WarGames | Open Apple

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Now for something completely different. We have a bit of a gap between shows here on Open Apple, due to the timing of some interviews we have lined up. Rather than keep you waiting, we thought we’d try something wacky.

In this “episode” of Open Apple, Quinn and Mike sit down together and watch The Goldbergs. This is a sitcom airing on ABC that is garnering some critical acclaim. In particular, we watched episode 4 in season 2, entitled “Shall We Play a Game?”. This episode features an Apple II+ prominently throughout the show, including terrific shots of games and applications you will definitely recognize. The producers did their homework, and showed the platform genuine love and respect. It’s a very prominent feature of this episode, so we thought it might be fun to talk about it.

The format of this episode is rather like a DVD commentary track. However, we can’t legally include any audio or video of the show in the podcast, so you’ll need to set that up yourself. Queue up the episode of the show on your DVR, Hulu, or whatever other method you care to use, and listen to the podcast while you watch. We’ll tell you when to start playback of the show. We watched a version of the show with no commercials, so be sure and pause the podcast during breaks if you need to. We start watching at the opening line, “Growing up, my mom was many things…”. Fair warning- the podcast by itself will not make much sense if you aren’t watching along with us!

For best results, we recommend a commercial-free version of the episode. See the show notes after the jump for some options.

We have no idea if this experiment is going to work for anyone, but we like to push the cutting edge of 30yo platforms here on Open Apple. Let us know what you think of this half-show. We probably won’t do it again, unless another TV show happens to spend half its screen time on an Apple II, but you never know. Stay tuned for the “real” November episode of Open Apple coming soon!

More information on The Goldbergs after the jump.

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:45:03 — 58.8MB) | Embed

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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