Open Apple #42 (December 2014) : 2014 Year-End Roundtable, Eric Shepherd, Sarah W., Carrington Vanston

This month on Open Apple, we close out the year with our traditional Year-End Roundtable discussion. We’re joined by Eric ‘Sheppy’ Shepherd, Sarah W., and Carrington Vanston. We talk about alternate universes, our collective love of the IIgs, and Quinn takes cheap shots at Carrington. It’s the holidays, so Commodore users are given a respite. Well, a bit of a respite, anyway. Meanwhile, Sheppy solicits hatemail, Carrington calls shenanigans, and Sarah keeps everyone honest. Count the euphemisms! So many euphemisms!

As usual, we have lots of news to talk about as well. It’s been an amazing year for the Apple II, and we have new games, new hardware, and new video histories to share. I/O Silver is here, John Romero is there, and JSMESS is everywhere.

More information on everything discussed in the show after the jump.

• No Quarter – Mike and Carrington’s other thing.
• Drop /// Inches – Mike and Paul’s other thing.
• KansasFest – Of course!
• A2RetroSystems – Home of the upcoming Uthernet II, and other magic.
• CFFA 3000 – You either have one or you want one. Maybe you want more than one.
• 65xx SXBs – Western Design Center’s 6502-based hobbyist boards.
• ReactiveMicro – Makers of the upcoming TransWarp clones.
• Portal – No, not that Portal. Jimmy Maher talks about this obscure game.
• Penguin Software – Jimmy also talks about The Spy’s Adventure series…
• Carmen Sandiego – …and the competing series most of us know.
• PolarWare – The other side of the controversy, from the Spy’s Adventure folks.
• Crush, Crumble, and Chomp – Sheppy’s pick, not what Quinn thought it was.
• The Movie Monster Game – What Quinn thought it was.
• Task Force – One of the best IIgs games ever.
• Life And Death – One of the weirdest IIgs games ever.
• Scoot McNairy – The actor Quinn was trying to remember.
• Bill Bailey – The actor Sarah was trying to remember.
• TanRu Nomad – Home of Brian Picchi’s new Apple II games.
• Genius – New game by Daniele Liverani.
• Build Pipeline – Develop Apple II software the easy way.
• JSMESS – The future of retrocomputer emulation.
• I/O Silver – The remake is now available!
• Apple I Auction – Yet another one. Less money this time.
• Early Apple documents – An auction of Ron Wayne’s personal archive.
• Corey Cohen – NYT profile of the Apple I authenticator.
• Auction background – Corey talks about these auctions over on AppleFritter.
• Auction photos – The documents in Ron’s auction.
• ‘Iconic’ updated – Jonathan Zufi’s book gets a refresh.
• Young Guru – Beyonce’s engineer hearts the Apple II.
• JSBasic – Applesoft in your browser.
• vnIIc – Screen sharing to your Apple II.
• Woz reality show – About something something technology.
• What garage? – Woz speaks about the myth of the garage.
• BusinessWeek – Accompanying article for that video.
• This American Life – NPR speaks about all the myths about all the garages.
• Minicomputer Boom – Woz cameo in video series about the minicomputer boom.
• Kinja – Woz on some new thing that the kids today probably use.
• CFFA 3000 – Delayed until end of 2015. Sad face.
• Bill Fernandez – Apple employee #1(?) tells his story.
• GBBS Pro – The seminal Apple II BBS software gets GPLed.
• Sony Hack – Leaked documents reveal drama behind the scenes on Jobs movie.
• Drive-Thru RPG – Digital download service for paper RPG games like Traveller.
• Alternate Reality – The ambitious RPG series that didn’t quite fulfill the dream.
• Alternate Reality – More on these games.
• Task Force Swear Hack – At last, a user has rescued this. Download it now, while you can! (ShrinkIt Archive)
• The Bilestoad – John Romero talks about this famously weird Apple II game.
• The Manual – Instructions (you’ll need them) to play Bilestoad.
• Night Owl – The perfect portable LCD for your IIc.
• Teddy Top – Prototyping has begun on a device to laptop-ify your IIc.
• RetroConnector – Charles Mangin’s awesome Apple II products. Buy them!