The 8-Bit Unity team has announced that their latest version of their C based cross platform programming SDK for 8-Bit systems will include scrollable tile maps. According to the posting ont heir website: Thanks to a “quiet week”, I was able to make rapid progress on the next version of 8bit-Unity (0.4).The major new feature is Scrollable Tilemaps. I have implemented a super convenient asset pipeline: design your tile-set and maps in the excellent CharPad just ONCE, then 8bit-Unity takes…
Brutal Deluxe Software has released an update to Genesys, the #AppleIIgs resource editor. This release includes a number of bugs fixes as well as all features of #AppleII System 6.0/6.0.1 controls being added. Also a new editor for rUpdateInfo by Ewen Wannop is included. Developing for the #AppleIIgs is fun! You can download Genesys from the Github page of Antoine Vignau at: https://github.com/antoinevignau/
Eric Donadieu has released a new Apple II game, 2048. This is a new look at the popular number combining games which are popular on iOS and Android devices. 2048 uses the arrow keys to shift the blocks, left, right, up, and down with the shifting combining like numbers in that direction. non-combining numbers are simply moved in the direction of the shift if there are empty squares in that direction. The game is a unique take on these quite…
Seattle, Washington — 11 November, 2020 — Apple Pugetsound Program Library Exchange (A.P.P.L.E.) is proud to announce the availability of the immediate release of “ProZAP: A ProDOS Block Read/Write Utility” Version 1.1 written by Gary Charpentier, Val J. Golding, Greg Kielian, and David Sparks in 1984. The latest version 1.1 release of ProZAP includes bug fixes by Antoine Vignau of Brutal Deluxe Software, which were in the earlier release. These fixes include: The ProZAP program called a p8 close call…
Michael Packard has announced the final release version of his new Apple II game, Lunar Rescue. Disaster! On a routine lunar scouting mission, United Earth expedition 1 was attacked by Moon Bats, stranding 60 crew members across the lunar surface. It’s up to you to successfully pilot a Lunar Rescue Vehicle safely down to the surface and recover the stranded crew one by one before their air runs out! PRE-ORDER NOW! for $20 + $3 shipping, in old-school ziplock baggie…
Apple has announced an event for November 10th, 2020 to be broadcast from Apple Park. Although not officially released as part of the announcement on their website, this is the event which is widely expected to be their Silicon based machine introduction. Several publications including Bloomberg and others are running with the idea that Apple will introduce the A14 Silicon based Laptops at this event. First announced at the 2020 rendition of the Apple World Wide Developers Conference, the A14…
Daniele Liverani has announced the immediate availability of his latest version of the Genius Series arcade games for the Apple II . Genius 3 – Into The Toy Planets is a major continuation of the theme Daniele began more than 5 years ago. Each game that Daniele produces comes with not only the Game Disk in Apple II emulator ready format .DSK, but also a PDF instruction manual, a 5.25 inch floppy disk label PDF as well as a tip…
COVIDhas dramatically changed university teaching, and not in the Spy’s humble opinion, for the better. Oh, yes, students can still take university courses when, but for a few requiring personal skills performance, they are entirely online. But the Spy has four major concerns: 1. the lack of face-to-face interaction. Not only does the professor not have access to body language, many students keep their cameras off throughout the class time or merely display an avatar, leaving one to wonder if…
The fall 2020 issue of Call-A.P.P.L.E. Magazine has been released and is available for download by all A.P.P.L.E. Members. You will need to log into your A.P.P.L.E. Members account in order to access the magazine. This months issue includes a feature on the Apple Jonathan as well as a full featured article and expose of Rob Perissi’s Darth Vader GS build. About Call-A.P.P.L.E. Call-A.P.P.L.E. Magazine is a quarterly magazine published by the staff of the A.P.P.L.E. Users Group, an Official…
Studying the pseudo random number generation with a particle simulation of the binomial distribution using a Galton’s board in Double LORES. More information: https://8bitshack.org/post/marcdemo/ The simulator uses 96 single “particles” that are kept in constant movement following a pseudo-gravitational force which makes them move through the board. This simulation also demonstrates some of the capabilities of the DoLORES-library project.When a simulation run is finished “Gravitation” can be reversed forcing the particles to move back upwards allowing a restart of the…
