Dr. Steven Weyhrich’s forthcoming Apple II history book previously announced on a2central.com, “Sophistication & Simplicity: The Life & Times of the Apple II Computer” is now available for pre-order on Amazon.com. Expected to ship in April 2013, the 524-page hardcover tome can be ordered now for $19.57. That’s a 55% discount from the $29.95 retail price. Run, don’t walk!

Hewlett-Packard has published a well-written article by Steven Vaughan-Nichols called The History of the Floppy Disk.  Vaughan-Nichols goes all the way back to the format’s invention by IBM engineer David L. Noble, who was assigned by Alan Shugart to develop, “a reliable and inexpensive system for loading microcode into the IBM System/370 mainframes using a process called Initial Control Program Load (ICPL).”  This project led to the invention of the 8” floppy disk.  Vaughan-Nichols follows the evolution of the format to the present day, and along the way credits the Apple II with making the floppy disk a success.

Read the whole article here.

Randy Brandt today posted an edited video of his A History of AppleWorks session from KansasFest 2012. Brandt’s presentation, which clocks in at just over two hours and five minutes, is an extensive accounting of his Apple II programming experiences. Brandt begins with his early days learning to code on an Apple II Plus and continues to his tenure at Beagle Bros, Quality Computers and JEM, and through his experiences as the lead developer of the later versions of AppleWorks. Watch the entire presentation here:

Jimmy Maher over at the Digital Antiquarian is running an excellent series of articles on Infocom.  Be sure to check out his latest, The Birth of Infocom, here.  You won’t regret it.