A couple of months ago I returned to my parents home in Madrid, Spain and was able to find some of the early code I wrote for the Apple II. I wasn’t very confident my 5 1/4” floppy disks could have survived 30 years in storage but I decided to send them to my friends Antoine Vignau (from Brutal Deluxe Software) anyway. Some of the disks were damaged but I had enough backup copies that eventually both Teacher’s Wizard and…
Clip Copy Plus by Chris Vavruska gets an update. The latest version, V.1.1, brings the ability to cut, copy and paste files from modern computers to the Apple IIgs. Clip Copy Plus is a Finder extension brings the convenient ability to cut, copy and paste files of modern operating systems to the Apple IIGS. Clip Copy Plus also allow the ability to delete files quickly New with version 1.1 null CCP now works with Eric Sheppard’s System Init SideClick. Easily…
Dagen Brock, the author of Flapple Bird and the GS PLUS emulator, has released an new multi-platform tool for producing icons. Buckshot is an image production utility which is based on the BMP2DHR conversion program. Buckshot is available for Mac OS X, Linux, and Windows and is a free download. While still in the early phases of development, it is stable and allows users to convert their images immediately. Buckshot has support for a host of graphics sizes as well…
Chris Morrison has posted an interesting new item to his VintageGeek Blog this past couple of weeks. He takes the viewers on a ride through the ups and downs of building a MicroDrive Turbo card for the Apple IIgs using images from the Alex Lee curated WITA2GS website as well as the utility CiderPress running on Windows. If you are interested in running real Apple IIgs hardware with the Microdrive Turbo then you definitely will want to have a look…
Episode 687 of the Adam Christianson produced MacCast has been released. This episode covers a host of topics including the Quarter 1 revision of guidance from Apple concerning the downturn in iPhone sales in China. Also, the AirPower, iTunes coming to “Smart TVs” and rumors of a Tri-Lens iPhone. More review of external DVD drives is also covered as well as UIs. Check out the MacCast podcast at their website:http://www.maccast.com/
John Morris just announced that the new Applesauce 1.1 software will have a further enhanced disk drive analysis allowing users to not only see the rotation speed but also factors such as: Power Levels Reading Writing Head Tracking Sync Sensor status The Write Protect switch As John says, it will make it much easier to select the best drive for performing disk imaging. These new diagnostic tools should also allow users to evaluate whether the drives need maintenance or if…
The floppies for the A2OSX multi-tasking operating system project have been updated. The update to the version 0.92 has been ongoing for several months now with all but two or three items remaining in the 0.91 version. The project is currently run by Remy Gibert with programming help from Patrick Kloepher. The aim of the project is to produce a Unix like multi-tasking operating system which will run on a standard Apple IIe. Check out the project at:https://github.com/burniouf/A2osX
Original Posting: 13 January 2017 Ryan Suenaga was a well known Apple II gs programmer and Ryan’s Apple Software curator, with a number of Apple IIgs tools and utilities to his name. He was an active Apple II community member until his unexpected death hiking the Alamona Trail in Hawaii in 2011. Sadly, when his website disappeared so did his utilities that were previously available to the Apple computing community. Now, Apple2Scans.net curator Mike Maginnis has created an archive for…
The stock market has begun to speak about overpriced valuations, and its coming year looks growly. Much of the recent inflation in prices can be ascribed to the American tax cuts for corporations and the rich, who used their spare income to bid up equities, an option not available to most people, whose incomes have been static in the face of slow and steady inflation. The effect of this government cash injection into the American market has now run its…
About the Australian Apple Review Posts Several of the Australian Apple Review articles have been re-typeset and integrated with the main A.P.P.L.E. site as part of our push to make all material searchable and available to the general public. Many of these articles are from the old Apple II website created by Terry Allen, which originally housed the articles. There will be more coming soon as we take on the project page by page. Original posting from the Apple II…
John Keoni Morris, the creator of the Applesauce Floppy Disk Controller has announced the release of the WOZ disk image specification. The update, version 2.0 of the specification, includes a host of updates and fixes including: Better 3.5 inch floppy disk support Emulator hints Fixes an issue with extremely long tracks Also announced was the impending release of the next version of the Applesauce FDC software. Version 1.1 will allow users to begin creating WOZ 2.0 floppy disk images. Two…
The Apple II DiskBrowser, a java based disk image utility for Mac OS X, has been updated. Created by Denis Molony, DiskBrowser Version 1.0.30 was released with features to support A.P.P.L.E.’s hybrid Pascal/DOS and CPM/DOS type floppy disks. You can download the latest version of DiskBrowser from Github at:https://github.com/dmolony/DiskBrowser/
In his latest video, Chris Torrence does a video review of the wDrive, a new floppy disk emulator from KbooHK. The wDrive supports copy protected formats such as WOZ, EDD/EDF, and NIB, as well as DSK, DO, and PO disk images. Check it out!