The Applewin Apple II Emulator has been updated. New items in version 1.29.15 of the Tom Charesworth maintained Applewin Emulator include: [Change #764] Fully support the RGB cards, and introduce a new ‘Color (RGB Card/Monitor)’ dedicated video mode. [PR #837] Support for ‘Le Chat Mauve’ Eve and Féline RGB cards. [PR #826] Support for Video7’s SL7 RGB card. New command line switch to select RGB card type: -rgb-card-type: apple (default), sl7, eve, feline New command line switches for SL7: -rgb-card-foreground…
Seattle, Washington — October 23, 2020 — Apple Pugetsound Program Library Exchange (A.P.P.L.E.) is proud to announce the availability of a new manual for the “Beyond Quest“ game written by Bill Martens in 1985 and completed in 2020. Beyond Quest is an all-text RPG game that’s the most old school fun you will have with your Apple II computer. Adapted from the Quest 1 engine by Brian Reynolds, it builds on the original with a new backstory, objective, improved menus,…
This episode marks the end of the quest to play every single Infocom game by the EBAG hosts Kay Savetz and Carrington Vanston. In this 39th Episode of the EBAG podcast, Kay and Carrington take a bit of a victory lap after completing every single one of the Infocom text-only adventures. As they say, “Turn on verbose mode and light the brass lantern, it’s time to take a look back at what they liked best, and least, from these classic…
Disaster! On a routine lunar scouting mission, United Earth expedition 1 was attacked by Moon Bats, stranding 60 crew members across the lunar surface. It’s up to you to successfully pilot a Lunar Rescue Vehicle safely down to the surface and recover the stranded crew one by one before their air runs out! PRE-ORDER NOW! for $20 + $3 shipping, in old-school ziplock baggie packaging in 5.25″ DOS 3.3 floppy disk format with instruction sheet signed by the author. Compatible…
A new book about Sierra On-Line has been released by Ken Williams titled, “Not All Fairy Tales Have Happy Endings: The Rise and Fall of Sierra On-Line.” Upon first glance, it looks to be a very informative overview of the inspirations and experiences of Ken and Roberta Williams at Sierra. According to the press release, “Sierra On-Line was one of the very first computer game companies, and at one time dominated the industry. The author, Ken Williams, founded Sierra On-Line…
John Snape has remastered the Apple II programming classics “Beneath Apple DOS” and “Beneath Apple ProDOS” and put them in one 450 page volume titled “Beneath Apple DOS and ProDOS 2020.” Remastering a book is no small effort, as I well know, and John has done a fine job of preserving and upgrading the work of authors Don Worth and Pieter Lechnner. Besides re-typesetting everything, he has redrawn the figures and tables. John also put his own special touch on…
The 543rd episode of the RetroMacCast has been released. In this Episode, James and John discuss eBay finds: Macintosh Portable prototype, interesting serial Mac HD, and Apple/Braun calculator. They recap the Apple Event, and news Newton, found Jobs audio, curved monitor G4 iMac, and more great NanoRaptor designs. To see all of the show notes and or to join the RetrMacCast Facebook page Check out the main webpage at RetroMacCast.
KbooHK has released a new Firmware update for his wDrive. Firmware version 1.0b5 mainly fixes smartport images that cannot be booted under the wDrive’s boot menu! wDrive (connect as drive A) has limitations with how it works with the Apple IIc when booting smartport images. When hdv/2mg files are selected in the boot menu, they cannot be booted in drive A until the selection on the adaptor switch is changed to to drive B(SMARTPORT). Under this circumstance, wDrive will use…
Walland Vrbancic has just released his latest version of Apple II DOS, DOS 4.3 File Management System. DOS 4.3 is based on his earlier release of DOS 4.1H in 2019. DOS 4.3 boots directly into Language Card memory. It retains all of the enhancements found in DOS 4.1 with many more additional features. Most notable are commands to directly modify disk sector data, update file time stamps at any time, control disk tracking to a single phase, configure eight areas of DOS that manage…
From the europlus zone blog: I’m very happy to announce the date for the next WOzFest: WOzFest 17 Oct will be held on Saturday 17 October 2020, starting at midday Sydney time (UTC+11:00). An easy date to remember! And Steve in Brisbane has confirmed QFest 17 will be held at the same time – double the Apple ][ goodness! The theme for WOzFest 17 Oct is, as it was for WOzFest SWEET16, “Community” – having supportive communities is important at the best of times, but especially so at the moment,…
