Jef Raskin Interview

Digital photo taken 1999 by Aza Raskin (Agfa 1280 Camera). Jef is holding a model of a computer he designed in the mid-1980s.  Notice the handle in the palm rest. The object to the right of the display was a removable, hot-swappable, storage module. The model was built by Ralph Voorhees. Jef’s haircut by Adobe Photoshop. Jef found it much easier to trim his hair and beard on the computer than in a mirror.(comments by Aza Raskin) Over the years,…

Reflections – What Ever Happened to BASIC

When I started programming in 1976, the computer world already had several programming languages. There was Fortran, Algol, Cobol, PL/1, Assembler, and half a dozen others. Apart from the scientists and engineers that used these languages, there was the one language which was supposed to be for the common man. BASIC. Beginners All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code. The language, which anyone could learn and understand in short order. The BASIC of those days was simple, useful and could perform complex tasks,…

Bytes From The Apple

Every month there seems to be some new toy which just absolutely must be had. For us in the Macintosh and Apple world, those toys have come from Apple Computer, Inc. for the most part. Good, Bad, or indifferent, we have always awaited the announcements from Apple concerning the latest little gadget or computer that has been run through the rumor mill. This month has been no exception and just to settle some of the hype, we have included a…

The Editor Still Bytes Back

Publications and More That A.P.P.L.E. gained notice for both the quality and the quantity of its publications is a given. First came the “Wozpak,” a thick, ungainly red-covered book – if one could be that generous with “book” – that was mainly an unorganized collection of various obscure Apple ][ assembler program listings, data sheets and entry point information. The Wozpak was rushed into publication to supplement Apple Computer’s skimpy user manual of about 32 pages, familiarly known as the…

The Northern Spy — An Internet History and Primer

Introduction All right, Nellie, today the Spy puts on his teaching hat for a primer on Internet history and usage. He was there, an early Internet user, but has forgotten a lot of this stuff himself, and has to ask you to look up some of it on the net for a reminder.   Disclosure statement The Spy’s Arjay Enterprises owns Arjay Web services http://www.arjayweb.com which in turn runs a domain name registration service at http://www.webnamesource.com and a web hosting…

A.P.P.L.E. to Host Terry Allen’s Apple II Site

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…

The Northern Spy — Bible and Bible Study Software

Introduction We’re not talking about “bibles”, say about some piece of software or the Mac platform here, Nellie. The software under review this month relates to the real thing–front ends to search the Scriptures in the original languages and multiple translations. These packages are for the person who wants to move into the twenty-first century from the massive old paper versions of Strong’s and Young’s concordances, Nave’s Topical Bible, interlinear Hebrew-Greek-English, and parallel KJV-NASB-NIC-RSV that can consume vast resources of…

August 2002 Issue to Feature Bill Fernandez Interview

Press Release   9 July 2002 – Seattle, Wa – The August issue of Call-A.P.P.L.E. Magazine will carry a 5 page interview with Bill Fernandez, also known around the world as Apple Computer, Inc. employee number 1. Call-A.P.P.L.E. Magazine is the monthly magazine produced by Apple PugetSound Program Library Exchange (A.P.P.L.E.) and carries information for all of the Apple computers. Bill Fernandez developed much of the software, which was available for the early Macintosh computers as well as the Lisa….

Terra Soft Ships YDL 2.2

Extend the life of your PowerPC machine with Linux Loveland, Colorado — 26 March 2002 — Terra Soft Solutions, Inc., the leading developer of integrated PowerPC Linux solutions announces shipment of Yellow Dog Linux 2.2, the most mature and complete PowerPC Linux distribution available. Yellow Dog Linux 2.2 offers an array of improvements over v2.1 with the most advanced, stable release of the 2.4 kernel, improved support for the Apple ADC monitors, and accelerated video. The screen brightness and volume…

Programming on the Apple IIgs

with APW and Related Products A Survey of APW productsBy Mike Westerfield Like myself, many of you have been programming on the Apple II since it really was the Apple II – no plus, e, c, or GS. The first assembler I used on the Apple II was actually tape based. I break out in hives every time I remember that. As the Apple II grew, so did the languages that were available for it. First, better assemblers appeared, starting…

