Welcome to a special extra episode of Open Apple! Fellow Apple II enthusiast Matt Ownby recently sat down for a chat with John Brooks, author of Rastan on the IIgs. It’s a fascinating conversation with tons of technical detail that you won’t want to miss. They talk copy protection, cycle counting, fast GS sprite rendering, and lots more!

A huge thanks to John for taking the time to share his knowledge. Also a huge thanks to Matt for recording this and allowing us to air it on Open Apple.

There are some audio quality issues with this piece, but we feel the conversation is well worth it. Enjoy, and send a thanks to Matt and John!

You probably know that Dr. Wendell Sander is the “father” of the Apple ///, and that Daniel Kottke was the lead tech for the Sara project.  But did you know that before Colette Askeland was doing board layout design for the original Macintosh prototypes, she was the PCB layout artist for the ///?

For some reason, her involvement with Apple’s first business computer has been largely ignored by history, but  Drop /// Inches was fortunate to be able to chat with her about the long hours and difficult work she did before moving on to greater recognition as an original member of the Mac team.  Give it a listen.

“Elk Cloner,” largely believed to be the first computer virus released outside a lab environment, turned 30 this year and tech news website The Register took the opportunity to interview its author Rich Skrenta, who was just 15 at the time of its release in February, 1982.

The boot sector virus was written for Apple II systems, the dominant home computers of the time, and infected floppy discs. If an Apple II booted from an infected floppy disk, Elk Cloner became resident in the computer’s memory. Uninfected discs inserted into the same computer were given a dose of the malware just as soon as a user keyed in the command CATALOG for a list of files. Infected computers would display a short poem, also written by Skrenta, on every fiftieth boot from an infected disk:

Elk Cloner: The program with a personality
It will get on all your disks It will infiltrate your chips Yes it’s Cloner!
It will stick to you like glue It will modify ram too Send in the Cloner!

According to Skrenta, who wrote the program as a prank, “Elk Cloner created a rattling noise when the program started. If a disc was infected you could hear it. If you inserted an infected disc in an Apple II you can hear the head swoosh sound, an audible signature. It would infect a new disc if machine wasn’t rebooted. If an Apple II was rebooted every time, Elk Cloner wouldn’t have spread. But, given people computer habits, it spread like crazy.”

Wikipedia has a brief description of the virus here, and Skrenta maintains a page of information about Elk Cloner, including historical articles, an alt.hackers Usenet post from 1990, and source code for the program.

Edge Online has posted an extensive interview with EA founder and early Apple employee, Trip Hawkins.  The long piece has been serialized and posted over several days.  Among other things, Hawkins talks about his time at a young Apple Computer; founding Electronic Arts and dealing with “superstar” programmers such as Richard Garriott, Dan Bunten, and Bill Budge; and Steve Jobs’ influence on his managerial style.

Start reading with part 1 – “The Inspiration for EA”, and then find the rest of the interview sections here.

(HT: Hot Rod)

This month on Open Apple, Mike and Ken chat with David Finnigan, proprietor of the Mac GUI Web site and author of the upcoming book, The New Apple II User’s Guide. Our eyes are caught by another new book release, The Best of Creative Computing: Volume 3, as well as the upcoming biopic based on Steve Jobs, in which actors have been cast to play Apple’s two co-founders. Prince of Persia is still big news, with the source code for Jordan Mechner’s classic Apple II game having been salvaged, released, and modified, while classic games like Leisure Suit Larry, Dungeon Master, and even Repton are enjoying literal and spiritual remakes. On eBay, we crack open the case to examine broken Apple III boards and prototype Apple IIGS boards.

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

Howard Cantin is the artist who laid out the PCB designs for the Apple-1 and the first Apple IIs, as well as several early Atari products for Nolan Bushnell.  Mike Willegal, creator of the Brain Board and the Mimeo 1 Apple-1 replica kit (among other things), interviewed Cantin by phone yesterday.  While the conversation wasn’t recorded or transcribed, Mike has posted extensive notes on his blog.  Definitely worth a read if you’re interested in the design of very early Apple boards.

The RetroMacCast podcast has been on an Apple II emulation kick lately! In Episode 125 (iTunes), hosts James and John talk about Apple II emulators for the Macintosh, including OSXII, AppleIIGo, and KEGS. A week later, in Episode 126, (iTunes) they interview Colin Klipsch, developer of the Catakig emulator.

This is the same podcast that earlier this year conducted a KansasFest interview after reflecting on the Apple II’s various operating systems. Who knew a podcast with “Mac” in the title could be so Apple II-friendly?