Apple IIe - End of an Era?
This story was submitted to Vintage Apple News by Richard Hyman. Please email with suggestions or solutions!

Huntington Beach, California: Vance Carruth a third grade teacher at Agnes Smith Elementary School in Huntington Beach, California has been supporting over twenty Apple IIe systems for the past fifteen (15) years. Each desktop system is networked to a main file server that contains dozens of games and activities. Even though the technology is almost thirty (30) years old, Vance's third graders fight over the chance to get use of one of these puppies. This is because classroom sizes have changed from twenty (20) to thirty (30) students this year due to school closings (budget cuts).

How did this all happen? Well, the school system purchased Apple IIe's for each classroom back in the 80's. In the early 90's they were replaced by IBM compatibles and most recently by Dell's. Each of the teachers were told they could take their Apple IIe home or move them to a designated storage room. Most elected to not take them home. The storage room later became Mr. Vance's classroom and he inherited the equipment. Mr. Vance decided to setup and network the desktops and has been supporting this effort with other machines that he has salvaged parts from for the last fifteen (15) years.

Now the real bad news. Mr. Carruth, (AKA Mr. Vance - Student's nickname for him) will be retiring this coming June. This comes only after 39 years of service at the same school. Once Mr. Vance has gone, there will be no other teacher to take on this support effort and the Apple IIe legacy along with Mr. Vance will vanish from Smith School. Once Mr. Vance is gone the Apples will be sold to the highest bidders and only Dell computers will be found on the Smith campus. If Steve Jobs is listening - are you going to accept this defeat? I pray not!

Story by: Richard Hyman. Richard may be contacted at RAHTAHTAH@hotmail.com and Mr. Vance may be contacted at VANCECARRUTH@yahoo.com

540c Web Server
We love vintage Apple computers used as Web Servers, and here is yet another! Built and Served on a Powerbook 540c using SimpleText to code, this site has some interesting infomation! Check it out.

540c Web Server

Copland, Revisited
A November, 1996 Special Report by Tom Thompson from the Byte Magazine archives.
It Begins:
"For more than a year, Apple has provided tantalizing glimpses of Mac OS 8, its future OS, which is more commonly known by its code name of Copland. Unfortunately, much like Microsoft's Windows 95 launch, the release of Copland has been plagued with delays. The expected shipping date has slipped from this year until well into 1997."

Copland, Revisited

This Week in Apple History
Today we again take a look back at the informative "This Week in Apple History" series at The Mac Observer. The March 21-31 entry in the series by Owen Linzmayer & Bryan Chaffin is entitled, "Xerox Suit, Oracle Takeover & Jesse Jackson on Apple".

March 21 - 31: Xerox Suit, Oracle Takeover & Jesse Jackson on Apple

Geek Trivia: Last but not Lisa
An article at TechRepublic by Jay Garmon. Not exactly a love-fest, but not all negative either. It begins:
"One of the most colossal blunders in personal computing history hit the market with a painful thud 23 years ago this week. On Jan. 19, 1983, Apple Computer's much-ballyhooed and wildly unsuccessful Lisa PC debuted, earning renown both for its remarkable technical innovations and its notorious commercial failings."

Geek Trivia: Last But Not Lisa

The Joy of Six
A 2005 article at low End Mac by Tyler Sable on the beloved System 6.

The Joy of Six: Apple's Fast, Svelte, Reliable, and Still Useful System 6

Real Artists Ship
Another slice of Apple history from Folklore.org, by Andy Hertzfeld. This time he recounts events surounding the launch of the Macintosh. It begins:
"By the fall of 1983, we had committed to announcing and shipping the Macintosh at Apple's next annual shareholder's meeting, to be held on January 24th, 1984. The failure of the Twiggy disk drive almost caused us to be late (see Quick, Hide In This Closet!) , but it seemed like the new Sony 3.5 inch drive solved all of our problems, and the rest of the hardware was ready to go. The Macintosh ROM was frozen in early September and sent out for fabrication. All that remained was finishing the System Disk, and our two applications, MacWrite and MacPaint."

Real Artists Ship

This Week in Apple History
Today we again take a look back at the informative "This Week in Apple History" series at The Mac Observer. The March 14-20 entry in the series by Owen Linzmayer & Bryan Chaffin is entitled, "Lots Of Mac History, 1 Million Macs, "Wicked Fast," Tell-All Book, Darwin".

March 14 - 20: Lots Of Mac History, 1 Million Macs, "Wicked Fast," Tell-All Book, Darwin

Virtual ][ Emulator Updated to Version 5.1
The fantastic 8-bit Apple II emulator for Mac OS X, Virtual ][ has been updated to version 5.1.

New in this release:
• The program now comes as a universal binary, fully compatible with both the Intel and the PowerPC Macintoshes.
• Added emulation of the ImageWriter II printer.
• Fixed an issue in the mouse card; as a result the emulation now supports the Apple II program "Blazing Paddles".
• Improved disk drive timing: as a result the Apple II program
• "Wasteland" now runs from copy-protected (.nib) disk images.
• Changed the Mockingboard card in such a way that the Apple II program "SkyFox" now detects and uses the card.
• Added a configurable option to skip the "save state" dialog when closing a virtual machine.
• Fixed an issue that resulted in wrong game paddle values when the machine ran at high speed.
• Fixed a potential crash in the Inspector when analyzing some types of copy protected disks.
• The "soft caps lock" feature doesn't affect pasted text anymore; it only affects typed characters, as it should.
• Solved an issue in sound handling that could lead to a deadlock when resetting the virtual machine.
• The "relative mouse mode" setting is now stored when saving a configuration file.

Virtual ][

The Newton and the Hare
A brief December 1994 cover story from the Byte.com archives.

It Begins:
"Negative reviews are bad enough, but when your company's new product is ridiculed for a whole week in Doonesbury, you know you've got a public-relations disaster.
Most products wouldn't survive such a withering blast. But Apple keeps plugging away with the Newton MessagePad, keeping a low profile while building for a hopefully brighter future.
`People ask me what it's like to work on the Newton,'' says Steve Capps, an Apple Fellow (senior scientist). `I tell them I'm thick-skinned, but not thick-headed. We've got to stick with the Newton but be wise about it.'"

The Newton and the Hare