Before the report, some overlooked housekeeping… During the keynote, Lane Roathe gave everyone who wanted one, a CD-ROM with a bunch of his old software, source code and other interesting stuff. I have Lane’s permission to share the contents of the disc with the world, so I copied everything into a ZIP file which you can download here. Also, Lane said he is actively trying to get Dark Castle for the GS reclassified as freeware, and make it’s source code available.
Michael Mahon has allowed A2Central to share his PowerPoint slides from his AppleCrate demonstration (which I can’t help but go on and on about — it’s really an awesome hack). You can download the PPT file here.
Some pictures from Henry Courbis have been posted.
And now for Friday’s events! Margaret Anderson gave an intro to Hypercard session, going over the basics of composing a stack, layout etc. I’m still impressed by Hypercard, and how much it reminds me of the early web (circa 1996) interfaces.
Next up, Geoff Weiss gave us a technical introduction to the ZFS file system that has been introduced in products like the lastest Apple Xserve line. The network engineers and system administrators in the group found that especially useful.
Tony Diaz took the floor to give everyone a tour of 16 Sector and to talk about the availability of Sirius 8MB RAM cards, Focus controllers with compact flash adapters and other upcoming projects. It was also announced that Sirius cards would soon ship with a new RAM tester program written by Geoff Weiss, which he’s named MegaMemoryTester.
After lunch, Steve Weyhrich was back digitizing again, but this time with music and audio files.
Ryan Suenaga and Tony Diaz teamed up to demo “teathering”, or how to use your cell phone’s high speed internet with you laptop, or other mobile device utilizing various gadgets like the CradlePoint router to set up your own wireless hotspots.
The last official session was provided by Eric Shepherd, who introduced us to programming the Apple iPhone.
We had another nice banquet this year, and several prizes were given away. The fact that we have prizes to give away at all is due to the tireless efforts of one man, Howard Katz. Unfortunately, Howard’s schedule prevented him from joining us this year and he was greatly missed. Thanks Howard, for all your efforts. Tony insists that you personally deliver the prizes in person next year. No exceptions!
A2RetroSystems generously donated an UtherNet card for our grand prize drawing. Everyone got a ticket… and our winner is Jim O’Reilly! Congratulations Jim, and a BIG THANKS to A2RetroSystems for helping out with KansasFest!
Later, the gang made the annual trip out to the Apple Store, but this time we went to the Leawood location which is larger than the Country Club Plaza Store we usually go to. We did our part to stimulate the local economy by picking up some gear. One of the employees noticed we came in as a group and soon found out we were an Apple II enthusiast group. Minutes later, the manager came out with a box of 30 t-shirts left over from their grand opening and gave them to us for free. That pretty much guarantees we’ll be going back to Leawood next year. The staff at Apple Leawood were awesome.
The last bit of the evening was spent eating Krispy Kreme donuts (thanks Ryan!) and watching a RiffTrax of Independance Day. If you like Mystery Science Theater 3000, then you get what it’s like.
I cut out early to join a late night Steak & Shake run, then it was back to the dorms for some late (or early morning) yakking. I finally went to bed around 3:30am.