Apple II Bits

Last fall, MacEffects launched a Kickstarter campaign for an injection-molded clear case for the Apple II and II Plus. Its 68 backers pledged $21,171, falling short of the $29,000 goal.

Deciding that the fatal flaw of their campaign was the limited audience of Apple II and II Plus owners, MacEffects has returned to Kickstarter with a new crowdfunding project. This time, it’s to create a clear case for the more popular IIe and IIGS models.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/maceffects/injection-molded-clear-case-for-apple-iie-and-iigs

But despite the project title of "Injection Molded Clear Case for Apple IIe and IIGS", you don’t get to pick whether you want a IIe case or a IIGS case. Instead, only the IIe case is available, which the IIGS board can be adapted to fit using a kit included in certain reward tiers, such as "Clear Case Kit for Apple IIe > IIGS" ($350) and "Kitchen Sink" ($675). These options are proving quite popular, as evidenced by the first 32 backers raising $12,855. That’s an average of $402 per donor, higher than their previous campaign’s average of $311 per donor.

Even though MacEffects’ previous campaign was unsuccessful, they’ve upped the ante this round with a goal of $35,000. At the current rate, they’ll need a total of 87 backers to reach their goal.

I’m tempted to splurging on one of these cases for my own IIGS. But I recently transitioned to a nomadic lifestyle, putting most of my possessions in storage. It’s motivated me to buy fewer things that I won’t immediately use, including Apple II peripherals, sadly.

But that’s a unique situation and one that shouldn’t keep others from considering this project, which ends on April 19!

Sometimes, Apple II users have ambitions bigger than their humble retrocomputers. Steve Chiang went to work at Zynga and Warner Bros. Richard Garriott flew into space.

And now, Jeri Ellsworth is setting out to redefine reality with Tilt Five.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tiltfive/holographic-tabletop-gaming

Jeri’s mixed reality rig is impressive in its own right. But it’s all the cooler due to Jeri being an Apple II rockstar, too… Well, maybe more Commodore 64.

But she was a cover story for Juiced.GS, too!

Doug Cuff’s interview with Jeri opens:

She’s a self-confessed hardware nerd, and she has a mission. She wants to rebuild one of the most popular and beloved microcomputers of the 1980s: the Commodore 64.

On the way, she’s going to be a big help to the Apple II. But even if she wasn’t, you would still want to pay homage to Jeri Ellsworth.

When she was 16, Jeri Ellsworth was playing with her Commodore 64, and she wanted it to have more colors. (Just as with the Apple II, people mentally dismissed the C-64 long before production stopped. The last C-64 rolled off the production line in 1992.)

By the time she had explored the idea of improving on the C-64’s hardware, Jeri wanted to create a C-64 on a single chip. She liked the idea of a C-64 palmtop. And she was still being driven by forces that most of us can understand: she wanted to play all her old games, and at the same time, she wanted them to have better graphics.

Jeri is also an alumna of KansasFest, Vintage Computer Festival East, and the JoCoCruise, at all of which our paths have crossed.

Jeri, Kelvin, Ryan, Ken, and Andy at Vintage Computer Festival East 2004

Ken & Jeri fencing at Target at KansasFest 2004

Jeri and Ken in a sing-off. It turned out better than the arm-wrestling contest.

I found a nerd celebrity on JoCoCruise 2017!

Tilt Five’s Kickstarter was the latest opportunity for me to intersect with Jeri, as her project was a perfect fit for my monthly gaming podcast, Polygamer. Our hour-long chat (with a few opening and closing remarks about the Apple II) aired last week.

It was a pleasure to catch up with Jeri. It was also completely unsurprising to discovery she is as much an ambitious yet humble geek as ever. I didn’t feel like I was talking to someone who had outgrown the Apple II; rather, it was two old friends picking up right where we left off.

Jeri asked that I not air the video of us singing karaoke. In truth, no such video exists —  but there is video of her beating me badly at arm wrestling. So really, even if I did have any dirt on Jeri, I’d be highly incentivized to keep it to myself!

