KFest 2010 Report
Kirk Mitchell
Wow! Another KFest started! Number 14 for me!
I moved this summer, so I had a lot further to drive this year than in
years past. I made good time, until I hit St. Joe and further south.
Torrential rain, flooding roads and construction, oh my! Nice light
show with all the lightning, though.
I barely made it in time to participate in the group trip to Sweet
Tomatoes for all you could eat salad, soup, soft serve ice cream and
great company. A good time was had by all.
I spent a large portion of the remaining evening shopping for the
Kookout, but did manage to cruise the hallways visiting old friends,
and introducing myself to the newbies this year. I think we have 7
first timers this year, and a fine group they are! Quite a few here
for the second time too! We're a multinational collection this year,
with the return of Jeff Blakney from Canada. His return from a long
absence was appreciated.
Alas, my long time roomie Ryan "Poi Boi" Suenaga didn't make it this
year, but Loren is a suitable replacement. B-)
I did manage to last until 2:00 am before my travels caught up with
me. I'm not so young anymore. B-)
This morning, I did make it to breakfast, coffee and bacon. And more
coffee. They have a new fancy coffee maker, which will make you an
individual cup with varying flavors and strengths. I'll be putting it
through it's paces.
I did more shopping, and when I got back, it was time to get the coals
burning, and the hamburgers and hot dogs, and phake phlesh cooking.
Fortunately, the rain had stopped, and it was just cloudy and muggy.
Things went well, and no food poisoning reported, B-)
Tony Diaz did an impromptu demonstration on how to open an Apple //c,
which was interesting. The remains of the //c remain strewn round the
commons area. B-)
I made a quick jaunt to the Apple Store to get my dead Time Capsule
replaced. They agreed to do so, even though it's out of warranty.
Yay, Apple!
That did make me late for the first few minutes of Mark Simonsen's
Keynote address. B-(
What I did manage to hear was fantastic! Beagle Bros has always been
my favorite computer oriented company... exceeding Apple even. Ken
Gagne was videoing, so perhaps he'll get it online. Mark is a swell
guy just to talk to, as well... He's truly an Apple II Geek like the
rest of us KFesters.
Dinner was great, but I won't bother with menus here. B-) After we
ate, we had a session with Rob Walch of the "Today in iOS" podcast.
This has been Rob's 4th year keeping us updated on the happenings with
iPhones, iPods, and now the iPad. Great session! Everyone check out
his podcast as well. He's well informed and entertaining.
Around 9:00 pm, Ken Gagne of Juiced.GS fame provided our crew with
pizza and refreshments. I about lost a hand, reaching for a piece of
mushroom and spinach pizza. I'm surprised anyone is still THAT hungry
here. B-)
BRB... OK, I'm back. Currently we're on round 6 of the classic Bite
the Bag competition. I'm afraid this is for the young and limber
members of the conference, but it makes for a great spectator sport.
I've never seen so many face plants in such a short amount of time!
Already, several participants feature rug burns on their foreheads and
knees! When I left, there were still 5 "Baggers" still in the
running. And I think I'll cut short my report and return with some
bandaides. B-)
Til tomorrow!
Kirk Mitchell
sessions, so it was very busy!
After breakfast, Peter Neubauer presented an overview of the Macrosoft
program language that rests on Nibble Magazine's MindCraft Assembler.
It allows the programmer to write using an Applesoft-like syntax, when
then assembles to machine language code for extra speed. Back in the
late '80s, the package sold for $100, but Peter will be offering it at
the vendor fair for $23.95 for both the macro package and assembler,
useable from DOS 3.3 and ProDos.
He wrote a short program that demonstrated it's features, and I'd say
the program was 5x faster then its Applesoft equivalent. I'll be
leaving KFest with a copy. Excellent session!
Eric Shepherd, aka "Sheppy" was unable to make it to KFest this year,
but was still with us in spirit and streaming when he used iChat to
present a session on iPad programming. He demonstrated how easy it
was to take the project he'd shown last year for the iPhone, and port
it to the iPad. I'm not very acquainted with the Xcode development
system, but it was interesting, and I listened intently for the last
15 minutes... B-P
Sheppy's session was followed by a panel discussion over the subject
"Apple's Growing Divide Between Users and Programmers" which featured
Ken Gagne as moderator, and Panelists Ivan Drucker, Martin Haye, and
Mike Maginnis. The brain power there caused the room to tilt a bit!
Excellent points about how Apple's market shifted from the hobbyist/
programmer of the Apple II days, to the far less open, but probably
unavoidable closed systems of the iPad and iPhones in today's market.
