This month on the Open Apple podcast, Mike and Ken chat with Andrew Roughan, Australian Apple II user and curator of the Marinetti Open Source Project. From Jordan Mechner at PAX East 2012 to John Romero at KansasFest 2012 to Nolan Bushnell at GameFest, we’re all about attending conventions and chasing luminaries. We squabble over how to pronounce “Karateka”, look forward to new Monkey Island and Wasteland games, and eagerly consume iBooks for Apple II users on our iPads. On eBay, we get a previously untold tale of an extravagant Australian lot, then take a small jump north to look at an Apple II J-plus, before marveling at how astounded major press outlets were over your typical Bell & Howell. 

Find the show on the Open Apple Web site or in iTunes or the Zune marketplace.

A new files section has been added to the ResetVector.com, in an ode to the BBS era, the General Files section was where you could find files that were other than programs or graphic images. the Reset Vector’s new General Files section aims to pay tribute to this, and serve as a hub of memories, flashbacks and information for both newcomers to the Apple II platform, long time users and everyone in between to these and other things of the era of the Apple II. Periodic blog entries will announce new additions and cover some of the initially seeded files. Files are mostly Apple II related, but all the Apple products that shared the era of the Apple II are fair game, as well as a little bit of other things either related to or just of the 80’s era surrounding the Apple II. You can read more about it at the ResetVector.com

Jason Scott has been hard at work filming his next set of documentaries.  As part of the process, Scott has been posting to his YouTube channel “teaser” clips and “test footage” from some of the interviews he’s been conducting.  Here’s one that might be of particular interest to Apple II users, in which John Romero describes committing the Apple II memory map to memory.

David Schmenk today introduced PLASMA.  According to David’s write-up,

“PLASMA is a combination of virtual machine and assembler/compiler matched closely to the 6502 architecture.  It is an attempt to satisfy a few challenges surrounding code size, efficient execution, small runtime and fast just-in-time compilation.  By architecting a unique bytecode that maps nearly one-to-one to the higher level representation, the compiler/assembler can be very simple and execute quickly on the Apple II for a self-hosted environment.  A modular approach provides for incremental development and code reuse.”

The project is still in the early phases of development and Schmenk outlines the direction he intends to take PLASMA:

“The original design concept was to create an efficient, flexible, and expressive environment for building applications directly on the Apple II… The ultimate target is to have a complete IDE available for the Apple II… The next step is to write the PLASMA compiler in PLASMA itself to self-host on the Apple II.  Along with being self-hosted, a more flexible module file format will be created to allow loading modules on demand and putting the bytecode interpreter and module loader in the RAM card memory, thus freeing up much needed main memory.”

To read the complete details and download a disk image containing a demo of David’s work so far, click here.

From Charles Mangin comes news of his latest hardware hack, or in his words, “Frankintosh”.  This is a G4 Mac Mini hidden in an Apple IIc case.  Mangin has a nice blog post where he goes over the steps he took to stitch these two machines together and there’s a great Flickr gallery to accompany his description.

Mangin says, “Everything you see is still fully functional. The original keyboard is rewired and run through an Arduino (Teensy) so it can be used as a USB keyboard for the Mini. I’ve also maintained many of the original ports, and repurposed a couple for updated peripherals.”

Juiced.GS, the longest-running Apple II print publication, today announced a new site design and a new online store.  To celebrate the occasion, a new sale has begun.  Current publisher and editor Ken Gagne explains the site update:

“Although Juiced.GS is primarily a print publication, we understand the importance of having an online presence. Juiced.GS has had a Web site for more than a decade and over the years has grown its aesthetic and functionality. Most recently, in 2009, we switched our online publishing platform to WordPress. Shortly thereafter, we introduced a blog component. And a year later, we added an online index. All of these changes were important for their time, but in 2012, they are showing their age. It’s time for a new look!

“Please enjoy this freshly remodeled Juiced.GS Web site. With rotating banner images and dropdown navigation, we expect the site to be the best-looking, easiest-to-use iteration of our site ever. We’ve also migrated to a new online store, where you can order subscriptions, back issues, and Concentrate PDFs and pay via cash, check, PayPal, Google Checkout (new!), or Dwolla (coming soon!), all secured via SSL.”

And here are the details on the sale:

“To commemorate this update, we’re having our first-ever online sale: all back issues are now 20% off! This sale runs March 1–31, 2012. International shipping fees still apply. If you encounter any issues with this promotion or our new checkout system, please contact us. (Orders placed the week of March 11 will ship the following week.)”

Additionally, the Juiced.GS online index has been updated, and new staff additions have been named.

You can take a look a the site redesign and get all the latest information on all things Juiced.GS here.

Full disclosure: I’m a Juiced.GS staff writer.

Before John Romero became an epic game developer and all around awesome guy, he was a kid.  “A very smart kid,” as Kotaku’s Stephen Totilo puts it.  He was also a gamer who loved what he played and wasn’t afraid to let developers know it.  In this letter from 1985, published yesterday by Kotaku, a young Romero told Jordan Mechner exactly what he thought about Karateka.  Especially cool was Romero’s letterhead:

Jimmy Maher of the excellent Digital Antiquarian blog wrote today to let us know that his proposed Robot War Tournament, which he first announced here, has been canceled due to lack of interest.  From Jimmy’s email:

“Unfortunately… I just don’t think we can muster the participation necessary to make a tournament that feels, well, like a real tournament. We came close, maybe closer than one would have expected, but we didn’t quite get there. Disappointing, but life goes on.”

Sad news indeed, and we thank Jimmy for his continued interest in and support for our chosen hobby.