Earlier this year, a company called MacEffects successfully crowdfunded a Kickstarter to create a clear case for the Mac SE/30. With delivery of that product due next month, MacEffects is ready to move on to their next project. This weekend, they launched a Kickstarter to create another transparent case — and this time, the platform is the Apple II.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/maceffects/injection-molded-clear-case-for-apple-ii-and-ii-plus

The case models range in price from $150 to $450 — but all are for the Apple II and Apple II Plus. Other models of Apple II, including the IIe, IIc, and IIGS, are not included, though the project description promises that "If this Kickstarter is successfully funded, we will venture to open a new Kickstarter for the Apple IIe!" Unmentioned in the video is a stretch goal of $35,000, which will fund a clear case for the Disk II floppy drive.

The campaign seeks to raise $29,000 in two months. As of Sunday morning, the project has only 16 backers, but those backers have contributed an average of $277 each, for 15% of the project’s total. Similarly, their Mac SE/30 campaign raised $25,674 from just 84 backers, averaging $305 each. Supporters are clearly willing to toss significant sums at these cases!

I wonder if this new case will enjoy similar success, though. The Apple II already has a top that’s easy to remove, displaying the computer’s internals to the world. A clear case doesn’t make it easier to do so, though it does make it safer, since it doesn’t expose the circuitry to as much air and dust. I also found this Kickstarter video’s lighting, sound, and delivery underwhelming, which you could argue are to be expected from a low-budget retrocomputing company. Yet that didn’t stop Nox Archaist from pulling out all the stops!

On the bright side, you won’t ever have to worry about retrobriting this transparent case: "To avoid future yellowing of our custom case, we will NOT be adding fire-retardant additive. Therefore, it is recommended to not operate your computer with this custom case unattended."

No problem — unless you’re mining Bitcoin, why would you ever tear yourself away from a running Apple II and leave it unattended?

(Hat tip to Michael Mulhern)

Last fall, I contributed to Roberto Hoyos’ Kickstarter for "The Iconic Pillow Collection", which would deliver soft, plush pillows modeled after classic Apple products. Mine arrived about a month ago and is everything it was advertised to be.

It’s also a great complement for my handmade, one-of-a-kind floppy pillow — though clearly there’s a discrepancy in scale between the two.

Objects in pillow may be larger than they appear.

The Apple II pillow is now on sale in the Throwboy store for $39.99. But the best outcome of this Kickstarter is still to be realized.

Every year, I attend PAX East, a massive video game convention in Boston, Massachusetts whose attendance is roughly 600 times that of KansasFest. I do my best to represent the Apple II at PAX, whether by hosting panels about classic game genres or bringing an actual Apple II to PAX.

This year, I was assembling a panel of artists who make crafts inspired by classic gaming hardware and software. It didn’t take me long to realize I had just backed such an artist on Kickstarter! I reached out to Roberto Hoyos, CEO of Throwboy and co-host of the podcast That Thing You Made, and he enthusiastically answered my call.

Our collaboration will be "The Art of Craft: Inspiring Game Creations", being held Sunday, March 31, 1:30–2:30 PM in Arachnid Theatre.

Video games are art — and art imitates video games. The characters, colors, and aesthetics of our favorite digital worlds have spawned an industry of apparel and crafts that keep us warm and add a flair of the fantastic to ourselves and our homes. We’ll hear from amateur, hobbyist, and professional artists and creators about the inspirations and tools they use to create, enjoy, and sell their custom clothes, jewelry, furniture, paintings, and more.

Featuring:

• Ken Gagne [Digital Content Developer, Gamebits]
• Johanna Shaw [Jill-of-All-Crafts, Shaw Asylum]
• Chris Gonzalez [Owner & Designer, Dapper Pixel]
• Adri [Storyteller, genericgeekgirl]
• Roberto Hoyos [Co-host, That Thing You Made]

Follow along with the #paxcraft hashtag on Twitter, and expect Apple II pillows on display in force!!

