Tag: Vintage Computer Festival

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

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

Posted on by Quinn Dunki

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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 #36 (Mar 2014): Evan Koblentz, VCF East, Softalk, and Apple2pi

Open Apple #36 (Mar 2014): Evan Koblentz, VCF East, Softalk, and Apple2pi

Posted on by Ken Gagne

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Evan Koblentz

This month on Open Apple, Mike and Ken chat with Evan Koblentz, producer of Vintage Computer Festival East. VCF East 9.1 is happening this spring, and Evan has an inside look at the event’s founding, growth, and lineup. Margot Comstock has been announced as the keynote speaker of KansasFest 2014, prompting us to reflect on the history of Softalk magazine. The Apple2pi card is now shipping, and it reminds us of other small devices that left a big impression, like the Replica-1 and even the Apple Newton PDA — which still has an active user group! Finally, Steve Jobs is appearing in all kinds of icons, from e-waste portraits to unlickable postage stamps. When will Woz get the recognition he deserves?

Click past the jump for links mentioned in this episode.

Introduction (0:00 – 10:10)

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Convention corrections for July 2013 episode

Posted on by Ken Gagne

We hope everyone has enjoyed listening to the July episode of Open Apple. Unfortunately, we got a few facts wrong during the “II News” segment of that show. Since some of the affected events will be occurring before our August show airs, we want to issue the following two corrections immediately.

First, we discussed that none of the show’s hosts or guests would be attending Vintage Computer Festival Southwest 3.0. It turned out there’s a good reason for that: VCF Southwest 3.0 is not being held. VCF SW 3.0 occurred in August 2012, and there is no VCF SW 4.0. We did not realize that the information we were referring to was a year old. Our apologies to anyone we misled into thinking there is a retrocomputing event in Arlington, Texas, next month, when there is in fact none. Any Open Apple listeners who nonetheless try to attend will find little to report. Thanks to Michael Sternberg and David Greelish for the heads-up.

Second, OzKFest is occurring exactly as detailed in our episode, but we want to give credit where due. Andrew Roughan has done a great job promoting OzKFest, and as a result of his marketing efforts, we have associated his name with the event — but, as he points out, he is not the prime coordinator. OzKFest would not be possible without the leadership of Steven Kazoullis and the assistance of Alex Lukacz and Jon Co, as detailed on the site’s “About Us” page. Organizing such a gathering is a great undertaking, and every contributor deserves to be acknowledged.

Fun fact: OzKFest is being held in Brisbane — specifically, Kurilpa Hall. And Mt. Keira Fest, the gathering of Apple II users in 2009, was named after its venue, which also began with a ‘K’. That makes OzKFest the second Australian ‘K’ Fest!

We apologize for these oversights and extend our thanks to our eagle-eared listeners for keeping us accurate.

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

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

Posted on by Ken Gagne

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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 #27 (May 2013): Daniel Kruszyna, demoparties, iSteve, and clones

Posted on by Ken Gagne

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Resistance - Apple IIgsThis month on Open Apple, Mike and Ken chat with famed demo programmer Daniel Kruszyna, aka krüe. We chat about @party, the upcoming fourth annual demoparty to be held in recently beleaguered Boston, and how even non-programmers will find plenty to like. The first of three movies based on the life of Steve Jobs is now available for free online streaming — what’s the popular verdict on iSteve? There’s still more CFFAs coming from Rich Dreher, and they’ll work on even an original Apple-1, of which Mike Willegal is making yet more replicas. Speaking of clones, we found a “Redstone” Apple IIe clone in Australia that looks like a PC XT and is certainly no Tiger Learning Computer.

Click past the jump for links mentioned in this episode.

Introduction (0:13 – 4:56)

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

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

Posted on by Ken Gagne

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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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Open Apple #20 (Oct 2012): Ewen Wannop, Spectrum, the next Apple II, and Mac Mini

Open Apple #20 (Oct 2012): Ewen Wannop, Spectrum, the next Apple II, and Mac Mini

Posted on by Ken Gagne

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Ewen Wannop

This month on Open Apple, Mike and Ken chat with Ewen Wannop, British programmer of 16-bit telecommunications programs such as Spectrum, SAM, SNAP, and SAFE. The hosts share feedback galore from the last episode and contemplate how to record a live show. After catching up on some headlines from last month, we plow forward, celebrating the return of an interactive fiction publication and grumbling that even beginner IF can be as obscure as the medium is infamous for. The September 2012 issue of Juiced.GS just shipped, and with it, a look at what features a hypothetical System 7.0 operating system would include. Is it reasonable to consider that a software upgrade warrants a hardware bump, and what the next model of Apple II would look like? Photos of Steve Jobs in his natural habitat show an Apple stronghold as Spartan as ever, but you can decorate yours with Melissa Barron’s screenprints from Etsy. There’s a Disk II floppy drive on eBay that holds within it a working Mac mini — a cool hack, but is it worth a cool grand? We question the value of purchasing free software on eBay and marvel at everything from lighters to thumb drives in the shape of an Apple II.

Click past the jump for links mentioned in this episode.

Introduction (0:00 – 13:08)

Continue reading “Open Apple #20 (Oct 2012): Ewen Wannop, Spectrum, the next Apple II, and Mac Mini” →