Antoine Vignau and Olivier Zardini’s Brutal Deluxe Software site has a huge collection of Apple program cassettes. In addition to over 230 Apple II tapes, they have just added 15 Apple I cassettes. Pictures and audio extracts are provided. And we thought floppies were old school…

Donald Lee covers Apple II games in his monthly Apple II Incider column for Retrogaming Times. This month he looks at Mario Bros. In recent past issues he has paid tribute to Joe Kohn and covered games such as Thexder, Lode Runner, Uninvited, Spy Hunter, Marble Madness, California Games, Computer Baseball, and many more. Retrogaming Times has been published online since 1997, quite a feat!

A relatively new iPhone app called iBASIC from AkeySoft Group brings several old Apple II games to the iPhone. Included are eight EAMON adventures, Life, Lemonade Stand, Hamurabi, and StarTrek. These are all text based games written in BASIC from the late 1970s to early 1980s.

The latest version 1.1 adds “the Apple DOS 3.3 command handler for BASIC programs, so that adventure games like EAMON can use DOS commands to access files like maps and other elements.” iBASIC is $1.99; there’s also a free version called iBASIC Lite.

The KansasFest 2009 schedule filled up so quickly that we’re giving you an early chance to submit your sessions for 2010!

While the evenings and nights of KansasFest are renowned for their spontaneity, the mornings and afternoons are reserved for sessions spanning a variety of uses, extensions, and applications of the Apple II family. Just as varied as these sessions are the good people who volunteer to present them. If you have a topic you’d like to present, fill out the session proposal form.

Or do you have a topic you would like to see presented, even if you aren’t the one to do it? Email us your idea.

Past sessions have included hardware, software and game demonstrations and tutorials; integration of the Apple II with other devices; emulators; programming; Apple II history; or any subject that would be of interest to Apple II users. We are especially interested in, and priority will be given to, sessions that focus on Apple II-related topics. If we have room in the schedule, we also love Mac, iPhone and a stray Windows or UNIX session or two.

Sessions are typically 30 to 60 minutes in length and are held at various times throughout the daytime hours.

If you’ve never done a session and would like ideas for topics or formats, check out our archive of past presentations.

TouchArcade reports that the 1982 Apple II game Transylvania has been ported to the iPhone, complete with the original graphics!

KansasFest committee member Ken Gagne was recently interviewed on the RetroMacCast podcast, where he talks about how he got involved with the event, what traditions keep him coming back every year, and how KansasFest differs from the Macworld Expo. Episode #121 is available at the above page or via iTunes.

If you haven’t already signed up for KansasFest, the world’s premiere Apple II convention, then there’s a special deal just for you! Head on over to KansasFest.org for details.

With just under six weeks until Xanadu, er, I mean KFest, it’s time to put out another appeal for sessions!

The session list is growing nicely (see below) but we certainly need more. If you are registered or thinking of registering we hope you can share your Apple II knowledge with the rest of us. Surely there’s a topic of interest that you could talk about, maybe a favorite Apple II program, game or hardware product?

We have a request for a session on how to restore an Apple II to good condition, especially how to remove yellowing. Would anyone like to demo the Retr0Bright method for getting rid of the yellow discoloration?

Here’s what we already have on tap for this year:
– Apple II Programming Q&A
– Apple IIgs Toolbox Programming Basics
– New Syndicomm products
– Carte Blanche product demo
– Dancing with the Woz
– Juiced.GS focus group
– Apple II gaming
– A look back at the Apple IIgs demo scene
– The new iPhone 3.0
– Building your own Apple I clone
– Softdisk fun

Sign up to do a session at:

http://www.kfest.org/sessions

Feel free to request a topic you would like to see covered. Maybe someone else will step up and agree to do it.

Although the sixth and final run of Rich Dreher’s compact flash card for the Apple II is sold out, the CFFA project may get a new lease on life. He is considering whether to produce an advanced CFFA card offering dual floppy disk drive emulation support. He writes, “This would allow a new CFFA card to handle both ProDOS and any other OS that can run from the floppy drives, like DOS 3.3. This would also include protected games as long as a nibblized image could be made.”

Rich is asking for folks interested in such a card to contact him.

Computerworld.com has a feature on Ben Heckendorn, who last year created a laptop Apple IIGS. Though that particular machine is not the focus of the article, it does look at Heckendorn’s background, design philosophy, and the variety of machines he’s modified, from Atari 2600 to Xbox 360.

The full transcript of the Heckendorn interview featured in the above article was the cover story for the December 2008 issue of Juiced.GS.

Alex Lee has posted a lengthy review of Rich Dreher’s CFFA card on his Apple IIgs web site. It includes a step-by-step guide to setting up the card.