Category: Vintage

There was an article in Wired Magazine Yesterday about Apple ][ software pioneer Bill Budge and his being awarded the 2nd annual Pioneer Award which is presented by the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences.  You can check out the article in Wired at: http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2011/01/bill-budge-pioneer/ Bill Budge is scheduled to present the 2011 KFest Keynote speech.

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…

Oliver Schmidth posted a note about Contiki 2.5.rc1 being made available for download this morning.  The suite allows complete connectivity for vintage computer platforms via ethernet to the Internet.  The full release follows: Contiki 2.5.rc1 binary release for Retrocomputing’ has just been made available on http://contiki.cbm8bit.com/ and http://a2retrosystems.com/contiki.html It’s a straight compile of the unmodified Contiki 2.5.rc1 sources avialable on http://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/contiki/Contiki/Contiki%202…. using cc65 2.13.2 The major changes are: – Support of the Atari 8-bit machines with the cart described on…

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:…

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….

by A.P.P.L.E. Staff The Apple II software imaging software, ADTPro has once again been updated.  The current version handles Apple II’s and Apple ///’s and works over either Cassette port audio cables, Ethernet or Serial connection.  The new version includes the following features: New functionality: * [Client] Implemented native assembly ProDOS selector/ launcher eliminating the need for Applesoft; results in 30% faster booting and executing from floppy * [Client] Laser 128 machines can now use their native modem port at…

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 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 –…

The Virtual Apple ][ website has been upgraded to allow emulation on all platforms for their Apple ][ section.  The emulation site which is popular among educators for their games and ease of use in the classroom has long been criticized for their support of only Windows based platforms. That has all changed thanks to the efforts of Marc Ressl and Nick Westgate.   Using a modified version of Marc’s AppleIIGo emulator, the new Virtual Apple ][ website now runs on…

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…

The latest version of the popular Macintosh based Virtual ][ emulator has been released. Version 6.3.6 has a number of changes including: *  The program now accepts “dsk” image files with 41 tracks (the maximum so far was 40). * A recent Snow Leopard upgrade broke the “Make Movie from Apple II Screen” feature. This has been fixed. * Cassette tape files now get file name extension “cass” instead of “aif”. As a result, the cassette tape icon appears correctly…

MountIt 1.3 is a new Permanent Init File devoted to handling different disk image files (.DSK, .PO and .2MG) of any size (from 32KB to the maximum RAM available), only ProDOS based. Up to sixteen volumes can be added to the system. MountIt mounts volumes as read-only if the original disk image file is locked. Otherwise, the disk image file is mounted as read/write and the following operations can be performed: read, write and format. MountIt is not ProDOS 8…

8BitSystem, famous for products such as the LittlePower IIc+, DoubleSeven, Switch-a-Slot and the LittleProto II, is now offereing their products through ReactiveMicro.com for reduced prices. With the prices being reduced by up to 30% on select items, the time is now to own these products for your own Apple ][ collection as this is a limited time offering.  For more information, check out the ReactiveMicro.com website. About 8BitSystem 8BitSystem is a sole owner enterprise which builds custom order parts and…

It looks like someone finally put a GBBS back online.  Gene Buckle has put up his Age of Reason BBS using GBBS 1.3j which was developed by L&L Productions in 1986.  This software ran many of the BBS’s during the 1980’s and 1990’s eventually coming to a screeching halt when the IIgs was discontinued and with the Internet becoming more popular. While many people have tried to put up BBS’s in the past 10 years, not many of them lasted. …

On the 20th of June 2002, Vintage Micros.com of South Carolina listed one of the rarest computers available today. The Lisa 1 was only produced for a few months and then replaced with the Lisa 2, which was eventually renamed to the Macintosh XL due to the problems with the Lisa 1. The Lisa 1 listed by Vintage micros came directly from the Texas manufacturing plant via a third party who won the auction which Apple held originally. All of these…

This is a new column which we are introducing this month to supplement our Apple II coverage. Each month, you will find hand tips and tricks in this column which are specifically for the Apple II series computers. While primarily focused on the beginning programmer, even the more advanced programmers may find a nify trick or two in this column which may be helpful. This months tip concerns saving the graphics on Hi-Res screens. On the Apple II series computers,…

PRESS RELEASE – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE June 14th 2002 Seattle — Apple PugetSound Program Library Exchange (A.P.P.L.E.) has completed arrangements which will see the extensive Apple II site created by Terry Allen of Australia being hosted and maintained by A.P.P.L.E..  The web Site which was formerly hosted at http://www..educate.net.au/~apple2 will be transferred and integrated with the current A.P.P.L.E. web environment to complement their existing Apple II content. Earlier in 2002, Terry, an Apple II user since 1981, announced in the…

Over the last several months, I have entertained several requests for information about Apple to PC transfers and vice-versa.  Though several packages are available to perform this task, there is only one that we think is as seamless as it gets.  Apple Disk Transfer (ADT) by Paul Guertin is one of the simplest packages to use.  Although many Apple II web sites still have software in Shrinkit (.SHK) format, the .DSK format is catching on. There are currently 3 packages…

By Sean Nolan This year, Christmas comes in June.  The TERC BASIC Enhancements, an Applesoft enhancement package, are being dumped (pardon me, I mean released) into the public domain. The TERC BASIC Enhancements add over 50 additional BASIC commands to Applesoft which allow: • Mixing text and graphics anywhere on the screen.• Labeled subroutines with parameter passing and local variables. Improved INPUT commands which simplify catching of user errors.• IF I THEN I ELSE.• Hi-Res SCRN and XPLOT commands.• Non-destructive…

By Cecil Fretwell Telecommunications is not a new subject. A way of defining telecommunications would be “communicating over long distances.” The Indians in a sense telecommunicated information using smoke signals, while their jungle counterparts used drums to relay their messages. Those of us who work with personal computers have become the modern day natives and need to have the ability to communicate between computers. This article will concentrate on the software aspect of the telecommunications process by reviewing several packages….