After Lunch, Martin Haye introduced his latest project, NakedOS, a new
Disk II operating system usable on all Apple II's. It's a very
tightly coded option for those who need to squeeze 4-5 KB more memory
to use for their 8-bit programs, and additional diskette space as
well. A very detailed session that covered the many details one would
have to consider in using this totally free operating system. Still,
it looks like a winner for those who would want to take advantage it!
Dagen Brock's session was on "Off-platform Apple II development", and
stressed using the strengths of the many Linux/Mac OS/Windows
development tools available, to enhance Apple II programs. He could
have used much more time to cover all that's available.
Mike Maginnis presented an overview of the Apple /// , the //e's
failure of a brother, complete with a brief look at it's history, and
how it almost caused the death of Apple. He was well researched on
its trivia and the resources still available to those who still love
this stinker. B-) Tony Diaz then brought out a prototype ///+ for
all to examine.
After dinner, Ken Gagne showed an hour clip of Jason Scott's two DVD
documentary, "Get Lamp". It took me back to my college days when I'd
be in the university computer lab, consuming vast quantities of fan
fold paper playing "Adventure" on the teletypes. Interviews with the
luminaries from Infocom, Scott Adams, and various gamers of text
adventures and interactive fiction certainly struck a cord with me!
And to top it off, Jason Scott blew our minds when Ken told us that he
was offering all KFest participants a free copy! A $40 value! All the
DVD's come with numbered collectable dual tone coins expressing the
high points of text adventuring. The DVD's aren't shipping yet, but
we DID get the coins... I got #1003. B-)
As I type, Tony and Ken are on the run to Krispy Kreme that Ryan
Suenaga and I used to do. Ryan couldn't make it this year, but he's
still sponsoring our dose of donuts and milk. Thanks, Ryan!
Now it's time for me to wander the halls and push myself into the room
with the most laughing Geeks. Wish you were here!
madmax2069
> GUEST wrote:
> Wow! Another KFest started! Number 14 for me!
>
> I moved this summer, so I had a lot further to drive this year than
in
> years past. I made good time, until I hit St. Joe and further
south.
> Torrential rain, flooding roads and construction, oh my! Nice
light
> show with all the lightning, though.
>
> I barely made it in time to participate in the group trip to Sweet
> Tomatoes for all you could eat salad, soup, soft serve ice cream
and
> great company. A good time was had by all.
>
> I spent a large portion of the remaining evening shopping for the
> Kookout, but did manage to cruise the hallways visiting old
friends,
> and introducing myself to the newbies this year. I think we have 7
> first timers this year, and a fine group they are! Quite a few
here
> for the second time too! We're a multinational collection this
year,
> with the return of Jeff Blakney from Canada. His return from a
long
> absence was appreciated.
>
make it this
wow, sounds like a blast. I really wanted to
come
] 3ob
I would LOVE to see the session notes/info on NakedOS!
]3ob
Kirk Mitchell
Don't know about the session notes, but the help menu's on the disk
explain a lot. Just check them out!
http://bytebucket.org/martin.haye/super-mon/overview
Kirk
Kirk Mitchell
rapidly coming to an end. B-)
Friday is the second day full of sessions, and I'm getting a bit
blurry. Nothing more annoying than a blurry, excited Geek... After
breakfast, Martin Haye presented the second half of his NakedOS/Super-
Mon duo. This program adds more power to the built in machine
language Monitor built into every Apple II... and I mean POWER! It
makes it simple to list, edit and write in assembly language,
including labels! I encourage those folks interested in assembly to
follow http://bytebucket.org/martin.haye/super-mon/overview and at
least check the sites links to features. It's worth your time!
Ken Gagne lightened the techincal nature with his session on how
various Apple II games influenced titles written for the Mac, with a
side by side comparison of 5 or 6 titles. Enjoyable session!
Wayne Arthurton couldn't make it to this years KansasFest, but that
didn't stop him from paying us a visit via Skype, and giving us a
session entitled "Optimizing Algorithms in AppleSoft Basic". He
tested the effect that such things as variable allocation and loop
construction and demonstrated how you could speed calculations up a
significant amount. I was happy to see the results of his testing
because some "hints" I'd always taken for granted in the past didn't
really do anything to speed things up.
