Silvern Castle v9.2 has been released. This update fixes the moat teleport trap bug introduced in v9.1, and no longer disbands the party when entering the Adventurer’s Guild, plus other minor changes.

Rich Dreher posted a photo of the new 4th run Rev. B CFFA board. Prototype boards are done and in the hands of testers. He hopes to place the production order by the end of the month. Changes to the board include:

• Added address line buffers and termination resistors.
• Added three jumper fix to PCB
• Changed from EPROM to EEPROM to allow customers to update the firmware themselves.
• Reduced EEPROM size from 32KB to 8KB; this leaves enough room for 2 version of firmware.
• Added cut out behind the CF card for easier removal.
• Used a surface mount CPLD.
• Kept IDE header and power connector, but removed 2.5″ HD mounting holes.

The CFFA allows the use of compact flash cards and 2.5″ IDE hard drives with an Apple II.

AppleWin, the popular Apple II emulator for Windows, is now being distributed under the GPL open source license. For details, visit the new AppleWin web site, or the CVS source code repository. The current version is now 1.12.9.0.

CNet’s News.com technology news site is looking for readers’ stories about Apple and how Apple’s technology has affected their lives, in celebration of Apple’s upcoming 30th anniversary. Drop by and share your love of the Apple II with the world!

Andy McFadden has updated CiderPress to version 2.4. The new version of the popular Apple II file and disk utility for Windows offers a number of new features and improvements.New features include:

• Support for HFS file and creator types in the Edit Attributes dialog box. Applies to HFS disks and ShrinkIt archives.
• Now supports creating HFS disk images.
• Sanitizes filenames for the file list. This is mostly for HFS disks with filenames with “Macintosh Roman” high-ASCII characters, but it also helps with sector-edited ProDOS disks.
• Added Tab as a special keyboard accelerator for the file viewer.
• Added Paste Special to the Edit menu.
• A progress/cancel dialog box is now shown while scanning disks. This is especially useful while scanning CD-ROMs with lots of ProDOS volumes.

Fixed bugs include:

• Fixed handling of unquoted text in DATA statements when importing Applesoft BASIC programs.
• Fixed handling of reserved MS-DOS filenames, like CON, PRN, and so forth. Also, names like con.1.txt are fixed up.
• Added reformatting of Merlin source code to tab the fields correctly. CiderPress does a reasonable job of detecting the difference between Merlin and other text files.
• Added support for HFS volumes up to 2 GB.
• Now recognizes certain not-quite-standard MacPart images.

Henry S. Courbis of GSE-Reactive.com announced that their replacement power supply for Apple II/II+/IIe is now available for USD $55. Also announced is their improved clone of the Lightning Systems TurboASB module, a 6551 replacement intended to speed up Apple Super Serial Cards to reliable 230K operation (with accelerator). The TurboASB clone module uses surface mount parts so it doesn’t block the adjoining slot and is expected to sell for USD $35. In addition, batteries and clip-on battery holders for your GS will also be offered in the GSE-Reactive.com store.

Lyle Syverson has posted the February 2006 issue of The Lamp!. This monthly newsletter compiles the most interesting and helpful posts from the Apple II message board on Syndicomm Online each month.

Syndicomm’s server upgrade is mostly finished now. FTP access for paying customers has been restored, along with essentially all other services. A few small issues remain to be polished off, but most users shouldn’t notice them.

Howard Katz has posted the January, 2006 issue of Apple II News & Notes, the freely-redistributable monthly newsletter covering the Apple II world.