Completing the Juiced.GS collection

August 29, 2012 · Add a comment

About this time a year ago, collections of Juiced.GS back issues were donated to museums and institutions around the world for archiving and distribution. Although at the time Juiced.GS had published 63 issues, we were able to donate only 39 of them, as the first six years of Juiced.GS had gone out of print.

In the time since then, the third and current publisher of Juiced.GS received from the magazine's founder the original masters used to produce the initial print run of those six volumes. We handed them over to the Apple II community member with the best reputation for producing high-quality digital reproductions of print material: Juiced.GS staff writer Mike Maginnis of Apple II Scans. Using those masters, Maginnis created PDFs suitable for physical reproduction, bringing Juiced.GS's first 24 issues back into print.

Those hardcopy issues have now been shipped to the organizations that had previously received the magazine's more recent volumes, completing their collections. All 66 issues of Juiced.GS to date are now available from these institutions and will be for as long as their hosts continue to exist.

Although Juiced.GS still sees a long and healthy future for our role in the Apple II print industry, we are heartened to know that every issue we will publish and have published will leave an indelible mark in the history of the Apple II, courtesy the work of these generous curators and preservationists.

Supporting Retrochallenge & IFComp

August 27, 2012 · Add a comment

"Support those who support the Apple II" is a philosophy that Juiced.GS holds dear. To that end, we collaborate with many members of the larger retrocomputer community to support events, research, sales, and publications — from selling Mike Willegal's hardware at KansasFest to manning a booth at VCF to speaking at user group meetings. Anything we can do to help further the cause, we're happy to consider it.

That's why Juiced.GS is proud to have recently supported two programming competitions with donations of goods to be used as prizes. The first contest concluded last month and was the annual Retrochallenge, which invites programmers the world over to spend the month of July making their favorite classic computer do something new and exciting — a sort of global, long-term HackFest. One lucky winner would get a copy of Drift, the demo disk that was included with the June 2012 issue of Juiced.GS. Unlike those disks, which were themselves limited, the Retrochallenge disk's sleeve featured a unique design — one of only four made available to Juiced.GS for use as prizes and donations. The Retrochallenge contestant to go home with this prize was Andrew Hazelden for his creation of IRIXBASIC for the Silicon Graphics O2 system. Andrew has since detailed his bounty on his blog. Congratulations, Andrew!

Interactive Fiction Competition logoFor those who missed Retrochallenge, you have a second chance to win fabulous prizes with the upcoming 18th annual Interactive Fiction Competition. IFComp furthers the text adventure genre with bold, original games for a variety of platforms. Apple II user Wade Clarke has placed in IFComp for the last several years, including with Leadlight, which was Juiced.GS's March 2011 cover story.

Juiced.GS is supporting IFComp with two prizes: yet another rare copy of Drift; and a 2013 subscription to our print magazine. Contest registrations are accepted through September 1, and submissions through September 29. Juiced.GS looks forward to congratulating IFComp's winners!

If you host or know of another event that could use Juiced.GS's support, please contact us; our charitable giving process is less painful than most!

Floppy disk sleeves & magnetic media stamps

August 25, 2012 · Add a comment

Over the years, I've received little feedback on what Juiced.GS does right or wrong. But never have I heard so many comments, and especially on one feature of our magazine, than I did at KansasFest 2012.

What was it that got everyone talking? Drift, the demo disk that was mailed to subscribers with the June 2012 issue. Everyone was agog that, 35 years after the Apple II was released, they received in the postal mail a magazine with an actual 5.25" floppy disk in it. "That is so cool!" I heard time and time again. "It doesn't get more retro than that!"

To make this disk's inclusion possible, Drift's developers and the Juiced.GS staff bandied several ideas about how to package the disk and magazine. Staples, tape, glue, cardboard inserts, and more were considered. The final approach was made possible by one important component: the floppy disk sleeves, hand-crafted by Melissa Barron.

The disks themselves, purchased from Vesalia Online, came "naked" with no sleeves. Artist Melissa Barron rectified that oversight with her mastery of origami, a process she has documented on her Web site.

A Drift in Juiced.GS

A Drift in Juiced.GS. Photo by Melissa Barron.

The final touch was a rubber stamp I had made that read "MAGNETIC MEDIA: DO NOT X-RAY / DO NOT BEND" with which to stamp the issue's envelopes. I remembered ordering a copy of ProSel from Apple II vendor Charlie's Appleseeds a few decades ago and receiving a 3.5" floppy disk that did not work. I asked him to send it again but this time mark the envelope with the above request. The second disk worked, and I took this anecdote as evidence of the necessity to label software appropriately for handling by the United States Postal Service.

Magnetic media: do not x-ray / do not bend

Magnetic media: do not x-ray / do not bend. Photo by Peter Neubauer.

