Volume 15, Issue 4 (December 2010) of Juiced.GS, the longest-running Apple II publication in print, shipped today to all subscribers. This issue features an interview with Apple II retailer and collector Wayne Bibbens, who was featured in the documentary Welcome to Macintosh; an analysis of technologies introduced in the failed Apple III that were more successfully deployed in the Apple II; a comprehensive guide to accessing ProDOS disks on modern computers, and how to convert those volumes to disk images; a behind-the-scenes look at the creation of Ivan Drucker’s Slammer; and a tale of two detectives puzzling over a programming problem.

This is Juiced.GS‘s fourth quarterly issue of 2010. The entire 2010 volume is now available as a bundle; 2011 subscriptions are available for $19 for United States customers and $26 for international customers.

KANSAS CITY, MO — December 17, 2010 — Bob Bishop, co-founder of Apple's R&D lab, will be the keynote speaker at KansasFest 2011. Bob is part of the early history of the Apple computer and has developed numerous commercial software titles, worked side-by-side with Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, written a book on assembly language programming, and published articles in most Apple II magazines. Bob has lived what most of us only dream about, and he has the stories to prove it.

In 1976, Dr. Bishop knocked on Steve Jobs' door and ended up owning an Apple I. Soon, he bought one of the first Apple II computers. A few months later, the first graphical Apple II games, like Rocket Pilot and Star Wars, came from Bob's keyboard before Apple had even finished the documentation. Later, Bob brought speech to the personal computer with Apple-Talker and Apple-Listener. In 1978, Bob and Steve Wozniak founded Apple's research and development division. His program Apple-Vision was included on DOS 3.3 master disks, demonstrating the audio and video capabilities of the Apple II. Even after retiring in 1981, he continued using, programming, and writing about the entire Apple II line.

The stories do not end with the Apple II. Bob has hosted a radio show using the "Mr. Logic" personality, written essays, founded a comic book club, designed a computer programming language, and written online riddles. Alas, Bob has not yet founded the fanciful "Subroutine Shack" stores "for supplying software components." Today, he lives in California, still "plays with computers," and laments that his Web site is forever under construction.

KansasFest 2011, the 22nd annual Apple II conference, is set for July 19th through July 24th at Rockhurst University in Kansas City, Missouri. KansasFest was originally hosted by Resource Central and has been brought to you by the KFest Committee since 1995. Any and all Apple II users, fans, and friends are invited to attend this year's event. Registration details will be announced on the KansasFest Web site in early 2011. For photos, schedules, and presentations from past year's events, please visit the event's official Web site at http://www.kansasfest.org/

CONTACT:
KansasFest 2011
http://www.kansasfest.org/
http://twitter.com/kansasfest/

Brutal Deluxe has made available the last three issues of Apple’s Contact newsletter from 1978 and 1979, as well as the 32-page Best of Contact ’78. The Apple Bibliography on page 30 is filled with classic early article references on the Apple II, such as:

Wozniak, Stephen, “Sweet 16: the 6502 Dream Machine”, Byte 2, No. 11, pp 150-159 (Nov. 1977), and

Bishop, Robert J. “The Remarkable Apple II”, Kilobaud Issue 23 (Oct., 1978)

FTA‘s browser plugin ActiveGS is a front-end based on the Apple IIgs emulator Kegs, running on Windows and Mac OS X. Version 3.2.619 was released on December 6th and includes adjustments to the emulator speed, screen shot function and various other fixes.

Matt Barton (author of the excellent book Dungeons and Desktops, a history of computer role-playing games) interviewed famed Apple II programmer and game developer Rebecca Heineman as part of his popular Matt Chat series. The interview is broken into four parts with possibly one more to come. Becky discusses Bard’s Tale, Dragon Wars, Tass Times in Tonetown, Wizardry, and the early days of the gaming industry.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5

Iconic phreaker John “Captain Crunch” Draper needs an emergency laminectomy to repair damage that has left his hands and arms in painful, near-paralysis. Without surgical intervention, the nerves will deteriorate and the paralysis may become permanent.

Unfortunately, the expense of the surgery is beyond John’s immediate means. He needs help covering the costs of the procedure and has appealed to the community for help. A site has been created to accept donations on John’s behalf so that he can receive treatment.

I encourage you to check out Christopher Mims’s blog entry about Captain Crunch and the overall situation, and if you can, donate something to help John out. Thank you.

After a brief hiatus, the Echoes of KFest podcast is back with more great historical content from the world’s premiere Apple II convention.

Three Four recordings from Resource Central’s catalog, which was recently reclassified under a Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution License, have been digitized by Steve Weyhrich and made available as podcasts. Each episode is a different session from KansasFest 1992, featuring the tales and insights of Tom Weishaar, Roger Wagner, Steve Disbrow, Silas Warner, and more.

The first episode was published this weekend, with another coming each of the following Saturdays. The show is available at KansasFest.org or via iTunes.