Open Apple #46 (April 2015): Paul Lutus, ReactiveMicro, and KansasFest Keynote

This month on Open Apple, we sit down with Paul Lutus, author of seminal early Apple II software such as AppleWriter and GraFORTH. We talk about the impacts of software development on society, the value of the individual in the process, and the trials of coding software in the woods.

We talk extreme offsite backups, KansasFest keynotes, telnet BBSing, and the hurricane of awesome that is ReactiveMicro. We reminisce about the original Home Computer Wars (these kids today arguing about their smartphones are so darned cute), and also Boo Atari.

We trek from Bulgaria to Korea to Canada and back again, to bring you the latest in sound cards, solid state storage, and portable Apple IIc action. You won’t want to miss Quinn plugging Phil Plait for some reason. With our story on Atari 8-bits in Poland, this marks the most Atari content ever on Open Apple. It also qualifies us as the 698th currently operating Atari podcast. Boo Atari. See what you get when you poke the bear, people? ][ Infinitum.

More information on everything discussed in this episode after the jump.

• AppleWriter – Arguably the first Apple II word processor.
• WPL (PDF warning) – The word processing scripting language.
• GraFORTH & TransFORTH – Terrific early implementations of FORTH on the II.
• GraFORTH (PDF warning) – Try it out for yourself, here. FORTH is neat.
• TransFORTH (PDF warning) – The business/science-focused version.
• Electric Duet – Multi-voice music from a single flip-flop.
• Pictures of Paul’s Apple – Coding in the woods, with an epic extension cord.
• FrEDWriter – The unauthorized clone of AppleWriter.
• Paul Lutus’ website – Keep up with what he’s up to now.
• TransWarp GS clone – Now available! Shut up and take our money!
• No Slot Clocks and Scalable Oscillators – Also now becoming available in limited quantities.
• Rebecca “Burger” Heineman – Keynote speaker at KansasFest! Squee!
• Burger Becky – Her personal site, with lots of fun stuff new and old.
• KansasFest Registration – It’s now open! Go register. Now. Seriously. Now.
• Don Worth’s archive – Classic software and source code imaged by Mike.
• Deviceside Data – The 5.25″ floppy imaging tool that works over USB, and supports almost all retrocomputer formats.
• A2Cloud, A2Server, Raspple II updated – Ivan’s era-bridging tools are a very cool use of a Pi.
• Peersoft 1.5 – A new version of a snazzy AppleSoft library is available.
• Classic IDE – Technobytes’ version of the CFFA 2 is sold out, and shipping soon.
• Mockingboard Clone – Ian Kim’s new product coming soon. Watch his blog.
• Assembly Lines – Chris Torrence’s awesome book project, now available as a free PDF.
• Open source Pong – Jason Griffiths looking for help.
• BMP2SHR – Bill Buckels’ new Super Hi-Res graphics converter.
• 4am’s Cracks – Learn cracking Apple II software on Twitter, now archived as well.
• Joe Ely is back – Soon with more tracks, and Woz’s liner notes are now available.
• The Jobs home – Slate talks about the infamous childhood home (with the irrelevant garage).
• Bad Astronomy – Phil Plait’s blog about science, critical thinking and other fun stuff.
• Omega – Because programmers keep thinking other people think programming is fun.
• Infidel – A fascinating, controversial text adventure that would probably never get made today.
• Player Missile Podcast – A great show from the “other” side.
• Teddy Top with Flash – Quinn’s road warrior IIc Plus gets storage.
• Apple II Gamepad – Quinn prototypes a gamepad to take II gaming on the road.