After lunch, Stavros Karatsoridis demonstrated how to use ADTPro to
bootstrap Apple II's over serial connections to get system disks and
other disk images to your Apple II, even if you just have blank disks
at hand. He then used it to get Modem.MGR which he then used to set
up a dumb terminal connection to his Mac, using a USB to Apple II
serial cable, which opens up access to all kinds of Apple disk
images. Impressive!
Geoff Weiss did the first KansasFest demonstration of the GNO/ME Unix-
like extention for the Apple IIGS. Even at an hour and a half, it
proved difficult touch on but a small subset of the features of this
free, open source program... It can be downloaded w/ 18 800K
floppies... Yikes! Participants expressed interest in working on
updating features and bughunting. I bought this package ages ago, and
loved playing with it. When Marinetti came out, though, the promise
of a TCP/IP stack dwindled for GNO, and interest slacked off. I hold
with Geoff's hope that we can get folks to polish this resource up
again!
Melissa Barron demonstrated her hacked/modified version of the classic
Oregon Trail game... changing in-game text to 1337, and other amusing
features... Using tools that surprised most of us! An eye opening
session! I didn't sleep through this one. B-)
The Dinner Banquet was next, and most of the crew dressed up an had
ties on. If you could call them ties... They were for the Roger
Wagner Tie one On contest, and judging was fun! Tony Diaz swept the
field in the end. We had table clothes and crystal as well... fancy.
It made the Chicken Cordon Bleu taste pretty darned good! We also
welcomed Tom Vanderpool and Dennis Doms of Open-Apple/A2Central/
Resource Central fame as our special guests, where they, another
members of that crew received plaques for their contributions to the
Apple II world. Tony announced that all of the publications that flew
under their banner had been offered freely by publisher Tom
Weishaar... years of great reading will soon be available!
We wrapped up the dinner with a game of ""Action Castle"... Ken
kicked some butt as MC for Life as well! Great job, Ken!
Later, we had our group picture take, and shortly afterwards,
scattered to the wind. Some to visit the Apple Store, others to
unload James Littlejohn's bus which was filled with the contents of
Sean Fahey's famous garage. Equipment, cards, cables, floppy disks...
all to be picked over by KFesters tomorrow morning. I can't wait!
Keep in mind, these aren't the high points of the day. Those come
when we visit with each other, and share our knowledge and a few bad
jokes and all. Which is where I'm headed now.
Wish you were here!
Calibrator
>
> Melissa Barron demonstrated her hacked/modified version of the classic
> Oregon Trail game... changing in-game text to 1337, and other amusing
> features... Using tools that surprised most of us! An eye opening
> session! I didn't sleep through this one. B-)
Melissa held another leet-Oregon-session at "notacon 7" which can
be downloaded as a WMV-video file here:
http://www.notaconmedia.com/2010media.shtml
It's about 330 megs, though.
The modified game can be found among other interesting stuff
at her homepage at: http://melissabarron.net/
bye
Marcus
] 3ob
Thanks for the link!
]3ob
Bill Garber
"Calibrator" <calib...@freenet.de> wrote in message news:e2c3
c1f5-4db8-4e85-8...@5g2000yqz.googlegroups.com...
Hi Marcus,
Actually, 330 meg isn't really that bad in these days.
Heck, I hardly scoff at 1 or 2 Gig anymore. 8^)
Bill
Kirk Mitchell
bound to forget some point. Wow, what a great time!
Morning started with boxes and boxes of Apple II stuff from Sean's
garage lovingly carried from James Littlejohn's Magic Bus to the lobby
of the dorm. Soon, we were poking through the goodies and
accumulating small piles of treasure to lug back to our rooms grinning
from ear to ear. My Kensington System Saver died during a recent
move, but what did I find? Its replacement! I have an Apple II+ with
one Disk II. It has a second drive now. Good times!
Afterwards, Ken Gagne (golly, that boy is active!) reported on the
state of the union of "Juiced.GS". Apparently, he has more
subscribers than any year since he took over the publication! It's
obvious why, Ken publishes a quality work. He announced another year
of publication, plus something he called the "Juiced.GS Concentrate"
where past articles of similar nature will be concentrated into ...
Hmm... I can't remember how he was going to do this. I might have
rested my eyes about then... Anyway, it's good news!
Ivan Drucker introduced some of his newer programming projects, one
Nuinput, a revised Input command for Applesoft Basic which bypasses
that "extra ignored" error that plagues us when folks add a comma or
colon to input data. He also showed an ingenious method to include
machine language routines in Applesoft programs... and no, it wasn't a
bunch of pokes! He calls it "Slammer". Great work!
