8 Bit Weapon | Open Apple

Open Apple #75 (October 2017) – Seth Sternberger, Class Apples, GS Graphics

Posted on Dec 24, 2017Feb 8, 2022 by Quinn Dunki

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:59:51 — 99.5MB) | Embed

We’re baaaack! Sorry for the unscheduled hiatus folks, but your intrepid hosts had some family matters to attend to. This month on Open Apple, we sit down with Seth Steinberger of 8-bit Weapon. We talk about their new album Class Apples, which was made entirely on an Apple II. Yes, every sound on the album is generated by real Apple II hardware with no add-on cards. Apple IIs can make good sound with the right software and in the hands of a talented musician.

After the amazement of Class Apples wears off, we get into Seth’s background with Apple IIs, how he got interested in electronic music, how 8-bit Weapon came to be, and where they’re headed next. We touch a little bit on his work as the main artist on the upcoming RPG Lawless Legends, and Seth explains how much better keyboards are as compared to proms. Furthermore, we all agree that the primary value of the internet is to find pictures of Devo. Michelle wasn’t able to be on the show, but you won’t want to miss the story of how she got to work with Mark Mothersbaugh.

Mike and Quinn then get into augmented reality, alternative operating systems, and of course Richard Garriot. Can’t have an Apple II show without mentioning Richard Garriot. Stay tuned to hear about accelerator control, new magazines, and making your own memory cards.

Lastly, Quinn goes deep on how to program fast graphics on the notoriously “crippled” Apple IIgs. Yes, you can do big beautiful sprites at high frame rates. Learn all about the deep dark secrets that the best games and demos used.

Help keep the Garage Giveaway running at KansasFest! Donate here to keep it a thing. It’s one of the greatest services the Apple II community has, and we’re going to lose it this year if we don’t get donations.

More information on everything discussed in this episode, after the jump.

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Open Apple #74 (September 2017) – Mark Lemmert, Nox Archaist Kickstarter, Fake Quinn, and Softalk #5

Posted on Sep 19, 2017Feb 8, 2022 by Mike Maginnis

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 2:36:46 — 121.0MB) | Embed

This month on Open Apple, the part of Quinn Dunki is played by RCR Podcast co-host Carrington “Fake Quinn” Vanston. A post-KansasFest Mark Lemmert of 6502 Workshop returns to the show to promote the new Nox Archaist Kickstarter. You should contribute because it’s awesome to support those still developing for the Apple II and not just because you get cool stuff when you do (though that’s a thing that happens too!).

There’s lots of news to cover and Carrington has opinions on all of it. Only on Open Apple can you hear him trash clones, accelerators, ProDOS, retro BBSes, and a random assortment of other topics! Fun for the whole family! We also chat about Apple II music and there’s general confusion about Australian Apple II conferences (when is there not on Open Apple?)

eBay isn’t talked about (because we don’t talk about eBay) and we deconstruct Softalk #5.

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Open Apple #38 (August 2014) : The Lawless Legends Team

Posted on Aug 30, 2014Feb 8, 2022 by Quinn Dunki

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:31:21 — 47.8MB) | Embed

This month on Open Apple, we go deep on Lawless Legends with most of the team building it. We’ve managed to corner Seth Sternberger (of 8-bit Weapon fame), Martin Haye, and Brendan Robert (Dave Schmenk, we’re coming for you…) to grill them on this amazing effort. We also wish a fond farewell to co-host Ken Gagne, and welcome our new co-host Quinn Dunki. Listeners can look forward to more angry sarcasm and less professionalism here on Open Apple. Of course, we also ramble some more about KansasFest 2014. Because KansasFest.

Lawless Legends is a new wild west RPG game being built cross-platform for classic 8-bit computers, and possibly a few modern machines as well. Among its many outstanding features are a 2.5D free-roaming raycast engine, mipmapping, sprites, a high-level scripting language, and full modern pipeline for creating art and design elements. We gather up as many of the team as we can muster and pick their brains about how the game is coming along. We go deep into the process of building it, and take some cheap shots at Commodore along the way. It’s okay though, by the time their machines finish loading, this will all be ancient history.

