Juiced.GS's March issue now available

Ken Gagne

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Mar 31, 2011, 9:14:08 AM3/31/11

to

Juiced.GS Volume 16, Issue 1 is now arriving in subscribers'
mailboxes, surprising everyone by featuring the publication's first
full-color cover. Full details and subscription info are at http://juiced.gs/
but I thought I'd post some short samplers to the four in-depth
articles that compose this issue's four main features.

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A Leading Light: The nature and future of text adventures
By Ken Gagne and Ivan Drucker

Text adventures, one of the earliest forms of electronic
entertainment, have enjoyed a recent resurgence in popularity, due in
part to the release of Get Lamp, Jason Scott's documentary on the
subject. And it's not just retrocomputing enthusiasts who are taking
notice: in the past year, interactive fiction, or IF, has appeared in
such mass media as the television sitcom Big Bang Theory and the Xbox
360 video game Call of Duty: Black Ops.

Yet IF has been alive and well, albeit out of the limelight, for
decades. The sixteenth annual Interactive Fiction Competition was held
this past fall, with 26 new adventures competing to earn their
designers an array of prizes, all demonstrating new explorations of
the text interface. The Apple II was represented at the IF
Competition by Wade Clarke, who submitted the game Leadlight, which
ran on a customized version of Don Brown's Eamon adventure system ...
Whether you love it or hate it, Leadlight is an example of the dynamic
and evolving potential of this tried-and-true pastime.

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The Magician Behind Macrosoft
An interview with Alan Floeter, by Peter Neubauer

Alan Floeter purchased his first Apple II in 1978 for $1,200. Unlike
his previous professional experience with the Intel 8080, the Apple II
was his computer in his house. Soon, Alan became a prolific author
with appearances in Call-A.P.P.L.E., Nibble, MICRO, and Kilobaud
magazines. He was also a talented programmer with multiple commercial
software releases, including The Assembler and Macrosoft programming
tools and the Skybombers II game. Today, he cannot bear to part with
his collection of Apple II and classic Mac computers, even the ones
with the broken keyboards. In his words, "those were exciting times."

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Getting Started with the Apple II
By Martin Haye

In this three-part series, Juiced.GS will address the following
questions: What can you do with these old machines anyway? What should
you buy and where? Older or newer, 8-bit or 16- bit? How do you get it
all working together? What if you get stuck?

This first part will cover decisions and suppliers. The next issue
will delve into hooking up an 8-bit system and the various things you
can do with it. The third and final installment will add the 16- bit
Apple IIGS to the mix, including all its enhanced capabilities.

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Apple II file transfer methods
By the Juiced.GS staff

In the past year, we've looked at a variety of methods of accessing
and transferring disks and files between an Apple II and a Mac, PC, or
UNIX machine. The first entry covered how to use the Internet as an
intermediary, while the second issue cut out the mid- dleman and made
a direct connection between the Apple II and another computer. The
third installment re- viewed how to create a local area network, or
LAN, and last issue, we covered creating and using disk images on an
Apple II. In this issue, we review emulators that use those disk
images to recreate the Apple II experience in a modern operating
environment, then suggest some native, modern utilities that can be
used to create and manipulate disk images and files outside the Apple
II.