France | Open Apple

Talking with Brutal Deluxe

Posted on Apr 30, 2012Mar 24, 2023 by Ken Gagne

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:14:16 — 38.0MB) | Embed

Join us as Open Apple celebrates the 20th anniversary of the founding of premier Apple II programming group, Brutal Deluxe, developers of such famous games as LemminGS, The Tinies, Cogito, and Blockade; utilities including Fishhead, T40, and Convert 3200; and projects such as the Apple Cassette Archive.

In this special podcast episode, Ken interviews Brutal Deluxe members Antoine Vignau and Olivier Zardini on the group’s history, what the Apple II and BBS scenes were like in France in the 1980s, how they acquired the rights and assets to popular licenses and ported them to the Apple II, their open source philosophy, and news from other French developers.

Happy birthday, Brutal Deluxe!

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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Show #5 (June 2011): Brian Wiser, museums, magazines, and Ultima

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

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:38:49 — 51.9MB) | Embed

This month in Open Apple, Mike and Ken are joined by Brian Wiser, an unsung hero of the Apple II archivist movement, as well as a director and producer of films related to Joss Whedon’s Firefly television show and Serenity movie. Ken reports on his trip to the Vintage Computer Festival East 7.0, Mike notes the changing of the guard at Syndicomm, and Brian brags about the Apple employees he’s met and the museums he’s visited, after which Mike and Brian chat about their favorite Apple II publications. We all lusted after the Ultima trilogy on eBay but were dismayed by two other auctions that were not what they seemed. Classics that need to be remade, those that are being remade, and those that were and failed are our gaming topics of the month.

Congratulations to Brian Sturk, who named the game as Lode Runner! He won a 20% or $50 discount off one ReactiveMicro.com order. Next month’s winner gets a $20 credit at the RetroFloppy store, courtesy David Schmidt.

Click past the jump for links mentioned in this episode.

Introduction (0:00 – 10:18)

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