Category: Vintage

As promised, the beta Uthernet II card has finally arrived for me to test out and share my feedback. Big thanks to Glenn Jones of A2RetroSystems for including me in his beta testing program and allowing me to give the Apple II world a preview of this exciting new technology! My first impression after opening the box and removing the bubble wrap is that this is definitely a little card! If you thought the original Uthernet was small, the Uthernet…

A.P.P.L.E. has negotiated a discount for A.P.P.L.E. Members who purchase Option8’s Joystick Shield or the Joystick Shield Kit.  These connectors allow users to utilize their original Apple II series joysticks with their current Mac or PC.  Many emulators will also recognize the Joystick Shield. The discount code is available to A.P.P.L.E. members only through their login ID’s and is good for 10% off on the Joystick Shield and Joystick Shield Kit.  This discount does not apply to any other Option…

Silvern Castle was reported to have an update bug in it which was preventing users who had version 9.4 from upgrading to 9.5.   The bug did not affect other users, however, the author has chosen to release and update of the program.  According to his email, ” This release fixes the issue that prevented running the game after updating from v9.4 that was introduced in the original v9.5 release.” The  V9.5.1 release is available at the following websites: http://webpages.milwpc.com/finkjc/silverncastle/ http://finkjsc.a2hq.com/silverncastle/

According to the author of Silvern Castle, Jeff Fink, the latest release of Version 9.5 has a bug in the program which affects the update from Version 9.4 to 9.5.  According to an email received by A.P.P.L.E> from Jeff, “It has come to my attention that if you update to v9.5 from v9.4, then it may fail with error #107-1190 when you start the game.  The reason is simple. At the following line numbers I entered 9.4 instead of 9.5:…

AppleIIGo version 1.0.9 has been fully implemented.  AppleIIGo is the emulator which currently runs the Java based version of the Virtual Apple II pages. Updates to the emulator include: – fixed disk speed-up bug (Sherwood Forest reads with the drive motor off) – added check for 2IMG header ID – fixed processor status bugs in BRK, PLP, RTI, NMI, IRQ The source code for the emulator will be available once we confirm that there are no issues with this release. …

Bill Buckels, curator of the Aztec C Museum has released a new image comverter for the Apple IIgs.  According to the announcment on CSA2, “BMP2SHR is a command line utility to convert BMP files to Apple IIgs SHR Files. Please see the User’s Manual and the Tutorial for information on using BMP2SHR. If you have BMP2SHR Version 1.0 upgrading to Version 2.0 is well worth the effort. If you want to learn more about the SHR (Super Hi-Res) display on…

The Kansasfest committee has release a teaser email containing the 2014 rendition of the Kansasfest Logo.  Kansasfest is an Apple II centric enthusiast convention which happens each year in Kansas City, Missouri.   The event draws hobbyists from around the globe and is usually inundated with advancements in the hardware and software on the Apple II series platforms.  The 2014 Kansasfest will take place July 22nd to 27th.  For more information, check the Kansasfest website at: http://www.kansasfest.org

Virtual Apple ][‘s database has been updated this week with the release of Version 1.22.  Current efforts include adding the blurbs of all of the games in the system as well as adding a new EBay pricing guide with the High and Low prices for items being sold on Ebay.   The current database sports nearly 1500 records and is expanding daily.  If you have the iOS version of the ActiveGS app, just click the update button at the top of…

Thanks to Charlie Reiman, the following typeset Aztec C Manuals originally scanned by the late Paul R. Santa-Maria have been reformatted (they are now smaller and searchable and pastable as plain text), and are now available for download at the following links: Aztec C 65 Version 3.2 cross-compiler http://www.aztecmuseum.ca/docs/CG65A.PDF http://www.aztecmuseum.ca/docs/CG65B.PDF Aztec C 65 Version 3.2 ProDOS native-mode compiler http://www.aztecmuseum.ca/docs/MANXC65B.PDF http://www.aztecmuseum.ca/docs/MANXC65B.PDF ProDOS Aztec C Unix-Like Shell http://www.aztecmuseum.ca/docs/SHELLC65A.pdf Charlie did a great job with these. Before Paul passed-away (June 19, 2010), he…

A posting in the CSA2 Users Group has announced a cracked version of the EA game Amnesia.  According to the posting by a CSA2 user going by the moniker Random J Hacker, ” Amnesia is an Apple II text adventure written by science fiction author Thomas M. Disch.  Its copy protection is in the form of a disk check that  upon failure prevents the player from picking up any objects in the game,  including the bedsheet you are required to…

