Open Apple #65 (November 2016) : Alex Lee, What Is The Apple IIgs?

This month on Open Apple, we sit down with Alex Lee, purveyor of the canonical IIgs reference site What Is The Apple IIgs?  We talk about what it was like being one of the brave few with this machine, and that feeling of living in a secret world of incredible graphics and sound that nobody else seemed to know about.

Alex walks us through the history of IIgs emulators, and all the ways that the IIgs Finder was actually better than the Mac. He also talks about the legal challenges of running an archive site like this, which luckily are not too serious for this obscure machine. We finish up with talk of the future of the site, and the difficulty of finding some really rare software packages- help contribute content!

Alex is also working on an Apple IIgs coffee table book. Help encourage him to finish it, because we all want to buy it very very badly. Just saying.

Keep listening, because you won’t want to miss Alex casually dropping the phrase “Late nineties and early naughties” in his charming Australian accent. Tune in as well to pine along with Quinn for the never-to-be Ultima VI.

Our apologies for this episode being a bit late. Combinations of illness, holiday commitments, and technical difficulties all conspired against us this month.

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

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Open Apple #44 (February 2015) : Beagle Bros Reunion Roundtable, Andrew Roughan

This month on Open Apple, we sit down with Beagles Bros Randy Brandt, Mark Simonsen Tom Weishaar, and Alan Bird. We share stories of Beagle’s development, poke lots of fun at each other, and check in on where everyone is now.

We spread the love for Oz KFest with Andrew Roughan, and amazingly resist the urge to make any upside-down jokes about Australia. Mike and Quinn are trying to be bigger than northern-hemispherism, and they like to think they’ve grown as people as a result.

We talk brain-imaging, we talk helicopter piloting, and we spread more IIgs love than usual. We search for amazing things, and sometimes we find them. Join us for another great month of Apple II brouhaha.

BREAKING NEWS: Dates for KansasFest 2015 also announced! July 14-19. More at http://www.kansasfest.org

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

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Open Apple #21 (Nov 2012): Geoff Weiss, SIS, Apple-1 auctions, and Web hosting

Geoff Weiss

This month on Open Apple, Ken takes the month off as Mike chats with Apple IIGS programmer Geoff Weiss, who does double-duty as both guest and co-host. Geoff discusses his work on the Spectrum Internet Suite and debuts some new Classic Desk Accessories for the IIGS, based on his KansasFest 2012 presentation. Mike and Geoff go over some recent Apple II news, such as Brutal Deluxe’s latest software offering, a missing time capsule, a visit to the Russian Apple Museum in Moscow, and Woz’s Ask Me Anything on Slashdot, as well as Apple II-related movie and TV items.

eBay items this month include a Franklin ACE-based educational unit and Geoff and Mike pause to puzzle over an Apple II Plus emulator for the Commodore 64. A discussion of recent Apple-1 auctions rounds out the episode this month.

Click past the jump for links mentioned in this episode.

Introduction (0:00 – 08:27)

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

Rob Kenyon

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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