Tag: Bob Bishop

Open Apple #48 (June 2015) : Tony Diaz, KansasFest Memories, Prototypes, and 8-bit DNS

Posted on by Quinn Dunki

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This month on Open Apple, we sit down with Tony Diaz- KansasFest committee member, and consummate Apple II collector. With KansasFest just days away, we go deep on Tony’s amazing collection of unique prototypes, documents, peripherals, and the stories that go with them. If there’s a person with deeper knowledge of the early history of Apple Hardware, we haven’t met them.

Thanks for your patience in June, everyone! Some technical and logistical difficulties kept us from posting this episode as soon as we would have liked. We hope the show is worth the wait. We dive into lots of new hardware toys, KansasFest-like events around the world, lots of software updates, and one of the best Apple II games ever made.

How many times does Quinn boo Atari this month? What can we learn about Mike’s dark, mysterious past? How many tedious Jobs movie news items can the world produce? Listen and find out!

KansasFest 2015 is just days away. Hope to see you all in Kansas City this week!

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

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Open Apple #45 (March 2015): Mark Kriegsman, FastLED, Transwarp GS Clone, and Newsapalooza

Open Apple #45 (March 2015): Mark Kriegsman, FastLED, Transwarp GS Clone, and Newsapalooza

Posted on by Quinn Dunki

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This month on Open Apple, we sit down with Mark Kriegsman, author of Star Blaster, and a modern Apple II hacker. He has ported the awesome FastLED driver library to the Apple II, so you can drive many hundreds of 32-bit RGB LEDs with your Apple II.

Meanwhile, we browbeat people into attending KansasFest, we rationalize our shame at developing on emulators, we talk dead tree easter eggs, we make terrible awesome BASIC & Twitter puns, we talk about post-mortem collecting, and Mike generates hate mail. Just in case you’re not completely over movies about Steve Jobs, we talk about one of those as well. Yawn.

More importantly, help us convince Mark to build a lo-res display from FastLEDs and bring it to KansasFest.

Once again, in case you missed it, the dates for KansasFest 2015 have been announced. July 14-19! Go to http://www.kansasfest.org to register. Then pull up a comfy chair and enjoy this super-sized episode of Open Apple. Apologies for some audio quality issues in this month. Quinn had some equipment difficulties and Mike has been under the weather. Thanks for your patience. Stay tuned until the end of the show for a special treat (not just Mike’s usual cheeky outtake)!

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

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Open Apple #41 (November 2014) : Randy Brandt, Neuromancer, Bob Bishop

Posted on by Quinn Dunki

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This month on Open Apple we present an early holiday gift, in the form of an epic three hour episode. We sit down for a great conversation with Apple II legend Randy Brandt, perhaps best known for his work at Beagle Bros. We go deep on Beagle Bros, exploring the making of their quirky, innovative software and the wacky characters that produced it. Never one to rest on his laurels, Randy is now helping to produce a modern reboot of Beagle Bros’ only major game release, I/O Silver. The game will be released very soon as of when you’re reading this, and it runs on all major mobile platforms. Look for it in an Apple App Store or Google Play Store near you.

If that’s not enough, we have a huge pile of news to talk about this month, joined together by the most epic series of segues ever to grace the history of podcasting. We talk Transwarps, we talk Woz, we talk Neuromancer, we talk Wizardry, we talk to our listeners, and we talk smack. That’s just how we roll here on Open Apple. We also spend a lot of time pretending to know anything about Apple II mice.

In addition, we have the unfortunate duty to recognize the passing of some Apple II luminaries- Bob Bishop and Mike Pfaiffer. The Apple II community is great because of a lifetime of hard work by many talented people. Join us as we remember the contributions of two of those people.

Don’t worry, there’s much Apple II stuff to be thankful for in this month of American Thanksgiving. So put down the turkey leg and get caught up on ye olde stripey Apple. The biggest episode of Open Apple ever!

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

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Show #9 (Nov 2011): Melissa Barron, Britannia Manor, floppy drives, and iOS

Show #9 (Nov 2011): Melissa Barron, Britannia Manor, floppy drives, and iOS

Posted on by Ken Gagne

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Melissa Barron

This month in Open Apple, Mike and Ken talk with Melissa Barron, the Apple II community’s famed tapestry artist. The three relate their experiences exploring the past and future of computer media at conventions and museums in Chicago and Rochester, exploring the methods used to create and preserve history. Further tributes are made to Steve Jobs, while Mike Westerfield reclassifies old BASIC tools and releases new ones. Lord British’s Texas mansion is up for sale — a fitting home for Vintage Computer Festival Southwest? We debate various models of floppy drives and are wary of fake and expensive Apple II computers on eBay but excited about new e-books and iOS apps of interest to retrocomputing enthusiasts.

Congratulations to Todd Holcomb, who named the game as Spy’s Demise! He won an autographed copy of Bob Bishop’s Bomber on cassette, courtesy Mike Maginnis.

Click past the jump for links mentioned in this episode.

Introduction (0:00 – 11:40)

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Show #7 (August 2011): David Schmenk, KansasFest 2011, CFFA3000, and buttons

Show #7 (August 2011): David Schmenk, KansasFest 2011, CFFA3000, and buttons

Posted on by Ken Gagne

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Escape from the Homebrew Computer Club

This month in Open Apple, Mike and Ken keep the KansasFest vibe going with first-time attendee David Schmenk, getting his perspective on the greatest products, sessions, and experiences of last month’s Apple II convention, from the CFFA3000 to Sweet16 and more. Ewen Wannop’s publication of an online magazine archive leads to a brief discussion on the creation and consumption of PDF scans, after which we get Tony Diaz on the line to clarify a hardware matter. On eBay, we like pins, buttons, and games, before getting ready for a special guest at this month’s Denver Apple Pi user group meeting.

Congratulations to Antony Mauget, who named the game as Hard Hat Mack! He won a complete collection of 300 Baud magazine. Next month’s winner of the easiest Name the Game contest ever gets a $20 gift certificate to the Juiced.GS store.

Click past the jump for links mentioned in this episode.

Introduction (0:00 – 7:57)

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