Open Apple #12 (Feb 2012): Michael J Mahon, chiptune, source code, and demodulation

This month on the Open Apple podcast, Mike and Ken chat with Michael J Mahon, software and hardware developer extraordinaire and creative genius behind both recent DMS Drummer software and the ever-popular AppleCrate parallel processing computer. We talk about 8 Bit Weapon, the chiptune music scene, and the importance of commenting and documenting one’s code, whether it be commercial or open source. Michael’s not much of a gamer, but Ken and Mike are enjoying new versions of classic games, including Eamon, Choplifter, and possibly Rescue Raiders. We consider entering a Robot War competition, despite our poor showing at the RetroChallenge contest. Several new pieces of hardware to convert video signals are now available, which you can use with a pair of complete Apple IIGS systems, for sale and shipping for free from Bulgaria.

Congratulations to Bryan Letcher, who won a set of Microzine issues by completing our listener survey!

Click past the jump for links mentioned in this episode.

Introduction (0:00 – 12:00)

• iCade
• iMAME
• The making of an Apple II holiday ornament
• Red vs. Blue Season 9
• Apple II at the Boston Museum of Science
• The history of AppleWorks
• Denver Pi presentation attended by Randy Brandt
• Randy Brandt visits Mike Maginnis
• Discovering NAUG’s AppleWorks Forum magazine
• Scans of NAUG’s AppleWorks Forum

User Login (12:01 – 33:03)

• Homepage of Michael J Mahon
• Juiced.GS interview with Michael
• IBM 1620 Data Processing System
• The Burroughs 220 computer
• KIM-1 computer
• 8 Bit Weapon, chiptune musicians and vendors of DMS
• RT.SYNTH
• 8bit Generation chiptune documentary (see also: Reformat the Planet)
• State Shirt music video
• AppleCrate II parallel computer
• NadaNet network
• NadaPong video demonstration from KansasFest 2007
• More details on NadaPong

II News (33:04 – 1:38:24)

• Ivan Drucker’s A2SERVER
• Rich Dreher’s CFFA3000
• David Schmidt’s ADTPro
• Egan Ford’s Apple Game Server Online!
• How to build a NadaNet adapter
• Brutal Deluxe’s Fishhead
• FTA’s Photonix
• History of FID
• Ewen Wannop’s SNAP v1.1.1
• Gerard Putter’s Virtual II v6.4.1
• Apple II Oasis
• Ivan Drucker’s Structured Applesoft
• Don Knuth
• Eamon Adventurer’s Guild Online
• GEnieLamp interview with Tom Zuchowski
• Wade Clarke’s Leadlight
• The Magnavox Odyssey Pong console
• Stan Freberg
• Choplifter HD
• Interview with Dan Gorlin
• Steve Wozniak’s Fusion-io
• Rescue Raiders Mobile — coming Winter 2011?
• Rescue Battlefield
• Silas Warner’s RobotWar
• Jimmy Maher’s Robot War challenge
• Computer Gaming World Museum
• VCF East 8.0, keynoted by Dan Kottke and Thomas Kurtz
• TWiT Triangulation interviews Dan Kottke
• The biennial ROFLCon at MIT
• Chuck Peddle at VCF East 4.0
• AUSOM’s magazine archive
• Rhode Island Apple Group
• The Commodore 64 Scene Database
• Star Trek: TNG — “A Matter of Honor”
• David Greelish interviews Bob Cook of Sun Remarketing
• Apple Lisa museum
• Steve Howell’s Carte Blanche FPGA Card
• 12-bit color output
• Apple II Colour Demodulator
• RetroChallenge Winter Warmup
• Mike Maginnis’s RetroChallenge update

Apple Pickings (1:38:25 – 1:57:18)

• Ultima IV
• CFFA3000
• iDisk
• Apple IIe Platinum w/books, software, games
• Apple IIe Platinum w/games, software, books
• BootZero
• 8 Bit Weapon’s Bits With Byte album
• “Apple Core II“
• Smithsonian’s GameFest
• Nolan Bushnell