(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.

From Gizmodo, someone made this appetizing gingerbread Apple II:

Check out all the sugary goodness at this Imgur gallery.

If you ever wanted to simulate a Burroughs 220 vacuum tube computer on your Apple II, rejoice! Those lucky enough to be at KansasFest this past July had the opportunity to check out Michael J. Mahon’s preliminary work on his B220SIM. Functional but limited at the time, B220SIM aimed to show off the state of the computing art, circa 1955. Now, Mahon has announced that his simulator is nearly complete and you can try out the fruit of his programming labor at his website.

A2Heaven continues to bring Apple II hobbyists great new hardware. The Apple II VGA scaler (AIIVGAS) is an Apple II compatible circuit board for converting Apple II, II+, Europlus and Apple IIe video to VGA compatible signals for displaying on a VGA monitor.

The board is compatible with both NTSC and PAL systems. Due to the wide variation in Apple II models, there are some jumpers and in some cases additional jumper wires to be connected to enable full functionality. $85 USD

Gizmodo brings us news that a wireless gaming controller is being developed for the Apple II. Check out all the juicy details here and then head to their Kickstarter to get in early on the action.

Texas rocker Joe Ely has released B4 84, an album he made with an Apple II, using the alphaSyntauri music system and a Roland 808 drum machine.  In a brief interview with the San Antonio Current, Ely discusses the details of the album, which was recorded over 30 years ago, his interactions with Woz, and how his record company liked the songs but wanted him to re-record them using traditional studio methods.  The redone tracks were released on 1984’s Hi-res album which, “didn’t do very well.”

Now Joe has released the original recordings and you can get your own copy for $9.99 on iTunes, with liner notes by Steve Wozniak himself.

Oh, and hey – did you know Joe ran his own BBS back in they day?

BASIC, that simple language that was an integral part of the Apple II experience for so many fans, turns 50 this month and to help celebrate, Woz has contributed a nice little memoir about how he wrote Integer BASIC from scratch.