Movie, documentary, graphic novel, opera — the story of Steve Jobs has been adapted to multiple media. Rarely does his counterpart, Steve Wozniak, share that top billing, despite having played as essential a role (if not more so) in the founding and success of Apple. But in 2014, one publication not only corrected that oversight; they also brought Apple’s story to an entirely new format.

Steves is a six-volume manga, introducing us to the founders of Apple in a quintessentially Japanese style. The author, Keiichi Matsunaga, has a long history with the Apple brand: "I was pulled into this world when I saw the beautiful computer, the Apple II, in Akihabara when I was a student," he writes. His version of the Apple story is based on true events but is highly fictionalized and dramatized, as is typical of anime and manga.

Remember, manga is read right-to-left.

The only problem for us Western readers: the book was published in Japanese. Fortunately, there’s now a Kickstarter to translate Steves into English.

All eight chapters of the first volume, which spans the invention of the Apple II through the introduction of Mike Markkula, have already been translated and are available online for free through December 18. I read the first chapter and enjoyed the dramatic retelling of various historical anecdotes, chuckling aloud at Woz’s brilliance and Jobs’ arrogance.

Getting the remaining volumes in English is no cheap affair: the Kickstarter offers no physical editions, and the entry point for getting them digitally starts at $60. The most affordable reward is $10 for the first digital volume, which, as mentioned, is already free. In the creators’ reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything), they were asked, "Do you have any plan of hard copy option for this Kickstarter project?" Their answer: "Most unfortunately, we do not at this time. If you know any publishers who might be interested in printing it please give us a shout!"

At the time of this blog post, the Kickstarter campaign has raised about 28% of its goal and has less than half its fundraising period left. The website Kicktraq says the project is trending toward only 47% of its goal by the December 17 deadline. I hope this project succeeds, but if they don’t, I encourage them to research alternative publication and distribution methods and return to Kickstarter with more attractive rewards.

(Hat tip to Anime News Network)

The Apple II is a great discussion piece: when people see it somewhere they weren’t expecting it, it often halts all other conversation and immediately begins a new one. "Wow, what is that?!" "I remember those!" "Does it still work?"

But it’s not always feasible to have the Apple II on display where others will see it. Such real estate is often reserved for something more applicable to one’s daily life and which can be more easily and broadly enjoyed, even by those without arcane technical knowledge.

But what if you still have that conversation piece but on the form of something small, useful — and soft? Something like… a pillow?

Introducing "The Iconic Pillow Collection", a Kickstarter from Throwboy that is a "cuddly tribute to the tech that changed our lives."

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/throwboy/the-iconic-pillow-collection-by-throwboy

This five-piece collection offers throw pillows based on five landmark Apple products: the Apple IIe, the Macintosh, the iMac, the iPod, and the iPhone. Its creator chose these five computers for the milestones they represent:

• • 1977 shook up the industry
• • 1984 started a revolution
• • 1998 was the ultimate comeback
• • 2001 ignited a musical odyssey
• • 2007 changed everything

I’d argue that Throwboy got those two descriptors backward — but it hasn’t stopped the campaign’s growth: seeking a minimum of $10,000, it’s so far accrued nearly $70,000 in pledges, guaranteeing its success when it closes this Friday, September 14, 2018. A single pillow can be preordered for $39 including shipping, a 35% savings off the $60 retail value when it actually ships in February 2019. Happy Mac and rainbow pinwheel pillows are also available for $20 each.

Hug it. Play it. Nap on it. Just like a real Apple II.

The Apple II pillow not only looks soft and cuddly, but also detailed, from the rubber feet on the bottom to the ports on the back.

I’ve already preordered my Apple II pillow. It’ll be a great counterpart to my handmade, one-of-a-kind floppy pillow:

(Hat tip to David Pierini)