4:* The B)urden display at camp now shows the exact amount of cn needed to remove any encumbrance penalty.* Moved the Market C)amp command from the Blue Knight Tavern to…

Digisoft Innovations Releases Apple IIgs Music Collection

DigiSoft Innovations Releases Apple IIgs Music Collection By A.P.P.L.E. Staff The Apple IIgs Music collection is now available for download from the DigiSoft Innovations website.  Version 1.0 of the collection covers 5 disks of music from various applications of the early 1990’s.    The current version of the music collection is recorded at 96K and is ready for your iPod or for background music on your website. The five CD’s included in the collection are as follows: Apple IIGS Classics –…

Oregon Trail for the iPhone

Title: Oregon Trail Publisher: Gameloft Cost: $1.99 Platform: iPhone Back when I was in junior high school, we had a very rudimentary version of the game Oregon Trail on our DEC PDP 11/40.  Playing the game was as simple as making the right choices and typing BANG for the hunting scenes in the game.   While very entertaining at the time, it was rather simplistic compared to the 1984 version of the MECC game Oregon Trail. The 1984 Version was a…

An A.P.P.L.E. Review: Icy Escort from Donut Games

by Bill Martens Product: Icy Escort Version: 1.10 Size: 4.4mb Requires: iPhone OS 3.0 Languages: English Website: http://www.donutgames.com/ This past week, I began to look at games for my iPhone 3Gs and of course, there are plenty out there.  However, the distance between the good, the bad, and the downright ugly is tremendous.  One diamond in the rough was a game I ran across from Swedish Game Development AB, also known as Donut Games.  Icy Escort is a puzzle style…

KillDashBoard: Get Your Mac Back!

by Sean Henriques KillDashboard : a utility to disable the Dashboard on your Mac After seeing my lovely 4GB Macbook Pro come to a halt, I checked the Activity Monitor and was horrified to see that the Dashboard was taking up more than 1GB of Real Memory! I don’t know about you but I rarely pop into the Dashboard so I wrote up a utility to Kill the Dashboard quickly and posted on buzz. A request to share it soon…

The Ultimate Apple ][ Fonts for Your Computer

Reviewer : Bill Martens Version : 1.0 Date : 2008/12/30 Publisher: Kreative Korporation Website : http://www.kreativekorp.com/software/fonts/apple2.shtml Category : Mac Intel / Miscellaneous / New Release Cost : Free About The Program : A young college student, Rebecca Bettencourt, has creative a beautiful rendition of the Apple II and Apple IIgs fonts. These fonts have been done in True Type format for both Mac OS X and Windows as well as any other system which can handle true type fonts. The…

Yule’s Christmas Quest — An A.P.P.L.E. Review

Product: Yule’s Christmas Quest. Version : 1.1 Date : 2008/12/14 Publisher: Candlestone Productions Website : http://www.candlestoneproductions.com Category : Mac Intel / Game / New Release Cost : Free About The Program : Candlestone Productions has released a nifty little Christmas game / adventure game which is directed primarily at kids. Yule’s Christmas Quest is a freeware package that focuses on the idea of finding all of the gifts from the twelve days of Christmas. Santa apparently forgets where he puts…

HandBrake — An A.P.P.L.E. Review

Product : Handbrake Version : 0.92 Cost : Free License :  GPL Platforms : Mac OS X, Linux, Windows URL : http://handbrake.fr/ This month, we had the distinct pleasure of discovering a tool which makes video conversion an absolute breeze.  As a football player, all of our games have been recorded on DVD and Video.  While the Video could be recorded straight to the computer, the DVD presented some interesting issues. We wanted to convert our video to a format…