The 2024 rendition of the FAPPLE2 Fest was held yesterday with 11 people showing up for the annual event in Kawasaki, Japan. The FAPPLE2 Fest is the annual get together of the Japanese Apple II hobbyists, originating from the 1980’s and is held each year at the home of one of the members, Atsushi Ushiroda.
This years event included 11 hobbyists and a ton of machines and Apple II series computer related items including those from A.P.P.L.E. With the space completely stuffed with displays and machines, along with the hobbyists themselves, there was a ton of new things including hardware and software from several sources.
Setup began about 9:30am with the first arrivals and vehicles with hardware and by 10:00 am, the inside of the hall was beginning to look very much like a computer lab that had jumped straight out of the 1980’s right into 2024. Space within the hall soon became a rather scarce commodity with chairs being used to hold items while setups were being completed or while they were being passed back and forth between the attendees.
Atsuhiro Suzuki took the time to show his Apple-1 clone system with complete screen overlay system that allows both text and graphics to appear on the display, using the Apple-1. This system, while quite complicated, produced an absolutely thrilling result with a lot of surprise expressed by the folks in attendance.
Kimikazu Taguchi showed off the Apple II based Kanji System software, running on an Apple II series computer as well as a few older games from the Japan side of the realm that never reached mass global markets. This demonstration produced some amazing results with the Kanji on the screen being rather readable considering the software was forty years old.
Anthony Beaucamp of 8-Bit Slicks brought in his latest version of the 8-Bit Slicks Racing game on several platforms and a full racing setup with put to through its paces by a number of folks, along with help from Apple II micro machine specialist Steve Burke. Anthony’s display also included his latest production of the game boxes and featured a demonstration of his new game recording system which allows users to review their races after completion.
Steve Burke displayed his Apple2Go machines with a variety of keyboard configurations and along size a couple of other small machines from Suzuki including one from MFA in Hong Kong, the variety of small handhelds this year was second to none.
Documentation specialists Yuji Takahashi, Bill Martens and Hirohisa Yumoto poured over the Apple II Notes and Woz Notes from the 1970’s while looking at items which were included in Yumoto’s Japanese language based Apple II book. The books, now in the A.P.P.L.E. library harken back to the same generation as the WOZPAK and were produced by the San Francisco Apple Core. This also brought out Takahashi who not only provided some scarce Blue Book information but also took the time to display some of the items from his latest productions.
Also on display for the attendees were a number of hardware products recently produced by Kero’s Mac Mods own Kay Koba. This included both items for the Apple II series computers as well as for the retro Macintosh machines.
In addition to displaying his Apple II book and some of the related items he talks about in it, Yumoto also had a display of Electronics Arts games, extending into the near complete collection realm. Most famous for his appearances on Japanese TV with his Apple-1 and Lisa-1 computers, Yumoto brought in another rare item displayed in the book for everyone to take a look at.
John Morris of Applesauce Floppy Disk Controller fame also joined the event remotely, showing off his latest version of Applesauce. Several questions were passed back and John took the time to talk about his creation and gave indication that the development process is coming soon to the production phase.
With each passing event, real hardware seems to become rarer and rarer due to small faults occurring and yesterday’s event was no exception in lending to this rarity with a couple of floppy drives failing and an Apple IIc overheating to the point where it crashed to monitor during a demonstration. Of course, a number of folks are still producing newer hardware for the Apple II series computer and Atsushi Ushiroda is one of those folks.
His demonstration of some of the Nanja.info peripherals produced some interesting results with different flavors of the 6800 series cards and a recently purchased Jonathan CD controller card was also passed around for attendees to take a look at.
It is rather amazing that demos in this environment never stop for little bits of hardware or software madness and during the event, when there are any issues, the entire crew goes straight into troubleshooting overload, all with the purpose of trying to get more Apple II fun in the mix.
Near the end of the day, peripherals, books and documentation as well as brand new floppies and other items exchanged hands and those who purchased the items went home with backpacks a bit fuller than when they arrived.
The fun continued well into the evening hours before the main session ending with group photos near the 6pm hour. Those continuing on to the evening phase headed out to the local eateries while those who had to drive longer distances hit the road once their vehicles were repacked.
