Hunt The Gulon 1.2 Released

The Crow Cousins have released a new update to Hunt the Gulon, the double lo-res kin to decades old Hunt the Wumpus game, fixing a few minor display bugs and switching to an ultra-fast assembly-based painting routine, soon to be available in an upcoming release of Magic-Pixels. The update is available on the Crow Cousins website in .dsk and .woz disk image formats for Enhanced Apple //e, //c, IIc+, and IIgs models and various emulators.

Virtual II 10.0 Now Runs on High Sierra

Gerard Putter has released a new version of the Virtual II Apple II Emulator for Mac OS X. Version 10.0.1 has restored High Sierra Mac OS 10.13 support. You can download the latest release of the Virtual II Emulator from:https://virtualii.com/

Apple II Diskbrowser Updated

Apple II Disk Browser has been updated. The Denis Molony produced Apple II disk image viewing application has a number of bug fixes included in this version of the program. Apple II Diskbrowser version 1.47 is downloadable for free from the Diskbrowser Github page at:https://github.com/dmolony/DiskBrowser

Murder Manor – The World’s First Double Lo-Res Adventure for the Apple II

The Crow Cousins (in this case, Daniel Henderson and Roby Sherman) have collaborated on the world’s first double lo-res whodunit adventure for the Apple II. Set within the sprawling country estate of Screenhole Manor, seven miles north of nowhere, the game begins when another boring family, gathering, filled with the usual threats and melodrama one would expect, is interrupted by the savage MURDER of your uncle Hertzfeld! Taking on the persona of inspector Pomme-Deux, you, the player, must use your amazing powers…

RetroMacCast Episode 532 Released

RetroMacCast Episode 532 has been released by James and John. In this episode, they are joined in their discussions by Steve from Mac84. Topics in this episode include: eBay finds: Apple playing cards, SE/30, and G3 All-In-One.  news includes Intel future predictions and early ARM Mini benchmarks. To listen to the latest edition of the RetroMacCast, check out the podcast website at: http://retromaccast.ning.com/

Magic-Pixels 2.0b9 Released

The Crow Cousins have released version 2.0b9 of their double lo-res drawing program Magic-Pixels. The 2.0 version introduces a “Blazing Paddles” menu and this version in particular fixes a number of compatibility issues with IIgs and //c computers using mice. As with prior versions, Magic-Pixels will allow you to save your creations in either a bitmap format or a special “draw on demand” format similar to the old Graphics Magician / Hi-Res adventure games. In fact, the Crow Cousins are…

PLASMA 2.0 Alpha 1 Released

David Schmenk has announced the release of the latest version of the PLASMA programming environment for the Apple II series computers. PLASMA 2.0 Alpha 1 includes the following improvements: Improved entry/exit for 128K Apple IIe //c Improved entry for Apple /// Improved entry and function calls for 16 bit VM Apple3 ReadyToRun compatible images You can download the latest version of the PLASMA programming environment from the PLASMA GitHub page at:https://github.com/dschmenk/PLASMA

Virtual II Apple II Emulator 10.0 Released

Virtual Apple II Emulator for the Mac has been updated. Gerard Putter has announced that this version 10.0 of Virtual II includes some of the most requested features that people have been asking for as well the following: Virtual machine snapshots can now be saved and restored at any time, without the need to close the virtual machine. This feature is available in the full-licensed version only. Improved woz disk reading. Some diskette images could not be opened, but now…

The Northern Spy — Something New, Something Old

The Northern Spy

Somethings new at WWDCdelivered a spate of announcements across the board about Apple products. The big one had long been predicted here, and the timeline was roughly as forecast when the Spy first mentioned it a few years back. Apple will now abandon Intel chips for the Macintosh line and switch to its in-house design, the A12Z chip. Indeed, the WWDC demonstrations were done on a machine running with the new chip. Developers will be seeded with MacMinis that have…

Hunt The Gulon Evicts the Wumpi and Adds Double Lo-Res Graphics

What happens when you take the classic cave exploration / hunting game, evict the wumpi, add earthquakes, found arrows, and double lo-res graphics (thanks to power of Magic-Pixels)? You get Hunt the Gulon, a satisfying remake crafted by Crow Cousins for the Enhanced Apple //e, //c, and IIgs. The game is freely available for download on the Crow Cousins website.

