Technology News and Views Since 1983 March 2020 Our long time reader will recall the Spy’s having many moons ago differed sharply from the majority view that the “global village” created by what we today call the Internet that many of us saw coming in the heady early 80s when this column was first started, would promote world peace and understanding and usher in a new era of understanding and co-operation. The Spy was rather criticized for his emphatic “not”,…
I’m very happy to announce the date for the next WOzFest, WOzFest COLOR=15 – Saturday 4 April 2020, starting around midday Sydney time (UTC+11:00). The theme for WOzFest COLOR=15 is the Apple ][‘s support for colour graphics via colour monitors and TVs. I’ve got a surprise lined up for WOzFest COLOR=15, but all I can say for now is…stay tuned! I will also be continuing to work on software preservation with the Applesauce. Applesauce is John Morris’ phenomenal USB interface for Apple ][ disk drives which takes Apple…
We regret to inform our readers of the passing of famed Robotics pioneer David Lee Heiserman. His obituary on the Funeral home site his family chose reads as follows: David Lee Heiserman, age 79 of Columbus, died Friday February 21, 2020 at Dublin Riverside Hospital. David was an educator, author, and visionary. David was a pioneer in robotics, authoring “Build your own working robot” (1976) and others. In total, he wrote over 40 books during the 70’s and 80’s. Diverse…
MacEffects, LLC, creator of the clear Macintosh SE case, just released the kickstarter for an Apple IIe case, and it’s fantastic! From their project:Our custom case will make your Apple II stunningly unique, yet still recognizable by its classic shape. You will have the ability to peer inside the system at its beautifully engineered internal components. This will instantly revitalize your computer and will allow it to serve as an amazing display that is sure to be a conversation starter in…
The Clock Signal Emulator for MacOS has been updated. This emulator simulates a variety of platforms including the Apple II series computers. Clock Signal currently emulates the following platforms: Acorn Electron; Amstrad CPC; Apple II/II+ and IIe; Atari 2600; ColecoVision; Commodore Vic-20 (and Commodore 1540/1); Macintosh 512ke and Plus; MSX 1; Oric 1/Atmos; Sega Master System; and Sinclair ZX80/81. In addition, emulation of the Atari ST is experimental. Clock Signal Author, Tom Harte writes of the new release saying “This…
Reactive Micro has announced the availability of a new version of the Apple II Plus Rev Seven RFI Boards. According to the posting on the Reactive Micro Blog, The Apple II Plus, Rev 7 RFI Motherboard project is offered in several options. As assembled or kit, with and without ICs and DRAM, and in 93-series ROM (original) or 27-series ROM (not yet released). It is designed to be a replacement motherboard for your existing Apple II and II Plus. It’s…
Raphael Rezende has released a new Apple II game, Bagatelle. According to his posting in the Apple II Software Enthusiasts group: This is a simplified arcade machine, in which you and the apple take turns, throwing balls into a box containing colored poles. Your score increases each time you hit a post, on your way down the box, and the ball changes direction when it hits a post, which increases your chances of hitting more obstacles. You use stick 0…
We’re rapidly approaching the midway point for the first two-liners programming exhibition of 2020! We currently have 9 shining, stellar examples of the “80’s Arcade” theme and have enjoyed playing them all over the past several weeks! If you’re still interested in participating, there’s plenty of time left! Write and submit your most impressive and inspired code that showcases the Apple II and your abilities as it relates to the theme above (and your own personal interpretation of course) and…
The RELEASE set of media have been finalized and are available on GitHub along with complete and extensive documentation for A2osX. This includes a User Guide, Command Guide and Shell Developers Guide. You can download the media directly through one of these links: RELEASE.140.po – An 140K 5.25″ disk image containing ProDOS FX as well as the main BOOT and support files for running A2osX RELEASE.800.po – An 800K 3.5″ disk image containing ProDOS 2.03tc the main BOOT and support…
The Applewin Apple II Emulator for windows has been updated. The version 1.29.10 update of Applewin focuses primarily on the emulators support for the WOZ format created by John Morris’ Applesauce FDC. Changes in the release include: [PR #756] Write support for WOZ1/WOZ2 images. Fixes titles that need write support (see: #686, #704, #705). Allow creation of a blank (WOZ2) image (see AppleWin.chm: ‘Creating Disk Images’). multi-file zip support extended to scan for the first valid image. useful for most woz-a-day multi-file zips which…
In his latest video podcast, Chris Torrence does a video review of Ian Kim’s SD Music+ sound card.
