John Brooks of ProDOS v2.4 on Open Apple

When the September issue of Juiced.GS shipped, it featured a fast-breaking story: an interview with John Brooks, who just that month had released ProDOS v2.4, the first update to the operating system since Apple’s last official release on May 6, 1993. In the interview, which was recorded on Sunday, September 18, Brooks and Juiced.GS editor Ken Gagne discussed the impetus for this update; why it’s called v2.4 and not v2.0.4; how this 8-bit operating system benefits 16-bit Apple II users; the potential for copyright infringement; the significance of its release in a year that also saw the debut of Windows 10 and iOS 10; and much, much more. The conversation ran a half-hour long and was published as a 4.5-page, 3,627-word transcript.

ProDOS 8

Like many Apple II users, the staff of Juiced.GS never throws anything away. Though the magazine is available in hardcopy only, it seemed a waste to let the original audio recording of Brooks’ interview sit unheard in our vault. So, with Brooks’ permission and in collaboration with Quinn Dunki and Mike Maginnis, an excerpt of that interview can now be heard in episode #64 of the Open Apple podcast:

Knowing that both Juiced.GS readers and Open Apple listeners alike would benefit from an easy-to-remember Web address at which to find Brooks’ updated ProDOS, we registered this URL, which will always point to the latest ProDOS release at Call-A.P.P.L.E.:

http://prodos8.com/

Open Apple‘s excerpt represents ten minutes, or one-third, of the entire discussion between Brooks and Gagne. To learn more about Brooks’ work and methodology with ProDOS, pick up the September 2016 issue of Juiced.GS!