Category: Vintage

A posting in the Apple II enthusiast group on Facebook this evening from Antoine Vignau shows a video of the game play from the long fabled SimCity for the Apple IIgs.  Although originally written in 1994, the game never saw the light of day due to the fact that the Apple IIgs had been discontinued by that time and EA’s reluctance to release it as freeware.  To this day it remains unreleased. If you want to check out the Apple…

The latest version of the Applewin Apple ][ emulator, version 1.22, have been posted in the Applewin SVN repository.  Changes in version 1.22 include: . [Feature #005557] Support DOSMaster image created by Apple Oasis. . [Feature #003272 and #005335] Support 2x windowed mode: – Toggle between 1x and 2x by using Resize button (or F6). – Full screen now enabled by CTRL+Resize button (or CTRL+F6). Fixes: . [Feature #004346] Don’t show mousetext for original Apple //e. . Fixed HDD firmware…

Dr. Steven Weyhrich, long known for his complete history of the Apple ][ computer and http://apple2history.org/, has announced the impending release of his new book,  “Sophistication & Simplicity: The Life & Times of the Apple II Computer“. Just over twenty years ago, the final part of the Apple II History was uploaded to the A2 Roundtable on GEnie. From a series of newsletter articles explaining the various models of Apple II computers released by Apple, it had evolved into a…

KansasFest 2013, the Apple II convention scheduled for July 23–28 in Kansas City, Missouri, comes on the thirty-fifth anniversary of the Disk ][ disk drive, Apple DOS, and Applesoft BASIC. To celebrate this anniversary, Randy Wigginton, Apple employee #6 and engineer who worked on all three of these innovations, will be the keynote speaker. In 1978, Wigginton was a brilliant young high school student working alongside Apple co-founder Wozniak. Wigginton was an early member of the famous Homebrew Computer Club,…

Brendan Robert has released a new version of his JACE or Java Apple Computer Emulator.  The latest update includes a number of fixes and enhancements as per his posting in CSA2: for more information about JACE or to download the program, check out Brendan’s JACE project page at:

Brendan Robert has released a new and improved version of his Java Apple II emulator.   ] 65c02 CPU emulation is now 100%, tested and verified thanks to Klaus Dormann’s test suite: https://github.com/redline6561/cl-6502/blob/b008…nctional_test.a65 ] Overall CPU usage is way down thanks to recent changes: Video generation rolled into main thread and this made things a lot more efficient Switched to older timer model, newer lock-based timers were considerably slower Memory listener model streamlined to be more efficient ] Skyfox now detects…

This month on Open Apple, Mike and Ken chat with Ewen Wannop, British programmer of 16-bit telecommunications programs such as Spectrum, SAM, SNAP, and SAFE. The hosts share feedback galore from the last episode and contemplate how to record a live show. After catching up on some headlines from last month, we plow forward, celebrating the return of an interactive fiction publication and grumbling that even beginner IF can be as obscure as the medium is infamous for. The September 2012…

Antoine Vignau and Olivier Zardini, founders of Brutal Deluxe Software, are proud to introduce their newest software to the Apple II community. “I’m fEDD up” is Brutal Deluxe’s second answer to nowadays preservation of 5.25″ diskettes on the Apple II. Its main features are: • Essential Data Duplicator compatible If Utilico Microware’s EDD or compatible card is installed in your system, it will use the card’s powerful features to read track data. • Nibble and timing preservation It saves raw…

David Finnigan, curator of MacGui and author of The New Apple II Users Guide has announced a web and email service for Apple II related materials.  The announcement on CSA2 states: Soon, the barrier to entry for starting an Apple II web site will be reduced to the time required to register an account at A2HQ.com, a site coming soon for all Apple II users! Anyone will be able to have a WordPress blog, photo gallery, and enough web space…

After a long hiatus, Dave Touvell has revamped his Apple2Info.net website.  The Apple2Info.net website,  long the home of items such as the Essential Data Duplicator (EDD) has now become a Wiki type of website allowing for user contributions to the website.   According to the announcement on CSA2: After mostly ignoring it for the last several years, I’ve revamped it and it’s now a wiki. That should make it easier for me to update and hopefully others in the Apple II…