KansasFest 2020, the 32nd annual Apple II convention, is scheduled for July 21–26 in Kansas City, Missouri. Robert Woodhead of Sir-Tech Software, well-known as the co-creator of the Wizardry series of computer role-playing games, will join us as the keynote speaker. At an early age, Robert Woodhead, aka Trebor the Mad Overlord, was consumed by two passions; computer programming and not having to have a real job. He first achieved this by writing computer games for Sir-Tech Software, most notoriously…
For those of you following the Apple II Desktop project, you will be happy to know that there is a new pre-alpha. Release number 10 of the pre-alpha stage of the Apple II desktop project includes the following changes: DeskTop File > New Folder scrolls new folder into view. #16 DeskTop: Restrict double-click detection to content area clicks. #183 Fix off-by-one in icon repainting. #181 Fix several UI issues with Format/Erase dialog. #177 Support extended ProDOS 2.5 dates. #169 Desk Accessories Save control panel settings…
The 2020 rendition of the BASIC 10-Liner programming contest has begun. An announcement from the contest organizers on twitter read as follows:
For fans of the original 1970’s Star Trek game, there is now a version of the game for iOS. Classic Trek-80, so named because the author, Richard Loxley, places the game in the 80’s instead of the 70’s, is a full version of the original BASIC based StarTrek Game. The program is based on the original TRS-80 version of the game and is a free download and for anyone who played the original game on older platforms, this game is…
By Dan HendersonReleased 02 February 2020 (AKA 02022020) About Planet Invasion 2020 Some people will be familiar with the classic ‘Defender’ game from the 1980’s, yet weirdly, I know the game as ‘Planet Invasion’ on the ‘Dragon 32’ computer. It has become apparent that the game was either copied or bought under licence. Anyway, I always thought it would be interesting to do a Low Resolution version of the game on the Apple II. That being said, my not being…
Technology News and Views Since 1983 First Impressions of the Spy’s brand new MacBookPro sixteen inch machine from a strictly hardware point of view are mixed but generally positive as it stacks up very well in comparison to his older 2015 portable–the one he is now wary about taking into any airport in case the employees are too lazy or uninformed to verify that its batteries have indeed been changed. He will keep that machine for some purposes, as explained…
David Schmenk has released another update to the PLASMA 2.0 Development Platform for the Apple II. PLASMA Version 2.0 Developer Release 4 includes several fixes and changes including: Improved editor auto-indenting Compiler fix for terneray operator precedence Machine check for HGR library About PLASMAPLASMA is a medium level programming language targeting the 8-bit 6502 processor. Historically, there were simple languages developed in the early years of computers that improved on the tedium of assembly language programming while still being low…
The A2osX project has a new home on github. The A2osX team has created a new GitHub Team for Open Source organization and moved the A2osX repository to this new organization. This allows us to expand the number of contributors to the project. Developers with Apple II Assembly experience are welcome to join! In addition, the A2osX team is proud to announce the availability of two new versions of ProDOS, one with a very minor tweak and the other a…
6502bench SourceGen v1.5 is now available. Key changes since v1.4: – NOTE: extension script interfaces have changed. Pre-v1.5 plugins will not work with this release.– Added visualization generation interface for converting embedded data to images. – Added extension scripts for C64 sprites, Atari 2600 graphics, and Apple II hi-res bitmaps, fonts, and shape tables. – Added animated bitmap visualizations. – Added GIF and animated GIF generation to HTML exporter.– Added non-unique local labels (e.g. “@loop”).– Added uncertainty annotations to label…
