This month on the Open Apple podcast, Mike and Ken chat with Michael J Mahon, software and hardware developer extraordinaire and creative genius behind both recent DMS Drummer software and the ever-popular AppleCrate parallel processing computer. We talk about 8 Bit Weapon, the chiptune music scene, and the importance of commenting and documenting one’s code, whether it be commercial or open source. Michael’s not much of a gamer, but Ken and Mike are enjoying new versions of classic games, including Eamon, Choplifter, and possibly Rescue Raiders. We consider entering a Robot War competition, despite our poor showing at the RetroChallenge contest. Several new pieces of hardware to convert video signals are now available, which you can use with a pair of complete Apple IIGS systems, for sale and shipping for free from Bulgaria.
Congratulations to Bryan Letcher, who won a set of Microzine issues by completing our listener survey!
Click past the jump for links mentioned in this episode.
- iCade
- iMAME
- The making of an Apple II holiday ornament
- Red vs. Blue Season 9
- Apple II at the Boston Museum of Science
- The history of AppleWorks
- Denver Pi presentation attended by Randy Brandt
- Randy Brandt visits Mike Maginnis
- Discovering NAUG’s AppleWorks Forum magazine
- Scans of NAUG’s AppleWorks Forum
- Homepage of Michael J Mahon
- Juiced.GS interview with Michael
- IBM 1620 Data Processing System
- The Burroughs 220 computer
- KIM-1 computer
- 8 Bit Weapon, chiptune musicians and vendors of DMS
- RT.SYNTH
- 8bit Generation chiptune documentary (see also: Reformat the Planet)
- State Shirt music video
- AppleCrate II parallel computer
- NadaNet network
- NadaPong video demonstration from KansasFest 2007
- More details on NadaPong
- Ivan Drucker’s A2SERVER
- Rich Dreher’s CFFA3000
- David Schmidt’s ADTPro
- Egan Ford’s Apple Game Server Online!
- How to build a NadaNet adapter
- Brutal Deluxe’s Fishhead
- FTA’s Photonix
- History of FID
- Ewen Wannop’s SNAP v1.1.1
- Gerard Putter’s Virtual II v6.4.1
- Apple II Oasis
- Ivan Drucker’s Structured Applesoft
- Don Knuth
- Eamon Adventurer’s Guild Online
- GEnieLamp interview with Tom Zuchowski
- Wade Clarke’s Leadlight
- The Magnavox Odyssey Pong console
- Stan Freberg
- Choplifter HD
- Interview with Dan Gorlin
- Steve Wozniak’s Fusion-io
- Rescue Raiders Mobile — coming Winter 2011?
- Rescue Battlefield
- Silas Warner’s RobotWar
- Jimmy Maher’s Robot War challenge
- Computer Gaming World Museum
- VCF East 8.0, keynoted by Dan Kottke and Thomas Kurtz
- TWiT Triangulation interviews Dan Kottke
- The biennial ROFLCon at MIT
- Chuck Peddle at VCF East 4.0
- AUSOM’s magazine archive
- Rhode Island Apple Group
- The Commodore 64 Scene Database
- Star Trek: TNG — "A Matter of Honor"
- David Greelish interviews Bob Cook of Sun Remarketing
- Apple Lisa museum
- Steve Howell’s Carte Blanche FPGA Card
- 12-bit color output
- Apple II Colour Demodulator
- RetroChallenge Winter Warmup
- Mike Maginnis’s RetroChallenge update
Apple Pickings (1:38:25 – 1:57:18)
- Ultima IV
- CFFA3000
- iDisk
- Apple IIe Platinum w/books, software, games
- Apple IIe Platinum w/games, software, books
- BootZero
- 8 Bit Weapon’s Bits With Byte album
- “Apple Core II“
- Smithsonian’s GameFest
- Nolan Bushnell
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Tags: 8 Bit Generation, 8 Bit Weapon, 8BW, A2SERVER, ADTPro, Apple Game Server Online, Apple II Oasis, AppleCrate, AppleWorks, AppleWorks Forum, AUSOM, BASIC, Bob Cook, BoozZero, Boston, Brutal Deluxe, Burroughs, C64, Carte Blanche, CFFA3000, chiptune, Choplifter, Choplifter HD, code, Commodore 64, Dan Gorlin, Dan Kottke, DAPi, demodulator, Denver Apple Pi, DMS Drummer, documentation, Don Knuth, Eamon Deluxe, emulation, emulator, Ewen Wannop, FID, Fishhead, FPGA, FTA, GameFest, iCade, iDisk, iMAME, memory, Michael J Mahon, Museum of Science, NadaNet, NadaPong, NAUG, Nolan Bushnell, ornament, Photonix, programming, Randy Brandt, Red vs. Blue, Rescue Raiders, Retrochallenge, Rhode Island, Robot War, RobotWar, ROFLCon, RT.SYNTH, Silar Warner, Smithsonian, SNAP, source code, State Shirt, Structured Applesoft, Sun Remarketing, Thomas Kurtz, Ultima IV, VCF East, VGA, Virtual II
5 Comments to 'Open Apple #12 (Feb 2012): Michael J Mahon, chiptune, source code, and demodulation'
Feb 8, 2012 9:35 AM
Most
Awesome
Into
Ever
Feb 12, 2012 5:12 PM
I look forward to this show. It always inspires me to use my Apple //e and I have found out there are a lot of things going on.
Great work guys! Keep it up. I’ve shared this show with a few people who have really enjoyed it, and were impressed with the program.
It adds a lot to the Apple ][ experience. I too was away from the Apple for a long time. Your show keeps me connected to the scene, and that is worth a lot. Thanks again!
Mar 1, 2012 8:07 PM
That was another great show Mike and Ken! I took me a week of commute to go through the 2 hours (!), and I had a blast when you folks tried to pronounce my name (doesn’t matter btw).
My #1 take away was Michael J Mahon: I knew about the AppleCrate II, but I didn’t know who was behind it, and I didn’t know Michael lives 5 miles from where I work (city of Redmond…). Now I need to contact him and chat Apple II! :)
Looking forward to the next podcast!
Mar 5, 2012 10:39 PM
I had to comment before #13 came out but I would have to say that this is definitely one of the best yet. It seems like its still fun and you’re not afraid to take some mild risks.
I like it! (It kind of got missed as I have been re-playing older episodes.)
And who is this Mike Mahon guy anyway? (Just kidding he was as great as you guys! Feel free to have him back if you need an emergency guest – he fit, temperament and style, perfectly with you guys!)
Mar 6, 2012 10:45 AM
Well, I was delighted to hear that Nolan Bushnell and Chuck E. Cheese were going to be at the Smithsonian! (I know now that you were actually trying to say something like “Nolan Bushnell of Atari and Chuck E. Cheese fame” and didn’t get it all out.
I still say that this show was the most relaxed and fun one yet.