Antoine Vignau of Brutal Deluxe Software has announced the addition of four new software titles to the Apple II Cassette Collection. The collection now contains a total of 653 titles that were produced on Tape for the Apple II computer during the late 1970’s and early 1980’s. You can download the tapes at: http://www.brutaldeluxe.fr/projects/cassettes/
I’m about to embark on my annual tour of Mac user groups in the great Northeast: Monday, November 7: Virginia Macintosh Users Group (VMUG) at 6 p.m. Tuesday, November 8: Princeton Macintosh Users Group (PMUG) at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, November 12: Main Line Macintosh Users Group (MLMUG) at 9 a.m. All meetings are free of charge; click the links for details. At each meeting I’ll be showing a few ways to work smarter on your Mac; demonstrating a few of my favorite things; and revealing the best things…
The Spy described himself last month as “still breathing”. In view of the worst cold to afflict him in many years, that is not a quality statement, just a bare fact. Good thing he isn’t trying to dictate this column. VCON-41 was this past weekend (why he delayed writing this) and the Spy was scheduled for four panels and a reading. After struggling through Friday afternoon and evening, he awoke Saturday with no voice at all, and had to cancel…
The second batch of Apple IIGS VGA Adapters shipped out last week and should now be in their new happy homes. We love hearing about what monitor you are using with the adapter: “Per your recommendation, I am using the adaptor with a Samsung 712N and it is working as advertised. This came just in time for me to fix up a ROM1 GS that I’m going to give to my son-in-law for Christmas.” – Bill from Pottstown, PA Thank you…
Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, spoke at the Utah Tech Tour yesterday with other industry leaders. Members of the audience had the rare chance to submit questions to Tim. As always, Tim is very thoughtful, articulate and clearly brilliant. I feel lucky to have been there and heard his insights into encryption, being a successful entrepreneur, AR vs. VR, and embracing Steve Jobs’ vision at Apple. These are the highlights from Tim: What can students do to be competitive in…
System Disk 4.4 has been released for Apple //e and newer computers. The following programs are included: ProDOS 2.4.1 operating system. Bitsy Bye program launcher from ProDOS 2.4.1. Launcher.System 4.4, now updated to restore Bitsy Bye v2.4.1 to Language Card Bank 2 on exit. SysUtils.System 3.1 from System Disk 4.0.2. FastCopy.System version 1.0.1 from System Disk 4.0.2. Bitsy Boot 1.0 from ProDOS 2.4.1. Basic.System 1.6 from ProDOS 2.4.1 The Make.No.P8 utility from ProDOS 2.4.1 which saves 1KB from ProDOS by removing GS/OS…
Announcement from Brutal Deluxe Software: Brutal Deluxe Software, in partnership with Jean-Louis Le Breton (CEO of Froggy Software) and Richard Soberka (programmer, author of Zephyr), is happy to announce the release of the arcade game Pleins gaz for the Apple II. This color HGR arcade game was released by Froggy Software in late 1986. As the company shut its doors shortly after, the game was barely distributed. Version 1.2 presented here runs under ProDOS and is hard disk drive installable….
This month on Open Apple, we sit down with Kate Szkotnicki, long time Apple II fan and new addition to the retro community. We chat about her first impressions as a newcomer to the community, and the big splash she made at her first KansasFest. Kate is a cosplayer and frequent attendee of anime and comic cons, so she brought a very fresh set of skills and perspectives to KansasFest. Her presentation on making plastic parts (and candy!) with silicone…
New version: ProDOS 2.4.2 is available here. ProDOS 2.4.1 adds several improvements and bug fixes to ProDOS 2.4. Includes ROM ID detection for many Apple II clones, and workarounds for clone firmware bugs. Franklin Ace Laser 128 Unitron Pravetz Updates MiniBas to version 1.2. Fixes a bug when launching ProDOS 2.4 from GS/OS using Closed-Apple to activate Bitsy Bye. Fixes a ROM bug in un-enhanced Apple //e when quitting to Bitsy Bye with 80-column mode enabled. Files on disk have been organized for…
macOS 10.12 Sierra comes out tomorrow; please don’t install it until you read this: Dr. Mac’s Rants & Raves (Dr. Mac’s Rants & Raves Episode 187 for The Mac Observer) Or, if you can’t read the whole thing (it’s only a few hundred words) for whatever reason, here’s the thrilling conclusion: If you like to live dangerously, go ahead and install Sierra and iOS 10 the minute they come out. I will, but remember, I’m a trained professional. So, before you do…
