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

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 #43 (January 2015) : Happy New Year with Ben Heck!

This month on Open Apple, we sit down with Ben Heck, one of our most-requested interviews. We talk about his Apple I replica, his Apple IIgs laptop, and Adam Sandler for some reason. Meanwhile, Mike and Quinn talk about Apple Porsches, Pinball Construction Set, and Western Design Center. In the comedy department, we get back to our roots (making fun of Wizardry).

There’s potato chips, there’s troll pits, there’s 3D printing, and all kinds of other wandering off topic this month, so be sure to stay tuned for none of that.

We’re looking forward to a great new year with the Apple II, so join us as we kick off what is sure to be an awesome 2015!

Wews!

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

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Open Apple #25 (Mar 2013): Egan Ford, 8088, Voyager, and abandonware

Egan Ford

This month on Open Apple, Mike and Ken chat with Egan Ford, aka the datajerk, the Apple-1 and II programmer extraordinaire responsible for the Apple II Game Server Online! Egan expertly demonstrates which CPU is faster, the 6502 or 8088, running circles around everyone listening. Laurie Spiegel is an Apple II user you may not have heard of, but extraterrestrials have, thanks to her contributions to Voyager’s Golden Record; we have some of her music for you to listen to. Courtesy Facebook and scanners, we save Don Worth’s magazines from the trash and Softalk from extinction, but we can’t save derelict hardware from abandoned buildings. Will Steve Wozniak be as good a commencement speaker as the late Steve Jobs? Having heard Woz at KansasFest, we weigh in.

(Please also note a correction to this episode.)

Click past the jump for links mentioned in this episode.

Introduction (0:00 – 5:37)

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