Tag: Option8

Open Apple #73 (August 2017) – Assembly Chicken PolyANTICast Roundtable

Posted on by Quinn Dunki

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This month on Open Apple, we run the annual group megapodcast that is recorded live at KansasFest! This is a four-year-old tradition whereby all the attending retro podcasters get together and do one big silly show together. It’s clunky, it’s pointless, and the audio quality is terrible because we’re all crowded one microphone in a grungy old basement chapel. Yet it’s one of our favorite things to do every year, so we hope you enjoy listening!

Around the table this year we have Quinn Dunki, Paul Hagstrom, John Leake, Chris Torrence, Kay Savetz, Ken Gagne, Charles Mangin, and Carrington Vanston, and Michael Mulhern. Find links to all the podcasts mentioned in this show, after the jump!

Feel like you’re missing out on all this fun? Come to KansasFest in 2018 and join in! We’d all love to meet you.

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Open Apple #33 (Dec 2013): Andrew Schultz, interactive fiction, JSMESS, and SCOTTEVEST

Open Apple #33 (Dec 2013): Andrew Schultz, interactive fiction, JSMESS, and SCOTTEVEST

Posted on by Ken Gagne

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Interactive Fiction Competition

This month on Open Apple, Mike and Ken chat with Andrew Schultz — gamer, FAQ author, and Interactive Fiction Competition participant. Text adventures are enjoying a resurgence in popularity and access, and Andrew guides us through the tools and resources available for aspiring game authors. Both Steve Weyhrich’s history book and the Steve Jobs movie are available for home delivery, but there’s only one we want to find under our Christmas tree. Jason Scott has integrated the JSMESS emulator into the Internet Archive, granting users unprecedented access to historical software right in their browsers. Finally, Ken, in his quest to be more Woz-like, adopts his hero’s fashion sense.

Click past the jump for links mentioned in this episode.

Introduction (0:00 – 10:16)

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Charles Mangin's Apple IIe newsletter signup station

Charles Mangin’s Apple IIe newsletter signup station

Posted on by Ken Gagne

In July 2011, Ryan Vesler of retail store Homage found the site Apple II Bits and contacted its owner, Open Apple co-host Ken Gagne with a request:

I have a retail store in Columbus that sells classic t-shirts with
nostalgic artwork.

I would like to build some kind of Apple II looking computer that
collects email address for our mailing list (and maybe allows people
to sign up for a free prize pack)

Thinking about having some kind of Mac Mini operate inside an old
shell.  I was wondering if you would be interested in working with us.
We could price something out and see if it’s worth your while…

Ken put Ryan in touch with Charles Mangin, about whom Ken had blogged back in 2010. Years later, on the September 2013 episode of Open Apple, Charles related the product of the resulting collaboration.

Charles did indeed embed a Mac mini inside an Apple IIe for Ryan’s store in Columbus, Ohio. The display screen for signing up for Homage’s newsletter, though powered by a Mac mini, is designed to look like it belongs on the green phosphor screen. It fits right in with the store’s variety of nostalgic memorabilia, from an NBA Jam arcade cabinet to a Hulk Hogan cardboard standup.

Photos are courtesy Ryan; see more shots of his store at Columbus Underground.

Nice work to all parties involved in reminding the the public of Apple’s roots!

Open Apple #30 (Sep 2013): Charles Mangin, Jobs movie, Tetris, and S-Prize

Open Apple #30 (Sep 2013): Charles Mangin, Jobs movie, Tetris, and S-Prize

Posted on by Ken Gagne

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Charles Mangin

This month on Open Apple, Mike and Ken chat with Charles Mangin, the mad scientist who puts Mac Minis inside Apple II cases and inventor of the RetroConnector. It’s our first show since KansasFest, and we share our highlights and favorite products and announcements from the show. The Steve Jobs film is now out, and Ashton Kutcher and Steve Wozniak have words while critics publish their own mixed reviews. However, we have nothing but praise for Walter Isaacson’s biography, and Steve Wozniak gets his own moment in the spotlight courtesy interviews with the Verge and Game Informer. We’re super-psyched that Eric Shepherd has established the S-Prize — how big will the pot grow before some enterprising programmer claims it?

Click past the jump for links mentioned in this episode.

Introduction (0:00 – 7:46)

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