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…
The Applewin Apple II Emulator for Windows has been updated. Tom Charlesworth has released another update due to a couple of bugs in the previous release. The fixes in Applewin 1.29.9 include: [Bug #752] Fixed double-clicking a registered file-type issue (regression introduced at 1.29.8.0). [Bug #750] Fixed Ctrl+Alt+Break wasn’t emulating CTRL+OA+RESET (regression introduced at 1.29.8.0). For more information about Applewin or to download the latest version of the program, check out the Applewin Github page at:https://github.com/AppleWin/AppleWin
Apple II Disk image data conversion program, Applecommander, has been updated. Version 1.6.0 includes some nifty new features including. Ability to load a text file with conversion to Apple format with highbit off (see ac -ptx …). See #33. An ac build for Java 1.5 is available (AppleCommander-ac-1.6.0-java5.jar). See #29 for discussion. Applecommander is an aplication for multiple platforms which allows users to not only view the data on Apple II disk images but to also export the files from the disk image to the local…
The Applewin Apple II Emulator has been updated. Applewin 1.29.8 was released with the following updates and changes: [Bug #749] Hotkeys to change emulation speed using Ctrl+n: now ignored if ALT is pressed. [Bug #748] DiskII: data latch returns a rand() value when no disk is in drive. [Bug #746] Debugger: correctly repaint Apple II screen when showing it from debugger. [Bug #745] WOZ: Support for large tracks. [Bug #743] Added new command line switches: -left-alt-control-buttons : left-ctrl=button0, left-alt=button1 -right-alt-control-buttons : right-alt=button0, right-ctrl=button1 -swap-buttons :…
The latest episode of the John Leake and James Savage produced RetroMacCast has been released. Episode number 511, Mac Muzzle, includes the following items: Mac Portable mug, TAM in box, and Mac Sales Training Guide. They look back to January 1990 via Macworld, and news includes Mac Mini, iPhone-20SC hack, BeOS, Powerbook-Mini, and Dubai Mac collection RetroMacCast Website You can listen to this episode as well as older episodes of the RetroMacCast at:http://retromaccast.ning.com/
David Schmenk, creator of the PLASMA development system for the Apple II and III series computers, has released the latest version of the PLASMA Environment. PLASMA 2.0 Developer Preview 3 is the latest pre-release version of the environment and includes the following changes: File manipulation utilities fixed for Apple /// SOS vs ProDOS differences More optimizations for HiRes graphics libraries Spiders From Mars hires demo game You can download this and other versions of the PLASMA system from the PLASMA…
The dates for the 2020 rendition of the Vintage Computer Festival Pacific Northwest have been announced. When: Saturday, March 21st and Sunday, March 22nd 2020 (Load-in on Friday, March 20th, 2020)Where: Living Computers:Museum in Seattle, Washington If you would like to attend or to be a vendor or exhibitor at the event, check out the VCF PNW webpage at:http://vcfed.org/wp/festivals/vintage-computer-festival-pacific-northwest/
Target Date All of us here at 6502 Workshop hope that you all had a great holiday season! We look forward to the new year and putting Nox Archaist in your hands. On that note, as we draw closer to release, we’ve gotten a much stronger idea of when we’ll be able to ship the game. We have every major remaining step defined and documented, and will continue to give you regular progress updates. In fact, starting with this update and…
There is a new version of the firmware for the Apple II BOOTi Card. Version 0.9K fixes a bug that was affecting users of the card on the Apple II Plus. The old version was causing a problem for users who did not have a disk image in the Virtual Slot 1 on the card. This new version, coded by Marko Ramius, also increases the boot delay for those users who are using the VidHD card in their Apple II’s….
The latest update to the Apple II Desktop is now available for download and testing from the Apple II Desktop GitHub Page. Version 1.2 Pre-Alpha 9 is contains a bevy of changes and bug fixes including the following items: DeskTop Fix resource leak opening/closing windows – #19 Fix off-by-one year bug for pre-Y2K dates Clear screen before launching to avoid garbage – #174 Add AuxType display to File > Get Info – #148 Fix display of alerts – #165 Control Panel DA Fix overflowing…
Happy 2020! It’s time for another friendly two-liners progamming exhibition and this time we’re going to try out a theme: “80’s Arcade”! Write and submit your most impressive and inspired code that showcases the Apple II and your abilites as it relates to the theme above (and your own personal interpretation of course) and submit it by March 31st, 2020. The winner selected will receive a $100 USD gift card and all the bragging rights that can fit into the…
