iSchool, or the Pitter Patter of little feats September is supposed to be back to school, but here in British Columbia of the frozen north, the public school teachers union and the Provincial government are so far away from each other in their contract positions that the mediator they consulted walked away from the dispute because his involvement had no prospect of success. It doesn’t help that after a previous government gave the union a sweetheart deal on class size…
According to a posting on Facebook from Mike Maginnis, “Open Apple #38 is published (still August – just made it. Whew!). If you’re a subscriber, it should be appearing in your favorite RSS reader or iTunes shortly if it hasn’t already. This month on Open Apple, we go deep on Lawless Legends with most of the team building it. We’ve managed to corner Seth Sternberger (of 8-bit Weapon fame), Martin Haye, and Brendan Robert (Dave Schmenk, we’re coming for you…)…
The Australian Apple Review has been officially released by A.P.P.L.E.. The release announcement occurred last evening in the Downunder Chat on A2Central’s IRC channel. Accordsing to the announcement made by A.P.P.L.E.’s Bill Martens, “The project is the culmination of a number of people including Andrew Roughan, Brian Wiser and even the National Library of Australia.” the Australian Apple Review was a magazine published in Australia by well known publisher Gareth Powell. In 2005, permission was initially received to reproduce the…
Dagan Brock has announced the creation of a new Apple IIgs focused forum. According to his facebook posting, ” In my grand tradition of A) announcing things before they are ready and B) creating things that we don’t need… I am happy to announce that there’s a new forum on the scene over at http://apple2.gs/forum. I don’t know that we need another forum, but seeing as my intent is to unify the Apple IIgs dev scene a bit, I wanted…
In a recent excursion into the A.P.P.L.E. storage boxes in Seattle, Brian Wiser discoverd a number of issues of our original Mac-A.P.P.L.E. magazine. The magazine which was published from 1986 to 1988 was A.P.P.L.E.’s attempt to differentiate the Mac from the Apple II computers, carry original content specifically attuned to the Mac computers. A total of 15 issues were found in the archives and today, we are happy to announce that the first scan of those Mac-A.P.P.L.E. issues, May 1986…
Mike Harvey has announced through his website, the immediate availability of all of the programs from the full run of Nibble Magazine. Apple II hobbyist Stavros Karatsoidis has spent the better part of 3.5 years typing all of the programs from the magazines into an iPad. The result is more than 1200 programs on a total of 69 floppy disks. The complete disk collection is downloadable for free from the Nibble Magazine Disks page at: http://www.nibblemagazine.com/nibble_disks.htm A complete program index…
Legendary Apple II virtual machine programmer David Schmenk has returned from his secret underground Apple II lair to reveal a pre-release announcement of the next-generation virtual machine for the Apple II family: PLASMA 123. It is so called because the same code segments will run, without change, on the Apple I, the II, and the Apple III. PLASMA is the system behind the upcoming game for Apple II, Lawless Legends. Mr. Schmenk states that he has developed new interpreter technology that is…
The annual World Wide Developers Conference keynote for the 2014 rendition of WWDC will be broadcast live. Breaking with past years, the past several keynotes have been broadcast over the Internet, making it available to more people, especially in light of the popularity of the tickets for the event. WWDC is held each year at Muscone Center in San Francisco and is a week long chance for developers to rub elbows with the developers at Apple. It is also a…
ADTPro, the vintage apple disk imaging software, has been updated to version 2.0.0. ADTPro allows users to image floppies from Apple II and Apple III series computers and allows boot strapping of machines directly from a disk image over bare wire. The software handles a number of emulator image formats and supports many of the newer hardware items produced for the Apple II and Apple II series computers. New features in 2.0.0 included as specified in posting by David Schmidt…
Peter Wong has been working on a proof of concept project for the past several years which would allow the Apple II to utilize wireless communications. The project has a number of ideas included and even a version of ADTPro, the disk imaging software managed by David Schmidt with the Bluetooth option on the main menu. While there have been several projects which proved the concept would work, this is the first views which show the full integration of the…
