Howard Katz has released the February 2005 issue of Apple II News & Notes, the freely-redistributable monthly newsletter about the goings-on in the Apple II world..

While this isn’t Apple II news exactly, it’s important to mark the passing of Jef Raskin, the man who started the Macintosh project at Apple. He was 61 years old..

O’Reilly, the well-known publisher of computing books, has published Apple I Replica Creation: Back to the Garage by Tom Owad and John Greco. The book tells you how to build your very own replica of the Apple 1 computer, then expand on it by writing software and building peripherals for it..

Having trouble keeping up with the web’s numerous classic video game and classic computing news sites? Retro Roundup is a new site that serves as a one-stop source for classic computing and retro video game news. Retro Roundup collects headlines from more than a dozen sites (including A2Central.com), newsgroups, and other news sources into a single page.You can customize the site to move your favorite news to the top of the page or to hide a site’s headlines from view.

Retro Roundup was created by Kevin Savetz, curator of the Classic Computer Magazine Archive and AtariArchives.org..

Bill Garber is accepting pre-orders for his 4 MB RAM-4-GS card. This second run is limited to 50 units. The cost is $49 with memory or $44 without (you can populate it with 1 MB 30-pin SIMMs). The card was designed with Vince Briel, of Apple I Replica fame..

CiderPress version 2.1.3 has been released by Faddensoft. Drives partitioned with the ///SHH Systeme MicroDrive card are supported now. In addition, the ProDOS volume handler now detects garbage in the volume bitmap, new disk images are zeroed out on Windows 9x and ME, and a glitch creating blank disk images has been fixed. CiderPress is shareware and costs $9.95..

Lyle Syverson has posted the February issue of The Lamp, the monthly overview of the goings-on in the Apple II forum on Syndicomm Online..

Syndicomm has released Kelvin Sherlock’s latest project as a commercial release. Silver Platter is an NDA that lets your Apple IIgs serve up files to any web browser on your home network. Access a single folder or your entire file system — at your preference –from your Mac or PC using your favorite browser.Silver Platter is available as a downloadable purchase for just US $5 through Syndicomm’s online store. It requires Marinetti 3.0b1, the Time Zone tool set (which is included), and a network connection such as the LANceGS ethernet card..

Vince Weaver’s space shooter Tom Bombem for the Apple IIe is the culmination of his 25 year dream to write a playable game. It features joystick/paddle support, hi-score, scrolling background and an ending cut-scene..

Greg Tavares posted some in-depth memories of fellow Apple II developer Silas Warner while they both worked for M.U.S.E. Silas created Castle Wolfenstein, Robot War and many other titles. He passed away in 2004..