Tony Diaz has finally revealed 16 Sector to the Apple II community. As previously teased and hinted at, 16 Sector will soon be selling CompactFlash-based Focus drives, Sirius 8MB RAM cards for the Apple IIGS, the “Triple Play” slot 7 expansion card and a as yet unnamed external switchable slot chassis with room for six cards.

Update: At last check (May 15th, 7:30a A2Central time) the site had been rolled back to its former ambiguous presentation. It’s possible a few glitches turned up, and Tony is tweaking the site.

Chris Smolinski of Black Cat Systems has released Sara 0.5.0, the only known Apple III emulator in existence. The BCS site contains a link to the required ROM and a collection of disk images to get you going.

The Apple III was supposed to be the successor to the Apple II, but bad marketing decisions, engineering flaws and continued strong sales of the Apple II eventually doomed the Apple III line. It does have limited Apple II compatibility, so it wasn’t all bad. The Apple III, and III Plus did find their niche in some places, and even today, enjoy a dedicated retro-computing following. Apple III collectors love their machines.

This release is a Universal Binary for Mac OS X.

Something very cool for the Apple 1 fan who wishes they had a FP BASIC — a “lite” variant of Applesoft (sans graphics, cassette I/O) has been ported by Tom “Cowgod” Greene. The thread discussing it can be found on Vince Briel’s Replica 1 support site.

Update: Tom has added a Applesoft BASIC “lite” project page to his site.

I thought this development too important to be part of a quickie; that it deserved its own post. Apple 1 Forever!

Over at AppleFritter, SteveH has posted preliminary information and screenshots (pic 1, pic 2) of his FPGA-based Apple II, using Altium’s new NanoBoard II. Emulating an Apple II in FPGA isn’t new, but this project has slots and the potential for interfacing with actual Apple II peripheral cards.

R&D Automation has shipped their first batch of 25 (out of approximately 200) CFFA cards featuring the new v2.0 firmware. Included with it are a 16MB CF card, a flash application for upgrading (or downgrading) firmware and the manual on compact disc. The next batch of CFFA cards are expected to ship on May 12th, 2008.

Andy Buddenbaum of the Netherlands has put together a Flickr site showing off his Apple II collection. Check out the interesting case mods. [Link fixed]

The LittlePower IIe is now available from ReactiveMicro.com for a reasonable $35 USD.

While perusing Tom’s site for info on his Applesoft “lite” project, I noticed he has a few other nifty things to share. Take a look at his Apple II style audio for the Replica 1 using a modified version of Electric Duet, plus his impressive collection of old Apple DOS versions and vintage Apple cassette-ware.

Gerry Doire has been diligently recreating the legendary Apple ][ Reference Manual, commonly known as The Red Book, for its 30th anniversary. His handiwork is available as a PDF file at ReactiveMicro.com and Steven Weyhrich’s Apple II History.

Download the Apple ][ Reference Manual v2 from ReactiveMicro

Download the Apple ][ Reference Manual v2 from Apple II History

Scanned copies of the Red Book exist, but like the original, they can be difficult to read. The original material was produced on 1970’s era copier, typewriter and dot-matrix printing equipment so legibility isn’t all that great in some places. Program listings are particularly eye-strain inducing. Gerry has been recreating those listings, along with the rest of the Red Book’s contents, making it easier to read.

The Red Book is famous because it was included with the earliest Apple ][ computers. It contained an array of technical data and schematics that helped establish Apple’s reputation for being an “open” and easy to program computer.

In the late 1970’s, a new trend was emerging — programmers and hardware developers often had to license rights to, or buy expensive proprietary technical documents to get access to a computer platform’s inner workings. Sometimes, the computer manufacturer wanted a slice of the developer’s income for anything produced and sold based on the privilege of accessing that information.

In contrast, the Red Book embodied Steve Wozniak’s personal philosophy of openly sharing technical information, which helped the Apple ][ platform gain developers and market share. The Red Book, like the Apple itself, invited experimentation.

Original copies of the Red Book are sought after by collectors, often selling on eBay for $40 USD or more depending on condition.

Ullrich von Bassewitz has announced cc65 version 2.12.0 is now available for download. cc65 is a very capable cross-development C compiler, with tools and utilities for coding with 65(C)02 and related processors.

Ullrich’s full announcement is attached.

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Now that registration is officially open, the KansasFest Committee is asking for session ideas and presenters. Sessions are 30-60 minute topics covering almost anything Apple II-related (we’ve also had Mac, Windows and *NIX too). Everyone who is planning to present sessions or product demonstrations is asked to submit a proposal and get on the schedule as soon as possible.

Attendees are also invited to suggest session topics. Let the KFest Committee know what you’d like to learn and discuss by sending e-mail to sessions@kfest.org. We’ve had some wonderful sessions in the past, let’s keep it up in 2008.

Benjamin Heckendorn’s Apple IIGS laptop inspired a lot of buzz in the Apple II Community, so it was only a matter of time before someone else started a similar project. James is documenting his progress, and posting pictures of each step.