Apple has released version 5.05 of the Digital Camera RAW compatibility driver. The update comes close on the heels of the Mac OS X 10.9.3 update and addresses support for a number of camera in Aperature 3 and iPhoto ’11 including the following: Canon EOS Rebel T5 / 1200D / Kiss X70 Canon PowerShot G1 X Mark II Nikon D4S Sony Cyber-shot DSC-RX10 The update is included in the Software Update function. For more information or to directly download the…
Apple has released a new version of the operating system for Intel based Macs. Mac OS X 10.9.3 increases apple’s support of 4K devices. Restoration of the USB syncing of Calendars and Contacts is also included in this update. Also Apple has attempted to imporve the reliability of connections via VPN that use IPsec. They has also released Safari 7.0.3 in coordination with this update. The update is a 947mb download and is available now. For more information about the…
Antoine Vignau has announced an update of the Apple II Cassette Collection on Brutal Deluxe. The update includes the following new items: Apple’s High-resolution graphics (002-0002-01) Apple’s Checkbook-1 (002-0005-01) Hayden’s Songs in the key of Apple The new additions brings the total number of offerings in the collection to 623 tapes. For more information or to download the items in the collection, see the Brutal Deluxe Apple II Cassette Collection website at: http://www.brutaldeluxe.fr/projects/cassettes/
May 2014 but, what are those somethings? Rumours continue to swirl about Apple and its certain/probable/possible/mythical/impossible product introductions for 2014 (some may be all five at once). Given Apple’s recent history, and that we’ve made it this far into the year without any major introductions, the Spy is convinced (has managed to convince himself–Nellie) that WWDC will be the venue for some significant product announcements. Our reader may recall that by delaying two minutes after 0900 on ticket sale day…
Posted on the Skype blog is the announcement that group video chats are now free. The blog goes on to say, “For the last few years, we’ve offered group video calling to Premium users on Windows desktop and Mac and more recently Xbox One. Today, we’re excited to announce that we’re making group video calling free – for all users on these platforms. And, in the future, we’ll be enabling group video calling for all our users across more platforms…
David Schmidt, curator of the ADTPro project, has announced the release of version 1.3.0. According to the posting in CSA2, ” Just a quick purge of CVS as I prepare to get going on the new wide protocol in earnest – this should represent the known bugs up to today of the “1-byte protocol” ADT-compatible ADTPro client and server. There’s no new functionality, just a cleanup of earlier problems caused by yours truly. There will be maintenance as required of…
As promised, the beta Uthernet II card has finally arrived for me to test out and share my feedback. Big thanks to Glenn Jones of A2RetroSystems for including me in his beta testing program and allowing me to give the Apple II world a preview of this exciting new technology! My first impression after opening the box and removing the bubble wrap is that this is definitely a little card! If you thought the original Uthernet was small, the Uthernet…
by Rick SutcliffeApril 2014 Wearable computing technologyhas been the “latest” buzz longer than most ideas (indeed longer than some ideas endure from conception to death), generating endless speculation about who will bring out what product in the genre and when. As often the case, the Spy has the inside track. Mind, he does not deal in speculation or rumour. However, he does keep his ear to the ground, his eye on the horizon, his nose to the grindstone, his hand…
Apple has released the first update to iOS 7 since last September to the general public after a long beta test period. This update includes fixes for the TouchID fingerprint system, a fix for the home screen crashing issue, as well as the new feature for automobiles: CarPlay. Apple calls CarPlay “a better way to use iPhone while driving.” The system is only available on select new cars for 2014. iPhone 4 users will enjoy improved responsiveness and performance with…
A.P.P.L.E. has negotiated a discount for A.P.P.L.E. Members who purchase Option8’s Joystick Shield or the Joystick Shield Kit. These connectors allow users to utilize their original Apple II series joysticks with their current Mac or PC. Many emulators will also recognize the Joystick Shield. The discount code is available to A.P.P.L.E. members only through their login ID’s and is good for 10% off on the Joystick Shield and Joystick Shield Kit. This discount does not apply to any other Option…
