From Antoine Vignau’s post at comp.sys.apple2 on August 17:

Graffidisk is a new kind of software for the Apple II. Its limit is your imagination: enter text or draw a GR picture on your Apple II and let Graffidisk tag your 5.25″ floppy disks. See the results of your piece of art with John Morris’ Applesauce. Share with your friends!

You can check it out here.

(With apologies to Leo Laporte…) Packing and readying for a move across town has kept me from getting started here as soon as I’d like, but that’s coming to an end so I thought I’d kick things off with a summary of all the Apple II goings-on I could find, in the last week or so:

Software updates! Windows-based emulator AppleWin, and Dennis Molony’s Apple II Disk Browser saw new versions recently released (hat tip to Call APPLE for those items).

Michael Packard has officially announced OidZone for Apple II-family computers.

Thomas Harte’s MIT-licensed emulator Clock Signal now emulates the IIe.

Jeff Ramsey invites you to play his server-based Zork I setup on your Apple II. Just telnet over to zork.retroadventures.net, port 6502 and login with the username zork and password 2018Zork.

Did you get on the waitlist for one of John Morris’s Applesauce devices?

VCF West 2018 happened this weekend. Hackaday has some great coverage.

… and I’m sure plenty more 8-bit Apple IIish goodness happened elsewhere, but that’s all I have time for right now. See you soon!

Update: IIGS developer Ewen Wannop reached out to us and let us know the item mentioning the update work on SNAP was inaccurate. We have removed the paragraph and apologize sincerely to Ewen and our readers for the error.

A new version of Marinetti, the implementation of TCP/IP for the Apple IIgs, is now publicly available.

The previous public announcement of a release of Marinetti was 3.0b3 in 2006. Since then there have been several bug fix versions that have not been made widely available. In 2014, the then-latest build, 3.0b8, was made available to Uthernet owners. That version included some debug code that was left in the build to assist with bug reporting. This latest release removes that debug code to improve performance. There are no other functional changes. While this software is still officially classed as ‘beta’ software, it has been extensively tested. It is highly recommended that existing users of 3.0b3 and 3.0b8 upgrade to this version.

Marinetti 3.0b9 can be downloaded from the Marinetti homepage, or the a2RetroSystems website where it is available as a disk image that can be mounted in an emulator or a disk emulation device like the CFFA. The disk image includes the original Marinetti 3.0b1 installer for new installations if necessary and a replacement Init which contains the latest changes. Ewen Wannop’s latest Uthernet link layers are also provided.

Marinetti was originally written by Richard Bennett in 1996 and was subsequently released as an open-source project. It is now maintained by members of the Marinetti Open Source Project, which is hosted on SourceForge.

Rémy Gibert, the author of A2osX, a now preemptive multi-tasking OS for the Apple II, announces the release of v0.9.1. Rémy is also looking for contributors.

If you believe you could help, please visit https://github.com/burniouf/A2osX

Announcement:

Kernel 0.9.1 is now preemptive. All you need is a “tick” source, see below for supported hardware. For now, only SBIN/BIN executables are “switcheable”.

Roadmap is as follow:
Check all BIN/SBIN sources to make them preemptive compliant, most of them are NOT.
Add a way to make LIB also interruptible and reentrant.
Add more supported hardware for system clock.
…and still hoping finding few contributors…. :-(

Via Callapple.org at http://www.callapple.org/vintage-apple-computers/apple-ii/announcing-prodos-2-4-2-for-all-apple-ii-computers/, thanks to John Brooks:

ProDOS 2.4.2 is a minor release with bug fixes and updates. It replaces ProDOS 2.4 and ProDOS 2.4.1.

Bugs fixed:
1. If a directory with more than 255 files was used, and then a different disk was used, a Bad Dir Error $51 was reported.
2. Bitsy Bye was not compatible with the Appletalk Workstation card.
3. Bitsy Bye was not compatible with the Mac LC Apple IIe card.

Updates:

1. Thunderclock driver is updated for years 2018 – 2023
2. ADT Pro v2.0.2
3. Copy II Plus v8.4
4. Added Cat Doctor’s extended utilities

If you’d like to help develop or test future versions, please contact me.
Enjoy.
-JB
John Brooks
Twitter: @JBrooksBSI

Download Disk Image: ProDOS_2_4_2.DSK

If you’d like to support John’s efforts to improve the Apple II, donations are welcome through Paypal

David Schmenk has just released v1.0 of the developer preview of PLASMA.

Modern Retroprogramming on the Apple II. When was the last time you programmed a modern language on a 40 year old computer? Now is your chance. PLASMA is a combination of operating environment, virtual machine, and assembler/compiler matched closely to the 6502 architecture.

Check out the Release Notes for details: https://github.com/dschmenk/PLASMA/blob/master/doc/Preview%20Version%201.0.md

Thanks to a message posted by David Finnigan on comp.emulators.apple2, please note that Gerard Putter has just released v8.0 of his Apple II emulator for Mac OS.

For more information, please visit virtualii.com
 

This version contains extensive behind-the-scenes updates and rewrites to remain compatible with new versions of macOS, forming a basis for further future development.
For example, the application was still 32-bit; as of this release it is a 64-bit app, making it compatible with modern Mac APIs, improved memory management, etc.

Although I tested the app thoroughly, I might have inadvertently introduced new bugs due to the extensive changes. If you find any, let me know.

Furthermore:

• A disk image file can now be double-clicked in the Finder to start a virtual machine with that disk inserted.
• Added the feature to speak the text on the Apple II screen, using the Mac voice synthesizer.
• Fixed an issue that could cause a new virtual machine window to appear with a very small size.
• Fixed an issue that caused the Inspector’s disassembly to show empty lines when scrolled.
• Rewrote the “movie making” feature to use the AVFoundation framework. When running macOS 10.13 (High Sierra) or later, the movie is written using the HEVC codec. Older system use the H264 codec.
• Clarified the section in the Help file on game controller setup.
• Removed the option to select a folder where the ROM files are located. This feature often caused confusion, and led to some tricky problems. You can however still select a specific ROM file for a virtual machine. If you don’t specify such a file, the app will search for a matching ROM file in one of the standard locations.
• The app now submits crashes or similar app issues to the developer. These reports are fully anonymous, and help improving the app. If you wish you can disable it in the application preferences.

Andy McFadden announced today, on comp.sys.apple2, the release of version 4.0.3 of CiderPress, his (more than) disk image utility for Windows.

If you want to know more about the update, click the second link!

CiderPress v4.0.3 has been released.  This is functionally the same as v4.0.3-a3, but with the version number changed to make it “official”.

http://a2ciderpress.com/

https://github.com/fadden/ciderpress/releases/tag/v4.0.3

Mike Westerfield of The Byte Works recently announced on the Facebook Apple II Enthusiasts group that he had made the source code to Orca/C, the Linker and the OrcaLib library available on GitHub.

Mike retains copyright of the code and rights to distribution, but is making it available on GitHub to accept contributions of fixes from the community.

6502 Workshop announced today that their Kickstarter Campaign for Nox Archaist has been launched!

Nox Archaist’s Kickstarter Collector’s Edition recaptures the immersive 8-bit RPG experience of the 1980s with its full color game box stuffed with feelies including fabric map, printed manual, and game artifacts – all with custom, professional artwork.

Listen to this episode of the Open Apple podcast, or watch this Assembly Lines video interview on YouTube to learn more and click here to back Nox Archaist today and help make this project a reality!