Magic-Pixels Casts A Double Lo-Res Spell

Crow Cousins have released Magic-Pixels, a double lo res painting program, based on Marc Golombeck’s awesome Double LORES graphics library! The paint program can create “drawing format” files (similar to those Graphics Magician images used in hi-res adventures back in the day) plus a bitmap image format. Both image formats can be loaded and displayed using the included source code, which can be freely incorporated into your own Applesoft BASIC creations.  Magic-Pixels works on an Enhanced Apple //e, //c, or…

WOzFest SWEET16 Attendance, QFest 16 Announced

WOzFest SWEET16 header

WOzFest SWEET16 will not only be streamed, but is also now an “attendees allowed” event. Additionally, QFest 16 has been announced to be held to coincide with WOzFest SWEET16. Further details on the announcement post, and updates will be posted under the europlus zone’s WOzFest tag.

Applewin Apple II Emulator Updated

The Applewin Apple II Emulator has been updated. Applewin version 1.29.13 includes a host of changes and fixes including the following: [Bug #790] Fixed regression for -d1,-d2 & -s7-empty-on-exit (introduced at 1.29.7.0). [Change #787] Debugger: Extended ‘cycles part’ command to do timings relative to a user-specified base. [Change #783] Debugger: Extended ‘tf’ command to include cycle count. [Change #720] Debugger: Added more symbols to APPLE2E.SYM. NB. LC ($C08n) symbols are now correct for the LC, so ‘LDA $C08C,X’ will disassemble as ‘LDA LCRAMIN1_,X’ instead…

The Northern Spy — Returning to A New World

The Northern Spy

Will we?Yes, eventually, but as said repeatedly here, the Pandemic is far from over, and this particularly so in the rush by governments, corporations and unions to “return to business”. We cannot and we will not return to the way it was last Fall.We cannot because many of those employers are no longer in business and/or could not be viable if they were to re-open. Why? because for some old era businesses the customers have departed for good. Ordering online…

DSKtoPO Converter Updated

Paul Hagstrom has updated his Apple II DSK to Prodos Ord (PO) disk converter. The converter, written entirely in Python, allows users to convert the disks by mapping the sectors in a .dsk (DOS-order, .do) files into those of a .po (ProDOS-order) file. You can download the script from the DSKtoPO Github page at:https://github.com/paulhagstrom/dsk2po

Calibre E-Book Manager Updated

Calibre has announced an update to their E-Book manager application. Calibre version 4.17 includes a lot of changes and updates to the app including: New features Add a workaround for Amazon destroying cover thumbnails on e-ink Kindles.For books sent with this release of calibre, reconnecting the Kindle to calibre after the cover has been destroyed will restore it automatically Viewer: Group search results by section Viewer: When the search results panel is expanded, show more context Tag browser: Add options…

Microsoft Releases GW BASIC then Closes it to modifications

Microsoft released the source code to GW-BASIC this past week and then promptly made it un-modifiable announcing that the source code was for historical purposes only. No build scripts were included with the release and thus there is no way to create any binaries without a great heap of work. If you are still interested in seeing the source, you can check it out at:https://github.com/microsoft/GW-BASIC

Pyramid of Ra ported to the Apple II

Tom Porter of Naspite Labs has ported the Game Boy version of Pyramid of Ra to the Apple II. This version of the game includes the first 13 levels of the game thus far and features a number of tunes alongside the game play keeping in spirit with the original. Game Play Controls *APPLE II+A/S (LEFT + RIGHT)W/Z (UP AND DOWN)NOTE:*You can change line 3001 for ASCII key codes if you prefer better controls. *APPLE IIeARROW KEYS*unchangable OBJECT OF GAME…

New Apple-1 Emulator Released

Programmer, Alexander Akhmetov, has released a new MOS 6502 Apple-1 Emulator. The new emulator was developed to run on both Linux and Mac OS X. One of the main features of this new emulator include the ability to use either the Apple1Basic Rom or the Replica-1 Rom. You can download the Akhmetov MOS 6502 Apple-1 Emulator from Alexander’s Github page at: https://github.com/alexander-akhmetov/apple1/releases

KiGB Gameboy Emulator Updated

Richard Bannister has updated his KiGB Gameboy Emulator for Mac OS X. KiGB version 2.0.7 introduces several changes including the following new features: Optional Super Gameboy emulation. Motion sensor support (Kirby Tilt & Tumble). Game Genie and Game Shark support. KiGB requires the end user to supply their own Gameboy cartridge images but the program will handle standard .gb images. You can download the emulator from the KiGB Website at:https://www.bannister.org/software/kigb.htm