More information on everything mentioned in the show can be found after the jump.

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Open Apple #31 (Oct 2013): Brendan Robert, Lawless Legends, Texas, and Wayne Green

Posted on Oct 11, 2013Feb 8, 2022 by Ken Gagne

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:30:58 — 51.5MB) | Embed

This month on Open Apple, Mike and Ken chat with Brendan Robert of the Java Apple Computer Emulator (JACE) and Apple Game Server. Innovative cross-platform tools are being used to bring Lawless Legends, an original 8-bit RPG, to the Apple II and Commodore 64; as part of the programming team, Brendan takes us behind the scenes. He lives in a lawless land himself — the Old West of Texas, where gaming icons Ion Storm, Zynga, Lord British, and Rooster Teeth reside. But when it comes to games, sometimes you can’t do better than Tetris, of which there are many new and devious deviations. We get rid of old toys, like a SCSI CD-ROM 7-disc changer and a LANceGS card, so we can all have room for new toys, like A2CLOUD, Apple2Pi, BenchmarkeD, AppleIIWorks Envoy, and Final Cut Pro X. And sadly, Wayne Green of InCider and Byte has passed away; we remember his magazines fondly.

Click past the jump for links mentioned in this episode.

Introduction (0:00 – 11:50)

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Open Apple #14 (Apr 2012): Brian Picchi, GameFest, Prince of Persia, and gadgets

Posted on Apr 5, 2012Feb 8, 2022 by Ken Gagne

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:27:46 — 44.3MB) | Embed

This month on the Open Apple podcast, our hosts chat with world video game record holder and Apple II game critic Brian Picchi, whose YouTube channel showcases the best and worst of Apple II entertainment. It’s a good time to be a convention-goer: registration has opened for KansasFest 2012, the lineup for Vintage Computer Festival East 8.0 has been announced, 8 Bit Weapon played at the Smithsonian’s opening of the Art of Video Games, and Jordan Mechner is keynoting PAX East. Kickstarter continues to be popular for reviving classic franchises, Ewen Wannop updates SNAP and SAFE on a shoestring budget, and Jordan Mechner unearths his Prince of Persia source code. On eBay, we found a rarer-than-the-Apple-1 copy of Akalabeth on cassette, a rare Apple IIGS-specific wristwatch, and a potential CFFA3000 scalper. Finally, we look at some gadgets that are new to us, including old iPads, new iPads, and DSLR cameras.

Click past the jump for links mentioned in this episode.

Introduction (0:00 – 5:58)

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Open Apple #12 (Feb 2012): Michael J Mahon, chiptune, source code, and demodulation

Posted on Feb 6, 2012Feb 8, 2022 by Ken Gagne

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:57:57 — 59.7MB) | Embed

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.

Introduction (0:00 – 12:00)

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Open Apple #10 (Dec 2011): Rob Kenyon, HyperCard, IFComp, and authenticity

Posted on Dec 6, 2011Feb 8, 2022 by Ken Gagne

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:25:06 — 43.7MB) | Embed

This month on the Open Apple podcast, Mike and Ken are joined by Rob Kenyon, a two-time KansasFest attendee as well as a professional programmer and 30-year veteran of the Apple II. We talk about how great it is to be a part of the international community of Apple II users, even if none of us can afford to buy Apple’s founding contract in a Sotheby’s auction. Rob asks, did Steve Jobs purposely kill HyperCard to turn the Mac into a more closed environment? We congratulate Wade Clarke and Andrew Schultz on their showing in the 17th annual Interactive Fiction Competition. Plenty of original Apple II computers are selling on eBay, with Mike and Rob discussing how to distinguish an authentic classic from a modified one. We share our wishes for the holiday season, including for an affordable accelerator card and a CFFA3000, before signing off for the calendar year. Please take our listener survey, and see you in 2012!

[Please note: technical difficulties have resulted in a low volume on Ken’s track, and a loud volume for Rob. Our apologies for the inconvenience.]

Click past the jump for links mentioned in this episode.

Introduction (00:00 – 7:08)

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