LanceGS Network Card: First Looks

By Eric Shepherd www.A2Central.com About the Author Eric Shepherd is the webmaster of A2Central.com in Tracy, California and is also the director of Syndicomm.com. He is involved primarily in bringing many of the software packages from the 1980’s into the freeware realm by writing to the individual authors to gain the releases. Please note that A2central.com is not related to the magazine from the early 1990’s. The Card I wandered by my mailbox yesterday, as I do just about every…

The Northern Spy — OS X and the 1GHz G4 — A System Overview

The History Lesson Hands up everyone who remembers the Super Bowl ad for the original Macintosh computer, the one that aired in January 1984–that utopian, libertarian, iconoclastic production that scared the Apple board silly, then ushered in new eras for both computing and advertising. Now, keep your hands up if you actually used one of those computers that very month. What if you had your hands on a Fat Mac on January 24, 1984? “Wait a minute,” the history buffs…

The Northern Spy : Back To The Vision

The Northern Spy

About the author: Richard J. (Rick) Sutcliffe, is Professor of Mathematics and Computing Science at Trinity Western University in British Columbia. He represents Canada on international computing standards committees, and has written two textbooks and more than fifty papers, articles and reviews. He has been a columnist, software author, and active in electronic publishing. He has also been an invited speaker at numerous churches, educational and computing conferences, and technical symposia at local, national, and international levels. He presently resides…

Jef Raskin to be Featured in June 2002 Issue of Call-A.P.P.L.E.

Press Release   10 April 2002 Jef Raskin Interview in June 2002 Issue of the New Call-A.P.P.L.E. Magazine Seattle—Apple PugetSound Program Library Exchange (A.P.P.L.E.) released it’s second issue of Call-A.P.P.L.E. magazine since its return in March 2002. The latest issue of the magazine includes an exclusive interview with the father of the Macintosh, Jef Raskin. Jef speaks candidly in this interview about his days at Apple Computer, Inc. and his relationship with Steve Jobs during the years he was developing…

Call-A.P.P.L.E. Magazine V1N1 Reproduction

The First Edition of Call-A.P.P.L.E. Magazine. (Reproduction) Apple Puget Sound Program Library Exchange C/O Val J. Golding 6708 39th Ave. S.W. Seattle, Wa. 98136 (206) 937-6588 (Home) (206) 623-7966 (Work) February 7, 1978 Dear Apple Owner: The purpose of this letter is to form an Apple computer users group, as indicated by the tentative name above, and to further the exchange of information and programs of interest to Apple Users. A preliminary meeting has been set for 7pm Thursday, February…

A Complete Guide to Using ADT for Apple ][ to PC Transfers

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…

Star Wars Episode II Trailer in Quicktime 5.0

The latest of the Star Wars Episode II (Attack of the Clones) trailers was recently added to the official Star Wars website at www.starwars.com. The latest trailer shows much-improved cohesiveness between the scenes and a few a different twists on the plot being shown to the public. Although the scenes are fluid and nice, the free version of Quicktime only allows a medium sized view of the clips. In order to truly experience the power of the Episode II clips,…

Reflections: The Return of Call-A.P.P.L.E.

In 1981, I worked with a group of people who had begun a journey of amazing proportions. This particular group had managed to provide much of the information about the Apple computer available at the time. This information came in many forms. Software. Documentation. Even Hardware. It was only available through Apple PugetSound Program Library Exchange or A.P.P.L.E. for short. The brainchild of Val J. Golding, the group started in December 1977 as an idea due to the fact that…

A.P.P.L.E. Glimpses

A.P.P.L.E. Glimpses is a product introduction article. Each month, we will be introducing items which we think are noteworthy here. Although items are listed here, it does not mean an endorsement. It only means that we figured the item was interesting enough to be noted to the Apple community. This month we have a nice variety of items. We hope that you will find them as interesting as we did. If you do decide to purchase a product we mention…

The Editor Still Bytes Back

Twenty-five years and counting, and yes, with a great deal more gray hair, the editor still has a few more bytes left. Many eons ago we thought we had written the last for Call –A.P.P.L.E. but one never knows. What goes around, comes around eh? Early on, we were fascinated with computers, starting in 1977 with a TI-59 programmable calculator. Writing for the 59 came closer to pure machine code programming than one might imagine, what with the need to…