This month on Open Apple, Mike and Ken chat with Kevin Savetz, Internet publisher and author of the memoir Terrible Nerd. We cross enemy lines to review a book about the cultural, scientific, and philosophical implications of Commodore 64 programming, some of it applicable to the Apple II. Paul Terrell’s Polaroid snapshots of the first Apple-1 computers are cool, just like our reception to Jordan Mechner’s new Karateka game. On eBay, we discover the Androbot is not just another neat product from a Nolan Bushnell company, but another reason we prefer the Apple II to other platforms. And Ken’s accidental purchase of some Microzines produces the concept for a new and very expensive podcast!
Click past the jump for links mentioned in this episode.
- No Quarter podcast
- Arcade Explorers books
- Ken’s review of Max Brooks’ World War Z
- Organ Trail for iOS
- Ken’s Wii U unboxing
- Denver Apple Pi
- Colorado Macintosh Users Group
- Kevin Savetz’s homepage
- Terrible Nerd, from Savetz Publishing
- AtariArchives.org
- Classic Computer Magazine Archive
- Douglas Engelbart’s Mother of All Demos
- Kevin’s Free Printables & FaxZero sites
- Kevin on the Retro Computing Roundtable
- Name.com domain name registrar
- Liquid Web: Storm on Demand hosting company
- 10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10, by Nick Montfort, et al
- The 8 Bit Weapon Collection 1998-2012
- The early days of PCs as seen through DEAD TREES
- Remembering the EasyKey keyboard overlay for the Apple II
- Paul Terrell’s Polaroid photos of the Apple-1
- Help KansasFest by shopping at Amazon.com
- TIME‘s top 100 video games ever
- Elite Dangerous: Kickstarter
- Trade Wars
- Save the Day, an HTML5-based Choplifter remake (hat tip: Hanuman Welch)
- Karateka not so hot with Ken or Metacritic
- RIP, Tony Gonzalez of Ultima GS
Apple Pickings (1:03:34 – 1:18:44)
- Androbot Topo II robot, Apple IIe, sending unit, Toposoft software (video)
- The history of Androbot, Inc.
- Heathkit H.E.R.O robots
- Ken’s new Microzines, complete with case!
- Carrington’s DoubleTake podcast
- Jeri Ellsworth’s C64 Direct-to-TV joystick
- A modern PC inside a Commodore 64 case
- Curt Vendel’s Atari Inc: Business Is Fun, courtesy Kickstarter
- Commodore 64 games on the Nintendo Wii’s Virtual Console
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Tags: 10 PRINT, Amazon, Androbot, Apple-1, Arcade Explorers, Atari, C64, Choplifter, Commodore 64, CoMUG, Curt Vendel, DAPi, EasyKey, Elite, FaxZero, Heathkit, Jordan Mechner, KansasFest, Karateka, Kevin Savetz, keyboard, KFest, Kickstarter, Kindle, LiquidWeb, magazines, Metacritic, Microzines, Nick Montfort, Nintendo Wii U, No Quarter, Organ Trail, overlay, Paul Terrell, Polaroid, RCR, Retro Computing Roundtable, Save the Day, Terrible Nerd, Tony Gonzalez, TradeWars, unboxing, video games, Virtual Console, Wii U, World War Z
3 Comments to 'Open Apple #22 (Dec 2012): Kevin Savetz, 10 PRINT, Polaroids, and Microzine'
Dec 7, 2012 6:40 PM
Great show guys. Never heard of the Topo II robot, but anything robotic and apple II related is right down my alley. Sucks about Tony Gonzalez. I never got a chance to meet him, but we talked on facebook. He also made the music on the Wolf 3D port for the IIGS which includes one original track not found on any other version as well as the unreleased Sim City GS from Burger Becky. He was bragging to me how he had the sheet music for Rastan at his home, too, from John.
Dec 9, 2012 12:11 AM
Great show. While this is an Apple II podcast and it is expected that the Apple II cast and characters are the highlight of the show, it is good to sometimes get a different perspective about early home computing from non-Apple zealots.
Jan 23, 2013 7:45 PM
Just finished listening this episode.
+1 with Egan on having different perspectives in a friendly non-ego/non-competitive discussion. I remember my cousin got an Atari 520 and then a 1040 and the sound and graphics capabilities of these were putting my IIc to shame (IMHO). But we could still relate from a computer enthusiasts point of view :)