Brian Picchi, the author of Lamb Chops, has announced the release of his latest Apple ][ Game.  Retro Fever is the first release of 2014 for the Apple ][ series computer and is Brian’s second foray into the realm of Apple ][ action games.  According to the release on Facebook, ” For this game I teamed up with programmer and friend Brandon Bogle of retroswitch.com (some of you may know him as the creator of the Flyer Internet Modem for…

An announcement by chat leader Andrew Roughan says that the DownUnder Chat which occured on local time Friday Evenings in Australia is once again a weekly event.  According to the posting in CSA2, ” After a hiatus… it is time for a come back. Calling all Apple II enthusiasts who are awake between 9pm and 11pm Australian Eastern Summer Time on Friday nights to visit the #a2c.chat channel on the A2Central IRC server. That’s probably likely to be Aussies, Kiwis,…

The Applewin Apple2 Emulator has been updated to version 1.24.0.  Applewin is currently being maintained by Tom Charlesworth.  According to the posting on CSA2, this update is intended to address a number of issues with the emulator as shown below: 1.24.0 – 11 Jan 2014——————–Changes:. Support cursor keys (in addition to numpad) when using keyboard for joystick emulation. Support auto-fire for all 3 joystick buttons (via Config->Input). [Feature #5668] Added confirmation message box for reboot (F2). [Feature #5715] Added -no-printscreen-dlg…

The Silvern Castle RPG by Jeff Fink has been updated to version 9.5.  Silvern Castle is the longest running RPG specifically for the Apple II series computers which still recieves regular updates. Bugs Fixed in v9.5: Thanks to Choi Youngjoo for reporting error #53-4035 (and subsequent #53-143 at title page) due to potential overflow of message time delay variable at Red Dragon Inn. Stuff Changed in v9.5:  Added rarity byte to each monster. Low-level encounters more likely to be patrols…

Message from Daniel Kruszyna: Hello All,  I’ve released a new version of sixtyfive, my forth-style assembler. http://krue.net/sixtyfive/ Here are the changes: Miscellaneous new 8 bit definitions: prntx and text window direct page locations. Miscellaneous new IIgs bit definitions: ADB modifier and status registers. New standalone script which converts the sector order of floppy images  from the command line.  The existing sector conversion support was  limited to operating on assembler segments. New higher level interface for creating ProDOS images. Includes volume …

OMF Analyzer is a command-line tool for Windows to analyze OMF Files we can find on 16 bits Apple IIgs operating systems like Prodos 16 or GS/OS. Because OMF files are the core of any executable code on the Apple IIgs system (S16, Exe, CDA, NDA, FST, PIF, Library, Tool…), OMF Analyzer will be helpful for anyone wanting to write an Assembler, a Compiler, a Linker or a Disasembler… Find more @ http://www.brutaldeluxe.fr/products/crossdevtools/omfanalyzer/ OMF Analyzer is part of the Brutal…

Win32 etc. http://www.aztecmuseum.ca/extras/bmp2shr.pdf Apple II http://www.aztecmuseum.ca/extras/PicSave.pdf Download it here: http://www.aztecmuseum.ca/extras/B2S.zip This download contains programs, source code, documentation, and disk images for creating Super Hi-Res Pictures, and for viewing and saving Super Hi-Res pictures on an Apple II GS, or on an Apple //e with a Carte Blanche, or an Apple //e or Apple II GS equipped with an Apple II VOC (Video Overlay Card), or in an Apple II GS emulator (like Kegs32). 1. BMP2SHR – converts BMP Files to…

From CSA2 Announcment by David Schmidt:  For your consideration this Christmas day:ADTPro 1.2.9 has been released.  There are a few tweaks that came up under some heavy usage scenarios: Nibble sends now work in batch mode, and they are a little more tolerant of communications failures.  This gets really handy when you have, for example, a pile of 13-sector disks to image.  Linards Ticmanis’ 13- sector ADT13 was always an option, but due to the fact that DOS 3.2 and…

This technical article discusses the recent LZ4 data compression algorithm and its ability to become a good multi-purpose lossless compression format for the Apple IIGS computer. Mostly for game programming area, where we have to handle multi-types of data (Graphic, Sound, Music, Code, Misc data…), the availability of one generic compression / decompression algorithm will ease developers’ life! LZ4 Compression for the Apple IIgs is part of Brutal Deluxe’s Cross Development Tools project, a full set of utilities available on…

Brian Picchi has released a new Apple II game, Lamb Chops.  The game which plays much like the old Atari games, is a multi-level fast action arcade game which speeds up as you progress through the stages.  The object of the game is to protect sheep as they cross a pasture.  Wolves and aliens of different species attack the sheep and the player, forcing him to keep on the alert at all times.  The player can only shoot one bullet…