John Morris has announced that he is now taking orders for the 2nd run of the Applesauce Floppy Drive Controller. The Applesauce FDC allows users to digitally image their floppy disks (both personal and commercial) in the original format of the disk as it was created. These disk images are then stored in WOZ format (an emulator format), DSK format (old emulator format) or as a raw or A2R file. Built into the Applesauce FDC Software is support for both…
In 1979, Jeff Finn submitted a program to the A.P.P.L.E. users group for inclusion in its Diskpak 2. It was the Holiday Greeting Pak, a program which utilized the low resolution graphics capabilities of the Apple II computer. Included in the Holiday Greeting Pak were 9 different screens covering both the Christian and the Jewish holidays, giving users a variety of screens which could be personalized as well. Originally written in Integer Basic, not only was it formatted for the…
Option8 also known as Charles Mangin has released a new Apple II game, BlockChain. Fresh off his recent success of his new game DropBlock which came in two flavors, single and double player, he now has released a game which gives a new twist to the idea of placing falling blocks. One of the twists on BlockChain is the fact that combines blocks change color making it harder than DropBlock. According to the BlockChain blurb on the Option8 website, Match…
The Eaten by a Grue Infocom Podcast episode 24 is now available. This months podcast takes a deep dive into the game, Zork III: The Dungeon Master. The Eaten by a Grue podcast is hosted by Kevin Savetz of Atari Archive fame and Carrington Vanston, long time Apple II fan and Kansasfest regular. In this episode, they talk about whether Zork III can be completed without cheating and have a few surprises for the listener. You can listen to the…
The Epple II Emulator installer has been updated. Epple II is an Apple II and II plus emulator written in C++ and is buildable to either Linux or Windows systems. The Epple II emulator was created and is maintained by Christopher Mosher. Some of the features of Epple II are: Cycle-accurate: emulates all MOS 6502 CPU cycles including “phantom reads” Video display is synchronized with CPU NTSC video signal emulation: all video quirks emulated accurately Revision 0 motherboard (optional) Multiple…
James and john have been busy at work on the latest episode of the Retro Mac Cast. In this episode, “James and John discuss eBay finds: ColorClassic II, Quadra 700, and AppleInteractive Television Box. They get a visit from David Greelish and talk about his new Lisa project,and news includes a conceptual iPod case for Apple Watch,and more on Apple sneakers.” David Greelish is known for his Retro Computing newsletter, “Historically Brewed” as well as other Apple related retro computing…
The Applewin Apple II Emulator has been updated. Version 1.27.13.0 was released with two main changes within the program. They include: “[Bug #599] Fix for Ultima V not loading in Authentic Speed mode (regression introduced at 1.27.9.0). [Change #205] Added support for Apple II/II+ custom 2K video ROMs. Extended command line switch: -videorom. If the ROM size is 2K, then it replaces the video ROM for the Apple II/II+.” Applewin is an Apple II emulator for Microsoft windows and the…