A note from David Schmidt on CSA2 announced the arrival of the latest rendition of the ADTPro Disk Imaging software. Ok, here’s a few more goodies.  The time and date is synchronized with the host, and there’s two versions of the serial driver: one that hides between the BI and buffers, and another that stomps on the Disk II driver.  The latter is compatible with ProDOS utilities. There’s a little bit in there just for me – I don’t expect…

Book Title:  The New Apple II User’s GuideAuthor: David FinniganPages: 775 In 1993, Apple Inc. discontinued the Apple IIgs computer and all production of software and manuals for the Apple II series of computers came to a screeching halt.  Within a year, 95% of all Apple II software publishers were for the most part either shut down or they had moved on to publishing materials for the IBM PC or the Macintosh.  A sturdy handful of folks however, continued keeping…

Brutal Deluxe Software has announced that their January 1996 version of the DeluxeWare CD-ROM is now available as a free download.  The DeluxeWare CD-ROM contains over 650mb of Apple IIgs related software and was the first French CD-ROM dedicated to the Apple IIgs. COntents of the DeluxeWare CD-ROm include: Apple programs Documentations Creative visual Hypermedia Games Music System Utilities The CD-Rom is available as a 311.5mb zipped file and includes all of the software on the original disks.  Also the…

This month on Open Apple, Mike and Ken chat with David Schmidt, the programmer responsible for ADTPro. Beyond his own program, David has also contributed to the development of Davex, GSport, AppleCommander, CiderPress, OpenEmulator, DiscFerret, CFFA3000 — and much, much more. Collectively, the show’s hosts marvel at the deluge of Apple II games that are being ported to iOS, Apple’s mobile operating system … though we question the direction Jordan Mechner is taking the classic Karateka. Apple-1 computers continue to fetch…

Java Apple II emulator author Brendan Robert was quite understandably pleased to announce that his JACE emulator has reached a new milestone. Said Mr. Robert: This is the first major release, bringing this emulator within a hair of my original vision for what I wanted it to be: it is a complete recreation of the computer I had growing up. (yaaaaaay!) There are a few bugs left to fix, but the only people in this world that claim software is…

The popular Apple II emulator for the Windows PC is now better than before with this latest version that incorporates the following improvements: Changes:  [Feature #4399] Allow Z80 SoftCard to be inserted into slot 4 or 5. (Allows CP/M v3 to work) Reworked Configuration (property sheets) to allow multiple hardware changes. Updated Help .chm with info on No-Slot clock. Fixes: Floating bus not returned for empty slot $Cnxx addresses. Fixes: – A2VGA.DSK: Apple][VGA card detection. – [Bug #018643] Mabel’s Mansion….

A few weeks ago, Ewen Wannop, author of the premier telecommunications program for the Apple IIgs, Spectrum, announced that he had transitioned the program to freeware status. He has now released revised and redesigned manuals for his program, including the main program and scripting manuals. Says Wannop, I have updated the various Spectrum manuals to my new PDF format, and combined the original v1.0 and v2.5.3 manuals into single manuals. I have also added the reference manuals for the various…

The Java Apple Computer Emulator also known as JACE has been updated.  According to Brendon Robert, the creator of the JACE Emulator, “This new version adds a new MetaCheat (free cheat) feature.  140kb 2MG floppy support has been improved to support prodos/dos ordering detection as well as volume numbers.” You can download the new MetaCheat feature as well see it documented in full  on the JACE homepage at: https://sites.google.com/site/brendanrobert/projects/jace

David Schmidt, author of the popular Apple Disk Transfer (ADT) program for the Apple II, announced that the latest version, available now, has the ability to transfer ShrinkIt disk archives to Apple II computers. This functionality means that it is no longer required to use an emulator or another means to convert the .sdk file into a .dsk image. Therefore, much time is saved. This new version of ADTPro also fixes a few other bugs. Download ADTPro 1.2.2 at SourceForge.

Just the other day, Marc S. Ressl released the latest version of his Apple II emulator for Mac OS X. OpenEmulator, written by Marc S. Ressl, is the most exciting new Apple II emulator around. Designed to replicate down to the littlest details the experience of using real Apple II hardware, this free, open-source emulator succeeds in providing the full effect! The latest version, 1.0.3, adds emulation of the Apple II Plus and J-Plus computers, as well as the Disk…