A few months ago i acquired an Apple IIgs, and to my surprise it had a Vulcan drive inside. The Vulcan was an internal combo of hard drive/power supply with a controller card. At that time, the only hard drive options were an external drive or an IDE card. The Vulcan was attractive by combining a strong power supply that also housed the hard drive. It was black colored and looked really nice replacing the internal power supply. The controller…
The latest episode of Adam Christianson’s MacCast is now available. Episode 205 covers some of the idiosyncracies of tthe latest version of iOS and how they affect the user. You can listen to the podcast at: http://www.maccast.com/2017/11/18/maccast-members-205-ios-notes/
Tickets went on sale for the Comicon dinner event with Steve Wozniak this week. The event scheduled as part of the Tokyo version of ComiCon is set for 4 December 2017 and is being held at The Prince Park Tower Convention Center in Tokyo. While most of the tickets for the event are much more reasonable (in the $100-200 range), the tickets for the 300 person limited event for Steve Woznaik are selling for a whopping $715 (¥80,000 JPY) showing…
The long running messaging and forum service, CompuServe is now on its last month of borrowed time. With messaging and chat services no longer being viable money makers and the forums pull dwindling, the longest running communications service in America is coming to a close. According to a posting on the forums, Dear Forum friends and family, We regret to inform you that the Forums will be removed from the CompuServe service effective December 15, 2017. For more than two…
The Applewin Apple II emulator has been one of the longest surviving of the Apple II Emulators and this year has seen a particularly large amount of work on the program. Driven by Tom Charlesworth, there have been a number of experimental releases including the latest 1.26.3.4 which contains a myriad of bug fixes and changes including Fixes to the UI Changes to the device features so that detached HDD’s give appropriate error message Status Indicator fixes Fixes to the…
The Apple II hacker, 4am (@a2_4am) has announced that the Apple II Disk Image cracking utility Passport has been updated. Passport is a utility for the Apple II computer which automatically removes the disk protection schemes from the original disk, leaving the program completely unprotected. Passport v20171114 includes a host of new features and fixes including: Supports ProDOS RAM disks to read an entire disk at once (IIgs RAM disk, RAMFactor, RAMWorks, modern clones) NEW: DOS 3.2 support (MUSE, Edu-Ware,…
The Nox Archaist RPG Team has added two new members to their programming team. According to the note from their lead programmer, Mark Lemmert: The team at 6502 Workshop had a blast with the Nox Archaist Kickstarter! While it fell short of our goals, hundreds of people pledged a substantial amount, which proved to us that there is a real interest in a new Ultima-inspired Apple ][ RPG. As we forge the plan for our reboot campaign, we are continuing…
Ciderpress 4.0.3 a2 is now available from the Ciderpress releases page. Ciderpress allows users to manipulate disk images and hard drive images on a windows machine. This update to the program in this minor alpha release ncludes the following changes: Added support for MouseText and inverse text in AppleWorks 5 WP docs. MouseText can be converted to similar Unicode symbols or ASCII. You can download the release from the Ciderpress website at: https://github.com/fadden/ciderpress/releases/
A new version of the Beagle Bros game, I.O. Silver for the iPhone and iPad has been released. The iOS game, developed by Evergreen Computer Services, LLC has been updated to version 1.3, includes updates to the package for iOS 11 as well as fixing a host of items including: – Fixed a problem when bugs are released and come back on the screen, sometimes they act as if they’re squashed by a non-moving chip and vanish — to be…
VCF PNW which is scheduled for February 10-11 in Seattle is putting out a call for Exhibitors and Speaks for the event. According to the email from them, : In case you missed it we (the Vintage Computer Federation) is putting together a Vintage Computer Festival (VCF PNW) at the Living Computer Museum+Labs in Seattle. We are actively looking for exhibitors and speakers for this new show. The show will be held February 10th and 11th, 2018. We are not…
GGLabs has made their Apple II gs 8mb cards available as a kit through Ebay. The kits which run $119.00 normally are currently available for $89.25 for the next two days. You can get more information from the GGlabs website and purchase the kits at: https://www.ebay.ca/itm/401110382201?ul_noapp=true
The Game Port Interface Board was demoed by Andrew and Ivan Hogan at KansasFest 2017. The board lets you get input and output via the 16-pin game port on your Apple II, II+, IIe, or IIGS. Control your lights, custom circuit boards from your Apple II, or control your Apple II using outside sensors. Check out the video review here: https://youtu.be/T241lI6SBlc
Apple, in their latest move to stem the tide of those claiming Apple doesnt pay its fair share of taxes, has released a statement concerning the history of their tax status in Ireland, the UK and payments of taxes to the US government. https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2017/11/the-facts-about-apple-tax-payments/
UltimateApple2.com has announced that they will be doing their last Apple2Pi Card run for 2017. The card allows users to utilize their original Apple II hardware with their Raspberry Pi. https://www.ultimateapple2.com/?p=208 For more information about the card, check out the Ultimate Apple II Projects Page on their website at: https://www.ultimateapple2.com/?page_id=30
A new release of Ciderpress is now on the GitHub repository for the application. Version 4.0.3 alpha 1 contains fixes for a 64-bit math issue which was causing problems with disk partitions over 4gb in size. This version and other previous releases are available for download from the GitHub Ciderpress site. For more information or to download Ciderpress, go to the releases page at: https://github.com/fadden/ciderpress/releases/
The latest rendition of the MacCast has been released by Adam Christianson. Episode 633 gets into the latest hub-bub on the iPhone6, and other late Apple offereings. The iPhone X has arrived. Plans forming for future iPhones. More Apple original content hires. iOS Camera access privacy questioned. Apple Watch Series 3 stripes issue. Apple’s Q4 results Apple TV 4K HDR auto switching. iPhone X first impressions. iPhone X tips and tricks. Tips on using Live Photos. To listen to the…
A firmware bug which affects both the Apple IIc and the Apple IIc Plus has been discovered by programmer, Michael Guidero. According to the posting on his blog, The bug, described in code and notes below came about as a result of his work on the Apple IIc and Apple IIc Plus emulation in MAME. The memory expansion firmware has the following code to test the size of the memory expansion card, if installed: numbanks equ $03bb ; screen hole…
From the EuroPlus Zone website I’m very happy to finally announce the date for the next WOzFest, WOzFest 8-bit – Saturday 18 November 2017, starting around midday Sydney time (UTC+11:00). The theme for WOzFest Slot 7: Your Card was the Apple IIgs, Apple’s only non-8-bit Apple ][. It therefore seemed appropriate to set the theme for WOzFest 8-bit to all the other Apple ][s (which were 8-bit)…and the Apple-1, Apple /// and Apple ///+. On the Apple ][ front, this runs…
Technology News and Views Since 1983 November 2017 The soft sound of a pair of occupied boots landing on the table behind me as I toiled over this column alerted me to my visitor. Good thing she doesn’t wear spurs when she comes here,” I thought. “Nice of you to drop by, Nellie. What’s up?” “You mean besides the rookie goof-up you just made in your code?” “Eh? Shame on you Nellie Hacker for looking over my shoulder. I tested…
Sapient Technologies, a company focused on the Apple Lisa, has announced a series of boards intended to extend the life of the Lisa computer nearly indefinitely. The team members is a who’s Who of the Lisa computing world and brings a great wealth of knowledge and expertise to the project. The team includes: Todd Meyer of Sapient Technologies James MacPhail of Sigma Seven Systems Ltd. Rick Ragnini(personal info private) John Woodall of VintageMicros Some of the boards which are being…
