Bob Tripp wrote in today to let us know that the What’s Where in the Apple eBook has been released:

The job was much more difficult that anticipated due to OCR difficulties with the old-style pseudo line-printer fonts; the work required to convert the Atlas/Gazetteer from the original “messy” format to a simplified, easier to read tabular format; and the need to completely redo all of the figures and tables that were virtually unreadable in the original printed version and more.  Anyway, it is all done and we are quite happy with the result.

“eWWA” is now available for $15 USD (a 25% discount off the regular price) until August 24, 2012.  After that, the price will increase to $19.95.  Visit the eWWA web page now to purchase your copy.

The July 2012 episode of Open Apple, the Apple II community’s only co-hosted podcast, is now available.

This month, Mike and Ken speak with Rich Dreher, developer of the CompactFlash For Apple (CFFA) card. The first batch of CFFA3000 cards sold out in 2011, and the second batch is now shipping with similar sales numbers. Rich dishes on other II hardware developers Vince Briel and Mike Willegal before we look at the astronomical numbers rare Apple-1 computers are fetching on eBay and at Sotheby’s. HyperCard turns 25 while Atari turns 40, though Mike objects to the latter. David Finnigan’s new book is out, and Robert Tripp is hot on his heels when an updated and digitized version of the classic What’s Where in the Apple — and we have the exclusive interview with Bob! All this content and all these guests make for our longest episode ever, perfect for listening to while you drive to next week’s KansasFest.

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

Bob Tripp wrote in today to let us know that progress on the What’s Where in the Apple eBook is coming along nicely, and to ask for your help with the project.  You’ll get to see your name in print, as well as score a free copy!  Read on for all the juicy details (bold emphasis added by A2Central):

The electronic version of “What’s Where in the Apple?” is progressing well.  We have received all of the Guide text conversions back from our vendor in India and are currently doing minor clean-up.  The biggest chore now is to re-enter the figures. These were just too small in the printed version to be scanned and converted and must be essentially re-done by hand.  We have completed the figure entry for the first eight chapters — 12 to go!.

We are expecting to received all of the Atlas and Gazetteer spread sheets in the coming week.  They will require good proofing both to correct any induced errors and to correct those that were in the original.
Anyone willing to proof read ten (10) of the Guide chapters or twenty (20) of the Atlas or Gazetteer spreadsheet pages would get listed on the Acknowledgments page in addition to a free copy of the final eWWA. If you want to participate, please let me know ASAP and also indicate whether you would prefer the Guide or spreadsheets.

We have a Kickstarter project that you can find at:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/845678003/electronic-version-of-classic-whats-where-in-the-a

This discusses what we are trying to do, includes a video with some neat pictures of the original cover color-separations from MICRO and other stuff.  We are offering the $15.00 discounted price to Kickstarter Backers and a $50.00 Supporter deal.  Please check it out.

If this works out well, we are considering doing an e-version of the three-volume set “MICRO on the Apple”.

If you’re interested, you can contact Bob directly through the eWWA page linked above, or email us here at A2Central and we’ll put you in touch with him.

As the release of the eBook version of “What’s Where in the Apple” draws near, more details are becoming clear.  Robert Tripp, publisher and owner of the former MICRO Ink, Inc. sent us this information in an email:

What’s Where in the Apple? is in the process of being readied for release as an electronic book. I am the publisher and copyright holder that published this and other microcomputer books back in the late 1970s and early 1980s as part of MICRO — The 6502 Journal.  If you go to our web site http://www.whatswhereintheapple.com (or http://www.ewwa.us) you will find lots of good information.  It also includes Chapter 1 from the Guide, page 2 from the Atlas and page 3 from the Gazetteer as samples of what the totally upgraded book will look like.

The site also contains the Adobe PDF version of the original William F. Luebbert article from the August 1979 issue of MICRO.

The plan is to release the PDF book by Sept 1, 2012 priced at $19.95.  The web site has an offer for people who pre-order now who will be notified when the book is released and then have ten days to purchase through PayPal for $15.00.

Robert Tripp, of the former MICRO INK, Inc. (now known as FlexAble Systems), has announced plans to release the long out of print Apple II title, “What’s Where in the Apple” as an eBook sometime this summer.  Tripp intends to put out more than just a scanned PDF of the popular book, however.  “It is going to be much better than anything that has gone before,” says Tripp. “We are not just scanning and posting, but rather scanning, doing optical character recognition (OCR), cleaning-up minor errors, changing to a better computer/tablet type font and reorganizing the materials to view well on most devices.  The most important — and difficult thing –  is to scan and convert the 100 pages of Atlas and Gazetteer.  Scanning is easy, however just having a ‘picture’ of the tables is not good enough.  Real tables are required that not only look better — properly formatted as columns and real characters — but can be searched.  Want to see all instances of “‘WRITE’ Command”? With the tables you simply enter the search string and all instances will be displayed!”

You can read all about his plans at this page.  Pricing and a release date have yet to be announced, but we can’t wait to see the final product.