A2 News and Notes
January 2001

INDEX

* Silvern Castle marches on
* Arachnid Preview Release 3 makes its way out from down under
* Generic Tile Engine beta released
* Byte Works updates the ORCA/Shell
* Spectrum 2.5.1 hits the streets
* A2Central.com news
** SOAR flies high
** POP email receiving, text email sending, and forwarding operational
** How many ][s in a trunk contest
** A2Central.com suffers from power crises and Internet backbone outages
** A2Central.com to serve up a new CPU
* Delphi on the ropes?
* _The Lamp!_ burns brighter
* MyESource MIA

* Silvern Castle marches on

Jeff Fink continues to update his Silvern Castle 8-bit Applesoft based
adventure game.  Silvern Castle 7.1 is now available from better Apple II
ftp sites everywhere.  For the uninitiated, Silvern Castle is a
Wizardry-style 8-bit Apple II game that pushes the 8-bit Apple II and
Applesoft BASIC to its absolute limits.

* Arachnid Preview Release 3 makes its way out from down under

Australian programmer Kim Howe has released another version of his
stand-alone World Wide Web browser for the Apple IIgs, Arachnid.  This
version adds passive File Transfer Protocol downloads, optional proxy server
capability (previous versions required a proxy server), as well as a bunch
of bug fixes and other improvements.  See Kim's World Wide Web page at
http://www.omninet.net.au/~khowe/arachnid/index.html for more details.

* Generic Tile Engine beta released

Apple IIgs programmer Lucas Scharenbroich has taken the wraps of the initial
beta release of a graphics library titled the Generic Tile Engine.  See his
web page at http://www.d.umn.edu/~lscharen/ for more information.

* Byte Works updates the ORCA/Shell

Mike Westerfield of Byte Works announced that a cosmetic Y2K+1 bug has been
found and eliminated in the ORCA/Shell.  If you're a registered owner of
ORCA/C 2.x, ORCA/Pascal 2.x, ORCA/M 2.x, ORCA/Modula-2, GSoft BASIC, or
either version of Opus ][, you can get the update by emailing
mikew50@aol.com.

* Ewen Wannop has released a Spectrum 2.5.1 update to remedy some issues
with the 2.5 update that was released last month.  The updaters will update
Spectrum 2.4 and later to 2.5.1--if you need an update to 2.4, it's
available from Shareware Solutions II.  See Ewen's World Wide Web page at
http://www.btinternet.com/~ewannop/ for the updater, and Shareware Solutions
II's home page at http://users.FoxValley.net/~joko/ for more Spectrum
information.

* A2Central.com news

A few tidbits from A2Central.com:

** SOAR flies high

In a note related to the Spectrum release, Ewen Wannop's Spectrum Offline
A2Central.com Reader has been released.  Compatible with Spectrum 2.5.1 and
Marinetti, it can be downloaded from Ewen's World Wide Web page at
http://www.btinternet.com/~ewannop/.

** POP email receiving, text email sending, and forwarding operational

Electronic mail is working on A2Central.com, although you cannot yet receive
mail using its text interface.  Any POP mail client (such as Spectrum
Automated Mailer) can receive your email (you can email any non-staff
A2Central.com member at username@a2people.com).  You can also send email via
the text interface, as well as set your email to forward to another address.
In the near future, receiving email will be operational as well.

** How many ][s in a trunk contest

France's Eric Le Bras won A2Central.com's A Trunkful of IIs Contest that had
contestants guessing how many Apple IIgs's Allen Moore had in his trunk
after a stop at Sean Fahey's legendary garage (see
http://www.a2central.com/features/2001-01/24-contest/index.html for the
picture).  For his efforts, Eric takes home an A2Central.com T-shirt and a
ComputerEyes GS digitizer.  Congratulations!

** A2Central.com suffers from power crisis and Internet backbone outages

Syndicomm's Eric Shepherd announced that A2Central.com has been a victim of
California's rolling blackouts related to their power crises on one
occasion.  Additionally, A2Central.com's Internet provider has had
difficulties with their backbone.  Hopefully, these out-of-control issues
are mostly resolved--see http://www.a2central.com/ for any updates.

** A2Central.com to serve up a new CPU

Syndicomm's Eric Shepherd announced that A2Central.com will be upgraded to a
much more powerful server in the very near future that will markedly
increase performance.  Stay tuned.

* Delphi on the ropes?

Rusty Williams, the president of Delphi, posted a message on the online
service indicating they are in the midst of substantially cutting costs,
further clouding the future of the now Web-based online service.  His
message has been posted in the A2 Forum on Delphi--go to
http://www.delphi.com/apple2/ and search the Forum for the full text.
Several outages of the now- unsupported text side have occurred in recent
weeks as well.

* _The Lamp!_ burns brighter

In a move related to the Delphi downturn, Lyle Syverson, editor of the
electronic newsletter _The Lamp!_ announced that the February issue will be
the first to have postings from both A2Central.com and Delphi's Apple II
areas included in its content.  See http://lamp.sheppyware.net/ for back
issues.

* MyESource MIA

MyESource, the company formerly known as Seven Hills Software, has had its
World Wide Web site vanish in recent days.  It is unknown if the company is
continuing operations or if it has folded.  Stay tuned for more developments
as they occur.

* Sign Off

A2 News and Notes is produced with real or emulated Apple II computers
using Appleworks 5.1 and Hermes with the occasional assist from ProTERM
Mac on the Macintosh.  Apple II Forever!

A2 News and Notes is (c) copyright 2001 by Ryan M. Suenaga, M.S.W.  All
rights reserved.

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