Open Apple #71 (May 2017) – Michael Packard, Alien Downpour, Kermit (The Frog)

This month on Open Apple, we sit down with Michael Packard, author of the upcoming new game Alien Downpour. Michael has gone back to teach himself assembly language and make the kinds of games he wished he had made back in the day. The results are indeed impressive, and his first foray into solo Apple II game production is shaping up great. He’s also been very encouraging to the community, having set up the Facebook group Apple Graphics and Arcade Game Design Enthusiasts, dedicated to the book by the same name. This group is a place for Michael to share his progress on his games, as well as for other people to jump in with their own projects.

As of this recording, you can still pre-order Alien Downpour over at Michael’s site. Remarkably, you can order it on floppy or cassette! It comes with a retro-style baggie and insert as well. Michael is writing a book on his experiences (re)learning all this, so keep an eye out for that as well. He’ll also be at KansasFest this year with a presentation on Alien Downpour. Register now so you can see that! You won’t want to miss Michael’s perfect re-impersonation of the Egghead Discount Software answering message.

Meanwhile, Mike and Quinn get stuff wrong on a great many topics, but have fun doing it. If you want to try using a IIgs as your daily driver, launch cows with extreme prejudice, or run GEOS on a weird piece of hardware, you’ve come to the right podcast.

Register for KansasFest while you still can!

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

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Open Apple #47 (May 2015) : Jason Scott, Kaboom!, Infocom Secrets

This month on Open Apple, we sit down with Jason Scott, documentary filmmaker, historian, public speaker, and archivist.

We talk about the importance of a nuanced appreciation of history, the flavors of sadness in comment threads, whom not to trust with special data and the nature of humanity, and failing at life.

Don’t miss Mike Hate Sponge Delicate Snowflake Maginnis’s sigh to end all sighs. Join us to learn how to take care of your capacitors, how to count your cycles, and how to do TCP/IP on your 8-bit Apple II.

Want to troll your cable company, accelerate your IIe, or play Bomberman on your GS? Tune in and find out how!   More information on everything discussed in this episode after the jump.

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Show #6 (July 2011): User groups, Beautiful Boot, KFest memories, and game tournaments

This month in Open Apple, Mike and Ken share the studio for a one-on-one recording session. We look at user groups, museums, and academic classes that celebrate the Apple II, as well as the growing collection of the Internet Archive, courtesy Jason Scott. While looking forward to next week’s KansasFest convention, memories of previous KFests are unearthed and examined. Unusual Apple II and Apple III machines are hot on eBay, as are the competitors in recent and upcoming arcade tournaments. And let’s not overlook the gauntlet that Richard Garriott has thrown down over the future of the Ultima franchise.

Congratulations to Alex Lee, who named the game as DuelTris! He won a $20 credit to the RetroFloppy store, courtesy David Schmidt. Next month’s winner gets a three-issue hardcopy collection of 300 Baud magazine.

Click past the jump for links mentioned in this episode.

Introduction (0:00 – 12:58)

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