Tonight Syndicomm released ImageMaker 2.2, the latest version of the disk image creation software for the Apple IIgs. The new version improves support for imaging 5.25″ disks, handles I/O errors better, and adds support for the .po image format.

Rich Dreher has received the parts necessary to build his 3rd run of CFFA cards. He also plans to mail out the 30 upgrades for exisiting card owners that previously contacted him. His site now recommends Andy McFadden’s CiderPress program for backing up your CompactFlash card.

Syndicomm today released a public beta of SideClick, a contextual menu manager for the Apple IIgs. With SideClick installed, applications, inits, and other programs can easily add items to a contextual menu that’s reached by control-clicking on the screen, or by right-clicking if you have a two-button mouse. SideClick is freeware.

Vince Briel has donated a Replica 1 computer (the popular Apple 1 recreation) to be given away at the Vintage Computer Festival on November 6th and 7th.

The latest version of this multi-platform Apple IIgs emulator focuses on improved joystick support, adds a keypad joystick, adds floating bus support, and fixes many bugs, some of which offer better animation and demo support.Here is a list of changes since the last public release (v0.86):

Changes in KEGS v0.90 since v0.89 (10/19/04)

• Make Keypad Joystick the default joystick emulation.
• Fix timezone calculation on Mac OS X for central time zone.
• Fix handling of long paths in config panel, reported by David Scruffham.
• Always call joystick_init at startup.
• Fix F2 keymappings for X Windows, to fix some issue reported by David Wilson.
• Fixed some documentation issues reported by David Wilson.
• Fixed a bug in joystick_driver.c reported by Doug Mitton.
• Add README.a2.compatibility to discuss known issues with programs.
  

• Make old mouse button presses disappear after .5 seconds.
• Add Keypad Joystick, along with configuration menu choices to enable it. The keypad numbers move the joystick to the indicated direction, with chording allowing in-between values. The keypad ‘0′ is button 0 and keypad ‘1′ is button 1.
• Also add jostick scaling factor and trim adjustment.
• Allow user to increase keyboard and mouse scan rate to 240Hz from 60Hz for some better game response.
  

• Add configuration setting to debug halt on code red halts. Also add configuration mode (on by default) to shadow text page 2 on ROM 01, which is an enhancement over a real IIgs.
• Handle mac binary header on images. Handle compressed .po images.
• Fix refresh rate to 59.923Hz from 60Hz so that exactly 17030 1MHz cycles pass in one screen refresh period.
• Enhance trace-to-file function to also write out data values stored using the Data_log info.
• Debugger adds memory move and memory compare functions.
• Support “floating bus” where reading certain $C0xx locations returns the current video data. This allows Bob Bishop’s split-screen demos to run and enables Drol’s between-level animations to work fully.
  

• Remove all of Jonathan Kalbfeld’s and Gilles Tschopp’s contributions. All of Solaris audio is removed.
• Fix config screen not drawing correctly if emulator was currently displaying video page 2.
• Fix STP instruction.
• Fix mouse-joystick which was halving the Y dimension.

Version 2.0.1 of CiderPress has been released by faddenSoft. A couple of bugs related to printing and CP/M disk handling were squished.

Lyle Syverson has posted the October, 2004 issue of The Lamp!, the monthly distillation of the best posts from the Apple II forum on Syndicomm Online.

The seventh Vintage Computer Festival is scheduled to take place on November 6 and 7 at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California. The annual event hosts several speakers, as well as exhibits of classic computer hardware and software, and provides space for vendors to sell their wares.

faddenSoft’s CiderPress Apple II disk image and file archive utility has been updated to an impressive version 2.0. New features include support for writing to DOS 3.2, ProDOS, and Pascal disk images, copy and paste of files, support for CompactFlash cards formatted by the CompactFlash Adapter for Apple II card, Apple partitioned hard disks and CD-ROM media (such as those created by the Macintosh and Apple II), support for physical media including CD-ROM, floppy disk, and hard disk, a volume copier, a new and improved file viewer, a Universal Disk Image properties editor, and much more!

Syndicomm today began accepting renewals for Juiced.GS magazine on its online store web site. The U.S. subscription rate has been reduced to $17, while the international subscription rate has been cut to $25.Juiced.GS is a quarterly journal covering all aspects of the Apple II, including how-to articles, programming techniques, using popular software, and reviews of software and hardware, as well as general news. It is the only remaining print publication for Apple II enthusiasts.