Open Apple #40.5 (November 2014) : Mike and Quinn Watch 'The Goldbergs'

Open Apple #40.5 (November 2014) : Mike and Quinn Watch ‘The Goldbergs’

Friday, November 7th, 2014 | Episodes

Now for something completely different. We have a bit of a gap between shows here on Open Apple, due to the timing of some interviews we have lined up. Rather than keep you waiting, we thought we’d try something wacky.

In this “episode” of Open Apple, Quinn and Mike sit down together and watch The Goldbergs. This is a sitcom airing on ABC that is garnering some critical acclaim. In particular, we watched episode 4 in season 2, entitled “Shall We Play a Game?”. This episode features an Apple II+ prominently throughout the show, including terrific shots of games and applications you will definitely recognize. The producers did their homework, and showed the platform genuine love and respect. It’s a very prominent feature of this episode, so we thought it might be fun to talk about it.

The format of this episode is rather like a DVD commentary track. However, we can’t legally include any audio or video of the show in the podcast, so you’ll need to set that up yourself. Queue up the episode of the show on your DVR, Hulu, or whatever other method you care to use, and listen to the podcast while you watch. We’ll tell you when to start playback of the show. We watched a version of the show with no commercials, so be sure and pause the podcast during breaks if you need to. We start watching at the opening line, “Growing up, my mom was many things…”. Fair warning- the podcast by itself will not make much sense if you aren’t watching along with us!

For best results, we recommend a commercial-free version of the episode. See the show notes after the jump for some options.

We have no idea if this experiment is going to work for anyone, but we like to push the cutting edge of 30yo platforms here on Open Apple. Let us know what you think of this half-show. We probably won’t do it again, unless another TV show happens to spend half its screen time on an Apple II, but you never know. Stay tuned for the “real” November episode of Open Apple coming soon!

More information on The Goldbergs after the jump.

Links for Episode 40.5

Shall We Play a Game? – Watch the episode for free on ABC’s site (pause the podcast during commercials).
Shall We Play a Game? – Watch the episode commercial-free in HD on iTunes.
Shall We Play a Game? – Watch the episode on Hulu.
The Goldbergs – The official site.
The Goldbergs – Everything you might want to know about the show.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 25:55 — 17.6MB) | Embed

Tags: Adam F. Goldberg, Apple II Plus, commentary track, hacking, The Goldbergs, WarGames

2 Comments to 'Open Apple #40.5 (November 2014) : Mike and Quinn Watch ‘The Goldbergs’'

Mark D. Overholser
Nov 9, 2014 7:03 PM

A technical note…

A 16K Apple ][+, after booting DOS, ( DOS uses about 10.5 K, IIRC ) doesn’t have much RAM left to do anything… He would have needed 32K to 48K to run anything of substance.

I give the Props Department a 9.0, for the Period looking Apple ][ stuff!!!

MarkO

bungfish
Jan 2, 2015 5:47 PM

I thought the monitor looked like an AppleColor High-Resolution RGB Monitor (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AppleColor_High-Resolution_RGB_Monitor) or an Apple IIGS monitor. I think the “pizza box” under the monitor is the actual computer that drives the display (a small x86 or Raspberry Pi with an Apple II emulator). I also caught a glimpse of Adam using an Apple ADB mouse right before the posse demands he “hack” their biology test grades.
Also, I for one enjoyed this podcasting experiment and look forward to future sitcom commentary. Thanks!
-bugfish