Christies Auction house is once again the focus of the Apple world. With another Apple-1 computer coming available, the question begins to arise, “How many of these machines are left?” Over the past 5 years a dozen or so of the classic Apple-1 computers have sold at various auction houses with some fetching well over $900,000 USD. The recent sale by Bonhams Auction House brought less than 40 percent of that, yet it still had a decent selling price compared…
The long-running, Apple-centric Call-A.P.P.L.E. Magazine has returned. Started in 1978 by Val J. Golding, the magazine has a long history with publication from 1978-1990 and 2002-2010. Produced by the Apple Pugetsound Program Library Exchange user group, the magazine focuses on Apple-related topics including retro Apple II and Mac computing, in addition to current Apple news and general technology. Volume 25 Number 1 of Call-A.P.P.L.E. Magazine is available to A.P.P.L.E. members today with a number of unique articles, book reviews, iOS…
I just received an Apple //c VGA adapter from Пламен Вайсилов, a prolific Apple II hardware creator. This adapter has a button that lets you switch between video modes: color, green, mono and mono-white. also simulates scanlines in all those modes. Check the video. At the time of this post there has not been pricing and availability announced, keep checking Apple II heaven site. Also important to mention is that this is only NTSC, a PAL version is on the…
The new Steve Jobs movie opens today in a number of theaters today across the US. The Aaron Sorkin directed biopic has come under fire somewhat over the past several days as people began to see the previews. Now, with the release of the movie comes new full-length two-minute clip that highlights a confrontation between Wozniak and Jobs.
The famous Mockingboard sound card for the Apple II has been cloned and is available from Ultimate Micro. Besides being a 100% compatible clone and featuring stereo music and a 6-voice sound synthesizer, the board has been updated with a 3.5mm audio jack and a computer speaker input.
The What is The Apple II GS website has announced a number of updates to it’s database. Owned and operated by Alex Lee, the site has been updated with a host of items from Andrew Roughan, Antoine Vignau, Francois Michaud, Herbert Fung among others covering both hardware peripherals and software for the Apple IIgs. One of the highlights includes a scan of 2400AD 8-bit version on 3.5″ floppy disk which was provided by Wade Clarke with manual scans provided by…
Chalres Mangin of Option8 and Retroconnector fame has posted a YouTube video outlining the steps for repairing an Apple //e keyboard. In the video he covers basic level keyboard switch replacement as well as a method for replacing the power-on bulb with a modern LED. Some of the points of his video include using a solder sucker over copper mesh, the need for care in not over heating the solder during removal and adding a bit of solder to the…
The Lisa Emulator website announced a version of the LisaEm for the Rasberry Pi. The emulator, based on version 1.2.6 of the LisaEm product has been built to run on a number of plaforms over the years, however, this is the first update of the product in about 7 years or so. You can download LisaEm as well as get instuctions on setup on the LisaEm website at:http://lisa.sunder.net/
The wildly popular novel series, Harry Potter is now available on the iTunes Book Store. The entire series of the J.K. Rowling penned books are available. Each book is a fully enhanced version of the Harry Potter books specifically created for iBooks and can be purchased on the Harry Potter page at: https://search.itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZContentLink.woa/wa/link?path=HarryPotter
Stephen Heumann, author of the virtual computing client, VNCview GS, recently announced an update and the open sourcing of his client software. He updated the program to version 1.0b2 and simultaneously released the software on GitHub. From: Stephen Heumann <stephen.heumann@gmail.com> Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple2 Subject: Announcing VNCview GS 1.0b2 – updated and open-sourced Date: Tue, 29 Sep 2015 18:26:40 -0500 I recently dusted off the code for VNCview GS, the virtual network computing client for the Apple IIgs. It allows you to…
The French Touch has released a new demo for the Apple //e computer. Plasmagoria runs through a series of text and low resolution graphics demos accompanied by a musical score from Crawdaddy. The demo runs on a Mockingboard enabled 128K Apple //e as well as most emulators. You can download the Plasmagoria Demo disk image from the French Touch website at: http://www.ctrl-pomme-reset.fr/french-touch/
Parallels has released an update to their Parallels Desktop for the Mac. Version 11.0.2 addresses a host of issues and program stability. Fixes to the program include the following: Resolves an issue with mouse cursor positioning in Windows 10 when using all displays in Full Screen Resolves an issue with dragging and dropping from a virtual machine to OS X in Coherence Resolves an issue with installing an OS X El Capitan virtual machine from the .app image Resolves an…
Tim cook sent and email out to Apple Employees this week mentioning the anniversary of Steve Jobs’ passing. Team, Today marks four years since Steve passed away. On that day, the world lost a visionary. We at Apple lost a leader, a mentor, and many of us lost a dear friend. Steve was a brilliant person, and his priorities were very simple. He loved his family above all, he loved Apple, and he loved the people with whom he worked…
The Apple-1 put up for Auction on 21 September by Bonhams Auction House has sold for a mediocre $365,000 USD. While up to $500,000 was expected in the auction, interest seems to have waned somewhat since a record $905,000 was paid for a completely working system. The system sold by Bonhams was owned by Tom Romkey, owner of the Personal Computer Store in Florida and is believed to be one of the 50 or so systems purchased by the Byte…
This month on Open Apple we sit down with Mike Westerfield, of The Byte Works’ fame. We talk about his adventures writing assemblers & compilers for 8/16 bit computers, and we see what he’s up to nowadays. We talk about small-system compilers, Logo, the perils of open source, and where to go for Byte Works’ products. It’s a compiler and assembler-themed episode of the one-and-only Apple II podcast. Tune in to hear Mike pine longingly for Lawless Legends, and hear…
At last, the 14 photo entries for last month’s Retro Apple II Photo Contest have been judged, leaving us with a first prize winner for an Uthernet II, a second prize winner for free shipping on the same, and three honorable mentions. To keep everything fair, the judge was someone who is not a part of the Apple II community, but who has a BFA degree and has a basic familiarity with the Apple II. Entries were judged based on composition, elements from…
by Rick Sutcliffe Back Up To The Old Tricks October 2015 Much has happened worth commenting upon in the months that this space has been devoted to explicating some of the features of Modula-2 R10 that make it safe, reliable, and extensible as a problem solving tool. For one thing, a few errors were noted in the June article. R10 uses NOT, but ~ is not a synonym, [DESCENDING] was removed for FOR loops and replaced by FOR selector–, and…
This year was my first Kansas Fest, and didn’t arrive on time for the Garage Giveaway. Regardless, I think the organizers do this from their hearts and spend a lot of time and money organizing, gathering, and transporting all goods. They deserve some help, so other than not selling what is giving away for free on eBay, we should chip in any way we can. Found about a GoFundMe page for helping them and I encourage everybody to contribute to…
Charles Mangin of RetroConnector fame has been working on an interesting conversion project. He has converted an Apple II Disk II drive to a Blu-Ray drive. This particular hack is being done by Charles as a special order item. For more on this hack and to view the photos of the hack, check out Charles RetrioConnector Blog at: http://retroconnector.com/updates/
Hi everybody! . . . . and it’s time for RCR #108 where Paul, Ken, and Jack talk about funding Funding retrocomputing projects When you get a new idea for something related to retrocomputing (new electronics, new cases, coffee table books)—and it’s a great idea—but you can’t fund it all yourself, what are the options? Thinking back on such projects, what seems to you like it’s been most successful? What would you try (or never try again)? Also from the…