Peter Khienslein announced via comp.sys.apple2, information and a schematic for an easy to build PS/2 keyboard adapter for the Apple II that he’s recently developed. Thank you for sharing your project with the Apple II Community, Peter.

The Williamette Apple Connection (WAC) Archive hosted by Call-A.P.P.L.E. has been revised. The WAC site contains newsletters, and over 600 disk images of Apple II content from 1987 through 1994. I think this is great, and wish more of these user group collections were being made available online.

Ferdinand Meyer-Hermann is working on an Apple II VGA card (PCB and sample pics) that can accurately display Apple II 80 column text and color graphics on modern VGA monitors. The card seems to be aimed predominately at the 8-bit crowd, as it does not support any of the higher resolution IIGS video modes. If you’re an 8-bit fan, gamer or just want to get rid of your composite monitor, this is a project you’ll want to follow.

Henry S. Courbis of ReactiveMicro.com has posted news that their clone of the Apple 3.5 “SuperDrive” Controller (pic) is now in beta testing, thanks to the support of the project’s investor Anthony Martino of UltimateApple2.com. As of the time of this post, pricing had not yet been announced, but a small production run is in the works, with product availability expected by KansasFest (mid-July).

The SuperDrive controller supports double density Apple 3.5 drives (not the UniDisk 3.5), and high density Apple SuperDrives which are commonly used on older 68K Macs. It is compatible with the Apple IIGS and enhanced Apple //e.

The Apple 3.5 Controller can be expensive, and somewhat difficult for the average Apple II user to acquire as they are uncommonly rare and coveted by Apple II power users. If ReactiveMicro’s cloning project is successful, more people will be able to utilize 3.5 drives, especially Apple //e users.

Congratulations to ReactiveMicro, and our thanks go out to Anthony Martino for backing the project.

KansasFest — the annual Apple II expo of sessions, contests, great stories, tips and tricks, fun and games, and things that “just can’t be done on an Apple II” — is now open for registration. KFest is scheduled to be held July 22-27, 2008, at Rockhurst University in Kansas City, Missouri. Lane Roathe, former managing editor at Softdisk, will be the keynote speaker.

Prices for this year’s KFest are unchanged since 2007. You may sign up at the official KFest Web page. The online form will output a PDF that you can print and mail to InTrec with your check or money order. The form also offers the option to pay online via PayPal. In that case, when you submit your payment and receive your completed PDF, so too will InTrec, automatically; no further steps are necessary!

Please enjoy KFest’s new online registration, and join the event’s mailing list for pre-show planning and chatter.

It’s been done before, but not like this! Check out Benjamin Heckendorn’s Apple IIGS laptop. This is the most beautiful and amazing one of a kind hack I’ve ever seen done on an Apple II. You have to see it in this YouTube video to believe it.

Like every other Apple II fanatic on the planet, I’m envious and I want one. Badly.

Joshua Bell, an employee of Linden Lab, creators of the virtual world Second Life, has posted to YouTube a demonstration of a program he’s written that streams video from a Windows machine to an Apple IIc. The specific program he’s streaming is Second Life, which appears on the Apple II monitor shortly after its original display on Windows.

The process requires no custom Apple II software and only a USB to RS-232 Adapter for additional hardware. Though the communication is one-way and offers no interactivity on the Apple II end, it is nonetheless an impressive display of a modern application for a vintage computer and is perhaps a sign of things to come.

Andy Kessler of Tech Ticker recently recorded a video interview with Steve Wozniak about the early days of personal computing:

We were gonna have machines that could out-calculate our companies’ huge million-dollar computers, and we the programmers … were gonna change the world with revolutionized education. We always spoke of the word “revolution” — all these big social changes we were going to bring … I wanted to help it happen. What I had to offer was my technical talents. I could build machines for these other people who wanted to use machines to better humanity … I thought, why don’t I design a computer from the ground up [with] every optimization where you save parts and you make things work, do more jobs than they did, work faster… and I added my color idea. The Apple II was this hot design that I came up with.

Henry S. Courbis of ReactiveMicro.com recently posted pictures of the EDD Plus clone he’s working on. The card is currently in testing, and looks very promising. Check out Henry’s product news for all the latest details.

If you find the EDD Plus intriguing, you can learn all about it at Dave Touvell’s Apple2Info.net where you can also download a copy of the Essential Data Duplicator software (necessary to utilize the EDD Plus), schematics, source code… all the essentials you might say, pun intended.

Everyone has their favorite operating system, and the holy wars among each camp continue indefinitely. Among the modern candidates — Mac OS X, Linux, Windows XP, and Windows Vista — one OS is conspicuously absent: GS/OS. Ken Gagne offers five reasons why this 16-bit, 15-year-old operating system is superior to Vista and Mac OS X.

Bill Martens of Call-A.P.P.L.E. posted via usenet newsgroup comp.sys.apple2 that the Beagle Bros Software Repository has been reorganized and updated with a new modern look.

Bill’s original post is attached.

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