This is an update of a previous blog post about setting up free dictation on your Mac. It’s slightly different in macOS Sierra than in previous versions of macOS, so please enjoy this delightful little ditty I like to call: How to become a Mac Dictator (Sierra edition) Have you always wanted to become a dictator? Not that kind! I meant the kind who dictates text to their Mac rather than typing. If you don’t like to type, or you…
New version: ProDOS 2.4.2 is available here. Today, the 30-year anniversary of the Apple IIGS, a new version of the ProDOS operating system has been released. ProDOS 2.4 adds new features for all Apple II computers, including the 1977 Integer ROM Apple II. Apple IIGS features of ProDOS 2.4 Preserves GS/OS dormant state – Now multiple ProDOS games or programs can be booted and still return to GS/OS. New ‘Bitsy Boot’ utility allows programs to quit to the 8-bit…
The Spy like everyone else still breathing, is always learning new things–or re-learning old ones–especially so as a new crowd of students (and many more old ones) is about to descend on campus. El Capitan falls into both categories, for it has a few extremely annoying bugs that he has not had to deal with for several OS X iterations. One of the worst is the tendency to forget it has ever heard of Bluetooth. The menu bar icon turns…
This month on Open Apple, we sit down with Mark Pilgrim, one of the most active software preservationists in the Apple II community. Mark has been spending his free time working on Passport, an automated cracking tool. It automatically detects and defeats copy protection schemes on Apple II disks, producing copyable disks that are otherwise completely intact. This is a boon for preservation of software that has only been (poorly) cracked by hoodlums of the past, or is previously uncracked….
I had the pleasure of interviewing Mike Harvey of Nibble magazine at KansasFest. Wanting to give the interview the broadest audience possible, I invited my good friend John Leake from the RetroMacCast podcast to participate. The interview audio can be heard on RetroMacCast episode 413. Mike Harvey, the founder and publisher of the long-lived Nibble magazine, has career that spans major companies in the computing and financial realms. Through those years Mike studied management philosophy, systems, and methods voraciously and developed…
This month on Open Apple, as is tradition, we present the megapodcast recorded live at KansasFest. Most of your favorite retrocomputing podcasters attend KansasFest each year, and we all get together in a basement room to record a giant group podcast. This year’s recording includes, in no particular order: Quinn Dunki of Open Apple Paul Hagstrom of Retrocomputing Roundtable and Drop /// Inches Michael Mulhern and Carrington Vanston of Retrocomputing Roundtable Kevin Savetz of Antic Rob McMullen of Player/Missile Ken…
Seattle, Washington — July 22, 2016 — Apple Pugetsound Program Library Exchange (A.P.P.L.E.) and David H. Ahl are proud to announce the immediate availability of the book The Colossal Computer Cartoon Book: Enhanced Edition – “The best collection ever of computer cartoons from the 1970’s!” Produced in coordination with legendary editor and publisher David H. Ahl and originally published by Creative Computing in 1977, this Enhanced Edition features a cover by Ned Sonntag from the first printing, 117 pages…
Seattle, Washington — July 22, 2016 — Apple Pugetsound Program Library Exchange (A.P.P.L.E.) and Robert Tripp are proud to announce the immediate availability of the book What’s Where in the Apple – Enhanced Edition: A Complete Guide to the Apple II Computer. And now on November 23, 2020, due to popular demand, What’s Where in the Apple is available in additional versions and formats! First and foremost, our “Enhanced Edition” has more design readability enhancements, a few small corrections, and…
Seattle, Washington — July 22, 2016 — Apple Pugetsound Program Library Exchange (A.P.P.L.E.) is proud to announce the immediate availability of the classic book The Apple II Monitor Peeled by William E. Dougherty. Last published by A.P.P.L.E. in 1979, this release returns the book to print and for the first time in Hardcover. Writing programs for an Apple II computer is simplified by having a useful reference for the Apple II Monitor that describes how to make use of a…
Pokemon Go is a Huge Security Risk by Adam Reeve is well worth reading if you are even thinking about playing the new Pokemon Go iOS app. If you choose to play, at least the way it’s currently set up, Pokemon Go will have full access to ALL OF YOUR GOOGLE ACCOUNT INFO. Which is to say the makers of Pokemon Go can: Read all your email Send email as you Access all your Google drive documents (including deleting them) Look at your…
