Open Apple #66 (December 2016) : Glenda “The Atom” Adams

This month on Open Apple, we sit down with Glenda Adams, better known on the Apple II as The Atom. She was a cracker of some note back in the 1980s, and she shares great stories with us of her exploits in boot tracing, cracking, and distributing software in the glory days of the Apple II BBS scene.

We talk about the journey from programming to cracking, and back to programming again. We talk about the politics of the Apple II scene, and the unique experience of cracking software remotely. Think fixing your grandparents’ printer over the phone is hard? Trying cracking a game!

Can you deduce the release date of Fontrix by time-lining Apple II crack screens? We leave that as an exercise to the listener. Meanwhile, Glenda shares stories of porting Space Rogue, parties at Lord British’s house, and the old-school feel of early iOS development.

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

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Open Apple #29 (July 2013): Mike Willegal, Apple-1, cons, and films

Mike Willegal

This month on Open Apple, Mike and Ken chat with Mike Willegal, Apple-1 and Apple II reproduction expert extraordinaire. His topic is hot this month: five Apple-1 computers were simultaneously on display at the History San Jose museum; one is being auctioned online; Willegal was interviewed for a Kickstarter-funded book about the Apple-1; and his clones are appearing in a feature-length film about Steve Jobs — what a guy! He even went to Vintage Computer Festival Southeast this spring, though he’ll be absent from VCF Southwest, KansasFest, and Oz KFest, all occurring this summer. We watch the trailer for the Jobs movie and find we all have different reasons to see (or skip) Ashton Kutcher in the title role. We may or may not have dressed up to see the recent Star Trek and Man of Steel films; maybe we’ll fit the part by wearing some Apple t-shirts from 1986 to see Jobs.

Click past the jump for links mentioned in this episode.

Introduction (0:20 – 7:10)

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Open Apple #17 (July 2012): Rich Dreher, Apple-1, Atari, and Robert Tripp

Rich Dreher at KansasFest 2012

This month on Open Apple, Mike and Ken speak with Rich Dreher, developer of the CompactFlash For Apple (CFFA) card. The first batch of CFFA3000 cards sold out in 2011, and the second batch is now shipping with similar sales numbers. Rich takes us behind the scenes of the product’s success before dishing on other II hardware developers Vince Briel and Mike Willegal. We look at the astronomical numbers rare Apple-1 computers are fetching on eBay and at Sotheby’s and celebrate HyperCard turning 25 while Atari turns 40, though Mike objects to the latter. David Finnigan’s new book is out, and Robert Tripp is hot on his heels when an updated and digitized version of the classic What’s Where in the Apple — and we have the exclusive interview with Bob! All this content and all these guests make for our longest episode ever, perfect for listening to while you drive to next week’s KansasFest.

Click past the jump for links mentioned in this episode.

Introduction (0:00 – 19:36)

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Open Apple #15 (May 2012): David Finnigan, new books, CRPGs, and prototypes

Mac GUI Vault

This month on Open Apple, Mike and Ken chat with David Finnigan, proprietor of the Mac GUI Web site and author of the upcoming book, The New Apple II User’s Guide. Our eyes are caught by another new book release, The Best of Creative Computing: Volume 3, as well as the upcoming biopic based on Steve Jobs, in which actors have been cast to play Apple’s two co-founders. Prince of Persia is still big news, with the source code for Jordan Mechner’s classic Apple II game having been salvaged, released, and modified, while classic games like Leisure Suit Larry, Dungeon Master, and even Repton are enjoying literal and spiritual remakes. On eBay, we crack open the case to examine broken Apple III boards and prototype Apple IIGS boards.

Click past the jump for links mentioned in this episode.

Introduction (0:00 – 8:33)

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Show #2 (Mar 2011): IvanX, VCF, VNC & GPLE

Ivan DruckerIn the second monthly episode of Open Apple, Mike and Ken are joined by Ivan Drucker: two-time KansasFest alumnus, Juiced.GS staff writer, and Mac consultant based out of New York City. News this month includes a look forward to Vintage Computer Festival (VCF) East 7.0 by two of its alumni, an Apple-1 expansion card for the Apple II, and controlling Apple II emulators via an iOS VNC; reviews of our favorite Beagle Bros programming utilities; the exorbitant prices Apple II hardware and software are fetching on eBay; and new iterations of our favorite adventure, role-playing, and text-adventure games.

Congratulations to Wade Clarke, who correctly guessed Karateka for last month’s “Name the Game” contest! His prize is a free Juiced.GS Concentrate, courtesy Juiced.GS publisher Gamebits. The prize for this month’s contest is a free two-day pass to VCF East 7.0, courtesy Evan Koblentz of MARCH.

Click past the jump for links mentioned in this episode.

Introduction (0:00 – 11:56)

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