Open Apple #51 (September 2015) : Mike Westerfield, Opus ][, The Byte Works, Merlin 32

This month on Open Apple we sit down with Mike Westerfield, of The Byte Works’ fame. We talk about his adventures writing assemblers & compilers for 8/16 bit computers, and we see what he’s up to nowadays. We talk about small-system compilers, Logo, the perils of open source, and where to go for Byte Works’ products. It’s a compiler and assembler-themed episode of the one-and-only Apple II podcast.

Tune in to hear Mike pine longingly for Lawless Legends, and hear Quinn achieve maximum Boo Atari Density (BAD). We find amazing new hardware and unauthorized museums. There are wacky Australians, wacky Russians, wacky Brazilians, and wacky Germans. There are Arduinos, headphone jacks, and realtime clocks, oh my! You won’t want to miss Mike dropping a Murphy Brown reference. Take that, Millenials!

Please support us by becoming a Patreon Patron.  The size of our audience means we have substantial bandwidth costs, and a few bucks from a few of you would really help us out. We have no advertisers and we run this show entirely on our own dime and our own time. Thanks for anything you can pitch in!

Stay tuned for a couple of genuinely weird games, an introduction to copy protection, and lots of user feedback. Some of you feel the show is too long. Does everyone feel that way? Email us at feedback@open-apple.net and let us know.

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

Continue reading “Open Apple #51 (September 2015) : Mike Westerfield, Opus ][, The Byte Works, Merlin 32”

Open Apple #48 (June 2015) : Tony Diaz, KansasFest Memories, Prototypes, and 8-bit DNS

This month on Open Apple, we sit down with Tony Diaz- KansasFest committee member, and consummate Apple II collector. With KansasFest just days away, we go deep on Tony’s amazing collection of unique prototypes, documents, peripherals, and the stories that go with them. If there’s a person with deeper knowledge of the early history of Apple Hardware, we haven’t met them.

Thanks for your patience in June, everyone! Some technical and logistical difficulties kept us from posting this episode as soon as we would have liked. We hope the show is worth the wait. We dive into lots of new hardware toys, KansasFest-like events around the world, lots of software updates, and one of the best Apple II games ever made.

How many times does Quinn boo Atari this month? What can we learn about Mike’s dark, mysterious past? How many tedious Jobs movie news items can the world produce? Listen and find out!

KansasFest 2015 is just days away. Hope to see you all in Kansas City this week!

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

Continue reading “Open Apple #48 (June 2015) : Tony Diaz, KansasFest Memories, Prototypes, and 8-bit DNS”