Daniel Kruszyna today announced the released of a disk of Apple II music called ‘Drift’.  The artists who contributed to the collection are Daniel, Antoine Vignau,Wade Clarke and Melissa Barron.  Visit this page for more information, or download the emulator-ready disk image here.

 

The attempt to rescue the Apple II Prince of Persia source code from Jordan Mechner’s original diskettes is scheduled to happen today.  Digital archivist and indy doc filmmaker extraordinaire Jason Scott volunteered to fly out to California today to make the magic, and also conscripted 16sector’s Tony Diaz to assist.  You can read up on the background at Jordan’s blog and then follow the live, blow-by-blow action on Twitter with the #sourcecode hash tag.

Update:  Due to the continuing popularity of Jake Gyllenhaal’s recent movie, the PoP source code rescue project is now live-tweeting under the #popsource hash tag. (HT Ken Gagne).

Over at Time.com, Technologizer’s Harry McCracken has listed 14 great celebration ideas to commemorate the 35th birthday of the Apple II.  Our favorite?  #13: Attend KansasFest!  Also worth a read: Harry’s 35th Anniversary Tribute to Apple’s First Iconic Product.  And check out the photo gallery while you’re there.

(HT Ken Gagne)

Before Prince of Persia, before even Karateka propelled him to game developer stardom, Jordan Mechner wrote Deathbounce — a game similar (maybe too similar) to the arcade smash-hit Asteroids.

Your ‘ship’ must shoot bouncing balls and avoid colliding with them to survive. Only your quick reflexes, trigger finger and an energy shield stand between you and wave after wave of intense balls to the walls action.

Written in 1982, Mechner’s Deathbounce featured simulated physics and animation that were quite challenging to program at the time. You can get a .DSK image suitable for use in your favorite Apple II emulator at Jordan Mechner’s site.

(HT Ken Gagne)

Update: Jack’s passing has been confirmed.

Jack Tramiel, founder of Commodore Portable Typewriter Company which later became Commodore Business Machines and then Commodore International, has reportedly died.  Though the major news services have yet to pick up on it, posts are beginning to appear on the popular Atari boards and on Twitter.  Tramiel at one point was interested in buying the young Apple Computer, Inc but the deal fell through.  Jack resigned from Commodore in 1984 and later that year, purchased a controlling interest in the Atari home computer and gaming divisions of Warner Communications.

An odd bit of trivia: though both Woz and Tramiel were early movers and shakers in the industry, and their companies were direct competitors in the home computer market, the two didn’t meet until 2007.

The April 2012 episode of Open Apple, the Apple II community’s only co-hosted podcast, is now available.

This month, our hosts chat with world video game record holder and Apple II game critic Brian Picchi, whose YouTube channel showcases the best and worst of Apple II entertainment. It’s a good time to be a convention-goer: registration has opened for KansasFest 2012, the lineup for Vintage Computer Festival East 8.0 has been announced, 8 Bit Weapon played at the Smithsonian’s opening of the Art of Video Games, and Jordan Mechner is keynoting PAX East. Kickstarter continues to be popular for reviving classic franchises, Ewen Wannop updates SNAP and SAFE on a shoestring budget, and Jordan Mechner unearths his Prince of Persia source code. On eBay, we found a rarer-than-the-Apple-1 copy of Akalabeth on cassette, a rare Apple IIGS-specific wristwatch, and a potential CFFA3000 scalper. Finally, we look at some gadgets that are new to us, including old iPads, new iPads, and DSLR cameras.

Find the show on the Open Apple Web site or in iTunes or the Zune marketplace.

Howard Cantin is the artist who laid out the PCB designs for the Apple-1 and the first Apple IIs, as well as several early Atari products for Nolan Bushnell.  Mike Willegal, creator of the Brain Board and the Mimeo 1 Apple-1 replica kit (among other things), interviewed Cantin by phone yesterday.  While the conversation wasn’t recorded or transcribed, Mike has posted extensive notes on his blog.  Definitely worth a read if you’re interested in the design of very early Apple boards.

Volume 17, Issue 1 (May 2012) of Juiced.GS, the longest-running Apple II publication in print, has been mailed to all subscribers. This issue features interviews with Jason Scott, David Greelish, Andrew Plotkin, Stephen Emond, Vince Briel, and others for whom crowdfunding sites like Kickstarter can help bringing retrocomputing projects to life. Also included are reviews of the book The Complete Historically Brewed and 8 Bit Weapon’s DMS Drummer software; an interview with AppleWorks legend Randy Brandt; the first in a three-part series on programming in Logo; and much, much more!

This is Juiced.GS‘s first quarterly issue of 2012. Hardcopy subscriptions are available at $19 for United States customers and $27 for international customers, with several free sample issues available as PDFs.

From Ewen’s comp.sys.apple2 post:

“After extensive feedback from testers, I have made many minor changes to SNAP, and fixed some bugs in SAFE2.   SNAP 1.1.3, and SAFE2 2.2.5, have been uploaded to my server at http://www.wannop.info/speccie 

“Please read the Change.List & Version.History files in the archives for more details. 

“Cheers – Ewen” 

(HT: Sean Fahey)

Jordan Mechner announced on his blog today that after years of searching, the original Apple II source code for Prince of Persia has finally been located.  You can read the details of the discovery here.