This month on Open Apple, Mike and Ken chat with Evan Koblentz, producer of Vintage Computer Festival East. VCF East 9.1 is happening this spring, and Evan has an inside look at the event’s founding, growth, and lineup. Margot Comstock has been announced as the keynote speaker of KansasFest 2014, prompting us to reflect on the history of Softalk magazine. The Apple2pi card is now shipping, and it reminds us of other small devices that left a big impression, like the Replica-1 and even the Apple Newton PDA — which still has an active user group! Finally, Steve Jobs is appearing in all kinds of icons, from e-waste portraits to unlickable postage stamps. When will Woz get the recognition he deserves?
Click past the jump for links mentioned in this episode.
- Underground Retrocade
- American Classic Arcade Museum at Funspot
- Bob Lawton and his business card
- Pinball Wizard and its Groupon
- Wreck-It Ralph’s Fix-It Felix Jr. game
- Danger!awesome makerspace in Cambridge, MA — and its Kickstarter
- Denhac hackerspace in Denver, CO
- Open Apple turns three, as commemorated by Mike Maginnis and Ken Gagne
- Evan Koblentz
- Evan’s article for Juiced.GS
- Vintage Computer Festival East 9.1
- Mid-Atlantic Retro Computing Hobbyists (MARCH)
- InfoAge – Science History Learning Center and Museum
- Viva Amiga
- KansasFest 2014 teaser shared on Facebook
- Margot Comstock of Softalk to keynote KansasFest 2014
- All KansasFest keynote speakers, ever!
- Softalk Apple Project by JiM Salmons
- Computer Gaming World #101 (December 1992), page 192: Wizardry’s Family Infotree (hat tip: Reggie C. of World 1-1)
- Social media is not good for archiving
- Apple2pi card by David Schmenk
- Boston PDA User Group
- Bug in Silvern Castle v9.5
- Swashbuckler from Datamost
- stitch by krüe
- Software Automatic Mouth (SAM)
- mspysu79’s Apple II unboxing videos on YouTube
- Dan Budiac’s unboxing photos on Flickr
- Highretrogamelord89 on YouTube
- Elgato Game Capture HD used to record Let’s Play Retro Fever
- Steve Jobs rejected George Diamond’s medical app in 1977
- Dealers of Lightning by Michael A. Hiltzik
- Jason Mecier’s portrait of Steve Jobs made entirely out of e-waste
- Steve Jobs slated to grace US postage stamp in 2015
- Evan Koblentz on Retrobits, Floppy Days, and the Retro Computing Roundtable
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Tags: ACAM, anniversary, Apple2Pi, Bob Lawton, Chicago, Dan Budiac, Danger!awesome, Dealers of Lighning, denhac, Elgato Game Capture HD, Evan Koblentz, Fix-It Felix Jr, Funspot, hackerspace, Highretrogamelord89, InfoAge, Jason Mecier, Jim Salmons, KansasFest, KFest, makerspace, MARCH, Margot Comstock, mspysu79, PDA, Pinball Wizard, SAM, Silvern Castle, Softalk, stamp, Steve Jobs, stitch, Underground Retrocade, VCF, VCF East, Vintage Computer Festival, Viva Amiga, Wreck-It Ralph
1 Comment to 'Open Apple #36 (Mar 2014): Evan Koblentz, VCF East, Softalk, and Apple2pi'
Mar 16, 2014 7:52 AM
On the topic of 8-bit Apple II music, a semi-credible simulation of 4 notes being played at a time (as Stitch supports) is the most anybody has ever achieved on the native hardware. This is unsurprising given the computer really has 1 voice, and that that voice is 1-bit. People have done amazing stuff with the 1 voice, but things go downhill sonically (and drastically) as soon as you go past the simulation of 2 simultaneous notes, the benchmark set by Paul Lutus’s Electric Duet and which sounds bona fide.
It’s ironic that Music Construction Set was created on the Apple II, a computer which could barely be less suited to produce 4 voice music, but I think that program was the source of the II’s 4 note technique.