Is such caution still necessary? Perhaps not. A discussion a few years ago on the KansasFest email list suggested that floppy disks can safely travel through airport X-ray scanners without harm, and the USPS tells me their scans these days are no more powerful than that.

Even had I known that, I still would've marked the envelopes, as it was part of the larger, nostalgic experience of receiving a floppy disk in the mail. It's a touch that did not go unnoticed by Peter Neubauer, who commented on how archaic the warning seemed:

You're walking down a dark alley. Rats, scratching for a bite, scurry behind the overflowing dumpsters. Somewhere in the shadows there's a raspy breathing sound. A windowless padlocked door has an old handwritten sign: "Magnetic Media" Beneath that, barely visible under rust brown splotches: "Do Not X-Ray | Do Not Bend". A cold mist has settled on the ground.

My thanks to everyone who made this collaboration possible, and for the feedback we received that let us know to keep finding ways to reward and surprise our Apple II fans!

Juiced.GS in 2013, wall calendar, and digital back issues

July 24, 2012 · Add a comment

Juiced.GS invites readers to enjoy another year of the longest-running Apple II print publication, with subscriptions now being offered for the magazine's 18th consecutive year.

"Every issue of Juiced.GS presents me as editor with a wonderful dilemma: choosing which stories will fit into our pages," says Ken Gagne. "There is so much happening in the Apple II world, from hardware and software to media and events, that we're never left with blank pages. The only way to cover it all is to continue publishing for another year."

The 2013 volume's four issues are available for $19 for United States subscribers, and $27 for international. New this year is a $24 price tier for subscribers in Canada and Mexico, as well as a "lifetime" subscription that creates a recurring, annual payment to Juiced.GS, automatically renewing your subscription for as long as Juiced.GS exists. (Lifetime subscriptions are an experimental feature that will be removed from the store in late September 2012.)

Juiced.GS 2013 calendarRetrocomputing enthusiasts who want more reasons to celebrate the new year can also order a 2013 wall calendar featuring photos and screenshots from the pages of Juiced.GS, many of them seen here in full color for the first time. Its 12 months also feature over a hundred dates of significance to Apple II users, including but not limited to Apple Computer Inc.'s founding to the discontinuation of the Apple IIe; the birthdays of Steve Wozniak, Steve Jobs, and Ryan Suenaga; the launch dates of podcasts Open Apple, 1 MHz, and RetroMacCast; and geek dates such as π Day, International Talk Like a Pirate Day, and the premiere of the new Star Trek movie. Calendars cost $15, which includes shipping.

Juiced.GS: The Early Years BundleFinally, for Juiced.GS readers who are as interested in the history of the machine as they are the future, the first 24 issues of Juiced.GS are back in print for the first time in over a decade. These six volumes are available in hardcopy and digital editions, as individual volumes ($16 shipped / $12 downloaded) or a bundle ($84 shipped within the USA / $99 shipped internationally / $64 downloaded).

"Juiced.GS balances looking back at the legacy of the Apple II while covering and anticipating the next major milestone," says Ken Gagne. "With products that span nearly two decades, Juiced.GS is perfectly positioned to continue serving the community for years to come."

A Drift in Juiced.GS

July 12, 2012 · 1 comment

Once upon a time, Juiced.GS was complemented by an exhaustive library of 3.5" floppy disks. With software releases and updates then a regular component of the Apple II scene, we offered subscribers a way to get these programs as a physical product. For readers whose Apple II computers weren't connected to the nascent Internet, it was an excellent way to get their hands on the latest Apple II wares.

These disks, which were eventually collected into the Friends For Life CD, were always sold separately — with one exception. When readers received Volume 3, Issue 4 (December 1998), they found it came with a bonus: a free, limited version of GSoft BASIC, the new programming language from The Byte Works. This 3.5" floppy was at the time an exclusive bonus to Juiced.GS subscribers and was an example of the collaborative opportunities available between our print publication and the Apple II community's vendors and members.

In June 2012, Juiced.GS went way retro and did the unprecedented. Along with the magazine, subscribers to Volume 17, Issue 2 received a 5.25" floppy disk with a copy of Drift, a demodisk originally released at the PixelJam demoparty in early 2012. A collaboration across three continents, Drift contains the music of Daniel Kruszyna and Wade Clarke, the code of Antoine Vignau, and the ASCII art of Melissa Barron. With the exception of Daniel, all have contributed articles to Juiced.GS — but Daniel made up for that oversight by sponsoring and coordinating this bonus, which Melissa Barron made even more invaluable with a limited-edition, hand-crafted, numbered floppy disk sleeve.

Drift demodisk

Real software calls for real hardware! Photo by Kevin Savetz; used with permission.

This disk was distributed exclusively to subscribers of the first run of Juiced.GS's June issue; those who subscribe late or buy the issue as part of a back volume can instead find the disk image available online as a free download. For those who received the floppy: may it inspire you to explore your classic Apple II hardware with the latest, greatest software!

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