My former loser roomy who couldn't make it to KFest for the first time
in 15 years, sent a movie file where he announced a send only email
NDA. He's done several nifty projects like this, and I'm sure it adds
power to the GS. Emily II should prove to be very handy!
Tony Diaz demonstrated the repair of a variety of disk drives. I'll
admit I skipped this session as I've already seen it 4-5 times, and if
I can't remember after that many times, I never will... Tony did a
good job then, and I'm sure he was entertaining at this session as
well!
At the New Product Demos session, we had a surprise visit via Skype by
Bill Gates, aka Dr. Steven Weyhrich who announced a revision to his
Apple II History website at http://apple2history.org It looks really
nice! Great source of information! Unfortunately, any hardware
announcements were postponed until parts suppliers actually get their
wares to our developers.
The Hackfest projects were presented, and most were neat, amusing,
unfinished... The winner was Martin Haye, who finally deprotected the
1981 classic "Wizardry"... I know of Wildcard cracks of the game, but
I think this is the first time it's been totally deprotected by boot
tracing and patching and all that. Whee!
The Swap/Vendor Fair wasn't as big as some in years past, but I found
stuff I hadn't purchased before, and only got home before I realized I
hadn't tackled Peter to get a copy of MacroSoft... grrr..
We went to Jack Stack BBQ for dinner, and I'll say right now, I'll
never go there again. Sure, Saturday nights are busy, but I'm not
going to stand around for 3 hours to get in. We went two doors down
to a great Italian place and had a wonderful time! The horde split
up, without about half going to the movies, while the rest of us went
back to the dorm to play "Apple Jeopardy". No one won or lost because
we were hitting the wall about then, but it was fun, and I learned
that Woz's first wifes maiden name was Robinson... Or maybe that was
a hallucination.
I actually went to bed before my new roomy...a first this KFest. Got
up later than usual this morning, ate breakfast, drank vast quantities
of strong coffee, packed, said goodbye, and an 11 hour drive later, am
home and sorta sad, and sorta grateful that I can take a breather.
That's it for this year! Hope you can make it next year!
bbake...@gmail.com
11 hours is close to 600 miles, that's almost as far as I come. Do
you live in Colorado now?
Bruce Baker
On Jul 25, 9:50 pm, Kirk Mitchell <kirkmitch...@gmail.com> wrote:
> This is written after an 11 hour drive home. I'm still blurry and
> bound to forget some point. Wow, what a great time!
>
. Whee!
Kirk Mitchell
wrote:
> Good job Kirk. I enjoyed reading the synopses. Good job.
>
> 11 hours is close to 600 miles, that's almost as far as I come. Do
> you live in Colorado now?
>
Nope... Nebraska, about 6 miles from the Wyoming border. And yes, it
was slightly over 600 miles!
Kirk
Adam Hall
any of that shown?
Kirk Mitchell
> What happened to the IIGS laptop, or that Barndoor accelerator ? Was
> any of that shown?
They were a no show. B-(
Ken Gagne
Thanks for the verbose reports! I almost feel like I was there. Oh,
wait...
Regarding your comment about the keynote speech being recorded, it is
now available at these URLs:
http://a2central.com/2648/kansasfest-2010-keynote-posted/
I'm new to this A/V stuff and surely could've done a better job had I
known what I was doing. I'm told the end result is nonetheless worth
watching, thanks primarily to Mr. Simonsen and his fantastic keynote.
Thanks also to Greg Nelson for compressing this video to under Vimeo's
2 GB upload limit.
I hope to upload more videos from KFest 2010 over the next month!
-Ken
Calibrator
>
> I'm new to this A/V stuff and surely could've done a better job had I
> known what I was doing. I'm told the end result is nonetheless worth
> watching, thanks primarily to Mr. Simonsen and his fantastic keynote.
Well worth the watching the piece, IMHO, he really comes across
as a seriously funny & down to earth guy.
"I'm a serial entrepreneur." <- LOL!
bye
Marcus
Beverly Cadieux
uploading the keynote speech by Mark Simonsen. I met Mark and the
other programmers at one of the AppleFests, when Beagle Bros and the
TimeOut series were extremely popular. I agree with Mark about the
"elegance" of programming - and using - the Apple II.
I especially appreciated Mark's mentioning Chuck Newby, who started
the Beagle Buddy program for user groups. Chuck had a lot to do with
the success of the TimeOut series, as well as AppleWorks 3.0 and later
versions, and I am glad to see him get credit.
Beverly Cadieux
TEXAS II an International newsletter for users of AppleWork(R) 5.1