GSE-Reactive is now selling a full selection of 65816 CPUs, both for the Apple IIgs and IIgs-compatible accelerator cards. In addition, GSE-Reactive now offers a Zero Insertion Force (ZIF) socket that you can plug into your current Apple IIgs or accelerator card CPU socket.There are multiple advantages to installing a ZIF socket: first, it becomes much easier to install and remove CPU chips or accelerator CPU cables. And since you don’t have to pry the cable out anymore, the risk of damage to your system is reduced substantially.

In addition, everyone knows that the CPU socket built into the Apple IIgs wears out after only a handful of insertions and removals. Using a ZIF socket eliminates this risk as well.

Amazon is taking pre-orders for “I, Woz: How I Invented the Personal Computer and Had Fun Along the Way”, a new hardcover book by Steve Wozniak and Gina Smith.

GSE-Reactive has released its new Apple IIe Enhancement Kit, which includes a 65C02 CPU as well as new $CD, $EF, and video ROM chips.

The third annual Vintage Computer Festival East is this weekend. It’s a one-day event on Saturday, May 13, from 9:30 AM until 9 PM at the InfoAge Learning Center in Wall Township, New Jersey. Celebrate the computer age with great speakers and more.

The Princeton Apple Users Group will meet on Friday, May 12th, at 7:30 in David Ciotti’s basement.

Vince Briel, the maker of the Replica 1 Apple 1 clone, is now working on an improved version that will have a ATX power connector instead of an AT power connector, and a USB port instead of a serial port, which will make it easier to interface with recent computers that don’t have serial ports.

Update: Vince has received his prototype boards and is now testing them. A picture of the The new board is available here and it should be in production and available for order soon!

Gerard Putter has released Virtual ][ 5.2, the latest version of his excellent 8-bit Apple II emulator. The new version makes Z80 card emulation work on Intel-based Macs, makes the bundled A2V2 disk-exchange utility work with “copy-protected” disk images, and fixes a few other bugs.

The popular 8-bit Apple II emulator for Windows, AppleWin, has been updated to version 1.13.0.

Update: 1.13.1 has been released to fix a crash-causing bug when used with with Windows 98/ME.The new version includes a number of new features and bug fixes:

• It can now emulate an Uthernet ethernet card, which can be used when running the Contiki operating system to access the Internet.
• Floating bus support has been implemented. This fixes the hang at Drol‘s cut-scene, and brings Bob Bishop’s Money Munchers closer to working.
• The Super Serial Card receive IRQ is now supported.
• The checkerboard cursor is now back for Apple //e mode.
• Fixed a bug preventing the enable hard disk option from working.
• Fixed a bug that caused the right-click menu to stop working on drives.
• Fixed a bug involving AppleWin installed in paths with spaces in the name.

Howard Katz has posted the April, 2006 issue of Apple II News & Notes, the freely redistributable monthly Apple II newsletter.