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Apple II Quickies (03-04-10)

sfahey — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 02:00:00 +0000

Nick Westgate via comp.emulators.apple2, posted his discovery of Apple2JS, an Apple II emulator written in Javascript by Gil Megidish.

Popular Science has posted 137 years of back issues online, for free. PopSci has published several articles on the Apple II, Apple III and Steve Wozniak over the last 30+ years.

More quickies coming in soon… check back later for more.

A2Unplugged show #0034 released

sfahey — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 01:32:05 +0000

Ryan Suenaga presents A2Unplugged, show #0034. In this episode, Ryan is back from a break in podcasting to remember Joe Kohn and his contributions to the Apple II Community.

A2Unplugged can be freely downloaded from the podcast’s web site, or subscribed to from the Apple iTunes store.

AppleWorks now softwear

sfahey — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 21:16:46 +0000

Pop culture and audio vendor Turntable Lab is offering a t-shirt with the AppleWorks folders interface on it. It’s an unusual way to show your Apple II pride for a cool USD $34.

Device Side Data USB 5.25 floppy drive interface now shipping (UPDATED)

sfahey — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 05:59:14 +0000

Back in January of 2007, we learned about Device Side Data’s USB 5.25 floppy drive interface project. Time passed without an update or response to our queries, and we had almost forgotten about it. Today, I was surprised to see fellow retro-computing enthusiast Matthew Reed tweeting about it.

Since our last post, the Device Side Data site has been updated with pictures of the FC5025 interface, software screenshots and a lot more info — and as of 02/18/10, the FC5025 is now shipping for USD $55.25.

Computer Historian Jason Scott has posted a review of the FC5025 on ascii.textfiles.com

Mimeo 1 kit available for order soon

sfahey — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 16:54:58 +0000

The Apple 1 has been replicated and cloned several times but Mike Willegal’s Mimeo 1 promises to be the most authentic recreation to date. Pricing for the Mimeo 1 is USD $666.66 for the kit, or $150 for just the mainboard. Click here for ordering instructions.

8bitsystem products on sale at ReactiveMicro

sfahey — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 02:17:21 +0000

For a limited time, all 8bitsystem products are on sale at ReactiveMicro. Now is a great time to pickup a DoubleSeven, //e or IIGS LittlePower Adapter, LittleProto II or any other 8bitsystem product.

Introducing Digital Music Synthesizer for the Apple II

sfahey — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 21:10:13 +0000

Seth Sternberger of 8 Bit Weapon sent in the following announcement:

We thought this would be something you could appreciate. We teamed up with MJ Mahon to create a new digital performance synth out of a standard Apple II c/e! No cards or other hardware required. Its based on MJ’s original rt.synth, but streamlined for performance.

Introducing the *Digital Music Synthesizer* for Apple II personal computers!

The DMS is the only wavetable synthesizer for the Apple //e, IIc, and IIc+ computers that is suitable for performance use. It supports up to 8 voices, which can be selected from the 10 on disk, and played (monophonically) from the Apple II keyboard. It can be used to record a performance for later playback as well. Also, the DMS doesn’t require a monitor! Just turn on your Apple II and when the drive light goes off, then hit the space bar you’re ready to play live!

Sounds on disk are: Acoustic Piano, Vibraphone, Acoustic Guitar, Electric Bass, Trumpet, Clarinet, square wave, sawtooth wave, sine wave, and Banjo!

Here is a mp3 demo*: http://www.8bitweapon.com/Music/Apple_II_DMS_Demo.mp3

*Sounds EQ’d with some noise filtering.

Requirements: A2.DMS requires an Apple //e, IIc, IIc+, or IIgs computer with 80-column capability, at least one 5.25″ floppy disk drive. Monitor is optional. DMS Instructions can be downloaded from here.

More info here: www.8bitweapon.com/store.htm

DMS is USD $19.95, free shipping worldwide.

Agat Emulator: Russian Apple II and Agat 7/9 emulator

sfahey — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 17:23:55 +0000

I tripped over this fairly new Windows-based Apple II emulator project by accident the other day. Check out the Agat Emulator by Oleg Odintsov — it emulates the Apple II and Agat 7/9 series (Soviet-era Apple II clones).

Agat Emulator is in Russian, so… all I can say is: Приятно познакомиться

Apple II Quickies (02-07-10)

sfahey — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 15:13:54 +0000

Alex Lee announced What Is the Apple IIGS has added new content to it’s already impressive array of Apple IIGS media. The most recent additions are courtesy Tony Diaz and Andy Molloy. Read all about new content here

David Schmenk posted an updated VM02 Beta 5, a pseudo Java environment for the Apple II. This version features improved memory swapping, improved 64K support (and now 128K support too). Learn all about it and get your copy from the VM02 SourceForge site.

Brendan Robert (with help from Nick Westgate and Matt Jenkins) has been working on a Java-based Apple //e emulator called Java-ACE, or “Java Apple Computer Emulator”.

And finally, there were recent updates to AppleWin (1.17.2), the leading Apple //e emulator for Windows systems. http://applewin.berlios.de/

Virtual II 6.3.6 released

sfahey — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 23:56:24 +0000

Gerard Putter has updated Virtual ][, the leading 8-bit Apple II emulator for Mac OS X to v6.3.6

What's new in version 6.3.6

The program now accepts "dsk" image files with 41 tracks (the maximum so far was 40).

A recent Snow Leopard upgrade broke the "Make Movie from Apple II Screen" feature. This has been fixed.

Cassette tape files now get file name extension "cass" instead of "aif". As a result, the cassette tape icon appears correctly again in Snow Leopard. Old "aif" files can still be read.

The upgrade is free for all users of Virtual ][, and can be downloaded on http://www.virtualii.com