Egan Ford has added mobile versions to  the Apple Game Server and Apple Disk Server websites.  These updates make it possible for you to use your iPhone or iPad to stream the extensive catalog of titles directly to your Apple II.  Egan states in his comp.sys.apple2 post that he has only tested on the iPhone, but any HTML5-compatible smart phone should work.

Apple Game Server mobile edition can be accessed here, and the Apple Disk Server can be found here.

Gerard Putter has released another update to the popular Virtual II 8-bit Apple II emulator.  The following changes are included in this latest version:

• Fixed an issue where the Mockingboard card could halt the virtual machine (this happened, for example, in Ultima IV).
• Corrected an issue in the "floating bus" screen rendering, thereby improving compatibility.
• Fixed an issue that could cause stray pixels on the emulated screen when switching from 80-column text to low-resolution graphics.
• Improved screen rendering perfomance by using Apple’s Grand Central Dispatch technology.

Version 6.5 requires Mac OS X 10.6 or later.  Version 6.3.7 is still offered for users of OS X 10.4 and 10.5.  Visit the main Virtual II site here to download your preferred version.

Kelvin Sherlock, the IIGS programmer responsible for GShisen and many other popular applications, has released Shrink-Fit X for Mac OS X.  According to the App Store description:  “Shrink-Fit X is a utility for opening and extracting NuFX (ShrinkIt) files on OS X.”

Shrink-Fit X, which requires Mac OS X 10.6 or later, is available now as a free download from the Mac App Store.  Check it out here.

Speccie’s News Acquisition Program (SNAP for short) today received an update to v1.1, according to program author Ewen Wannop.  SNAP is an NNTP client program for the Apple IIGS.  According to Ewen:

This is an update release of SNAP, which fixes a multitude of bugs, as well as introducing many enhanced features. Please read the manual fully to see what has changed, and what has been been enhanced. A IIgs readable manual is included with the archive package, or alternatively, download the enhanced PDF manual.  SNAP is an online NNTP News Client for the IIgs.

Download the update here.

Gerard Putter today posted v6.4.1 of the popular and awesome Virtual ][ emulator for Mac OS X.  Coming on the heels of the recent major update which among other things, dropped support for Mac OS X 10.4 and PPC Macs, this update is designed to address a couple of minor bugs found in 6.4:

Double-clicking a disk in the Finder didn’t work anymore when Virtual ][ did not run – this has been fixed.

All pictures in the Inspector Help were missing – this has been corrected.

Get the latest version from the Virtual ][ page.

Brendan Robert has released an update to JACE, a Java-based Apple II emulator.  Here’s a list of the latest changes, per his comp.sys.apple2 post:

Changes since last build:
-Better NTSC color emulation
-Fixes to prevent crashes on start (race condition in video initalization)
-Tweaks to sound timing
-Experimental raw sound output (activate/deactivate with F7)
-Help text on start screen now reports correct key shortcuts
-Lots of other things here and there I’ve forgotten about (it’s been a while!)
-Removed some configuration options that were causing unnecessary grief (Program counter shouldn’t be a config variable)

Get yourself a copy at this Sourceforge page.

Egan Ford’s disk server projects have both reached their final release versions.  According to Ford’s post in comp.sys.apple2:

I think I can call both projects done for now.  The source has been updated and released (links in the READMEs).

Thanks for all the testing and feedback.  I think both services are fairly solid now.  All that is left to do is to populate the disk server with lots of disks.

If you stumble across a bug or issue, please let me know.

Visit the Game Server here, and the Disk Server here.

Gerard Putter’s excellent 8-bit Apple II emulator Virtual ][ for Mac OS X has been updated to version 6.4.  The most significant change is that support for Mac OS X 10.4 and PowerPC Macs has been dropped.  Here’s a list of what’s new:

– Dropped support for Mac OS X 10.4 and the PowerPC processor. The program now requires an Intel Mac running Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) or better.
– Added a feature to change the write protection and volume number of disk images.
– It is now possible to configure a 65C02 processor in an Apple ][ or ][+ virtual machine.
– When choosing “Copy as Text” from the Edit menu, international characters on the screen are now correctly copied to the Mac clipboard.
– Improved the quality of the QuickLook preview and thumbnail of a saved state file.
– Some custom character sets were not accepted by the virtual machine – this has been fixed.
– Fixed a number of minor issues, thereby improving the overall stability of the program.

Grab a copy from Gerard’s website.  Virtual ][ is shareware; $49 for a full license, $19 for a limited license, $30 to upgrade.

David Schmidt posted to comp.sys.apple2 this morning that the latest version of ADTPro is now available to Apple II (and III) users.  The text of his post:

This release, contrary to its ".0" suffix, isn’t revolutionary – I just ran out of digits in the mod level counter before I came up with anything extraordinary to release.  This is a collection of bug fixes and general useability improvements.

There’s growing interest in 64-bit Windows, and the RXTX dll for that platform wasn’t working correctly – so I sourced a build from our friends at cloudhopper (http://www.cloudhopper.com/opensource/rxtx/) that has been beta tested by several folks.

http://adtpro.sourceforge.net

1.2.0 – January 14, 2012

Bug fixes:

  * [Server] Integrate Cloudhopper’s 64-bit Windows RXTX dll – fixes 2-way Windows 7 64-bit serial communications

  * [Server] If a serial configuration isn’t usable, it doesn’t just put up the dialog box saying you should change the configuration – it brings up the change configuration dialog so you can actually do it

  * [Server] Be consistent when automatically adding file suffixes (.dsk vs. .DSK)

  * [Client] Don’t lock out interrupts during program execution – it hinders things like the GS Desk Accessory bringup

  * [Client] Apple /// responds a little better to "disk switched" notifications like those produced by the CFFA300 card

  * [Client] Apple /// Ethernet screen layout was missing DHCP configuration option

Dave Ottalini of the Washington Apple Pi user group announced today on Facebook that their Apple /// DVD, which formerly sold for $45, is now reclassified as public domain.  Here’s the text of David’s announcement:

Folks – I’d like to let you know that I’ve decided to put the old Apple /// DVD into the public domain so that the information there can be freely accessed. If Mike or anyone cares to upload that material they are welcome!

Note that the video DVD of using the Apple /// in ten EZ Lessons can also go into the PD as far as I’m concerned.

The DVD .iso is currently being uploaded to apple2scans.net and should be available later today.  This is great news from Dave and we thank him for his generous decision.

UPDATE: The 4.5GB image has been uploaded and is available now.  Get it here.