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KansasFest 2010 was, by all measures, a success. Attended by an eclectic assortment of veterans and newcomers, the event hosted an excellent keynote speech, programming and athletic competitions with fantastic prizes, numerous technical sessions, and much late-night camaraderie. The only thing that could be better is knowing that we'll get to do it again.
Start counting the days, as KansasFest returns to Rockhurst University for July 19–24, 2011! More details, including pricing, keynote speaker, and more, will be announced on this site as they become available. In the meantime, we'll be planning to preserve the best of KansasFests past while continuing to grow and innovate, making each year better than the last.
KansasFest's daytime schedule is populated by a variety of sessions about Apple II hardware, software, programming, gaming, and more. These topics often inspire not just the audience, but also their own presenters. Many attendees who delivered sessions at KansasFest 2010 have since published additional online resources to those interested in further exploring those topics:
Martin Haye, who demonstrated his original Super-Mon and NakedOS tools, has made both available for download.
Likewise, Ivan Drucker's NuInput and Slammer expansions for Applesoft BASIC are posted online.
Ken Gagne has collected the videos used in his "Classic Gaming Inspirations" and "Know Your Meme" sessions at Apple II Bits and Showbits, respectively.
Among the sessions offered at KansasFest 2010 was an advance screening of GET LAMP, Jason Scott's documentary of text adventures. After this one-hour presentation, KFesters received a pleasant surprise: every attendee would receive a free copy of the final product, a $40 value. Though the two-DVD set wouldn't ship until August, each attendee went home with a numbered, collectible coin that would soon be complemented by the actual film.
The documentary includes leagues of extra features, including interactive branching paths, an upgrade guarantee, and every Eamon adventure ever created for the Apple II. Of course, the main feature is the film itself and its comprehensive chronology of interactive fiction and the people who created, made, sold, play, and promote:
The DVDs shipped on August 11 and have now arrived in all attendees' homes. It's a gift from Jason Scott and former KansasFest organizer Steve Gozdziewski, who each wanted to recognize the contribution every KFester makes to the Apple II community and to computer history. Their attendance at this event, whether it's for the first time or the twenty-first, lets KansasFest continue to be a part of living history.
If you weren't able to attend KansasFest 2010, you can still order GET LAMP online, or hope that the GET LAMP tour will come to a city near you. And if you or a friend are new to text adventures, the "How to Play Interactive Fiction" card, also seen at KansasFest 2010, is a good cheat sheet with which to get started.
[This KansasFest report is provided courtesy Geoff Weiss.]
The game Bite The Bag made a Rockhurst debut at KansasFest 2010, ending its several-year hiatus. Repeat attendee Geoff Weiss hosted the competition, which requires each player to pick up a paper bag by the mouth while maintaining only one point of contact with the ground. A standard grocery store-size paper bag was shortened by 1-2 inches after every round until just the bag's bottom remained.
After enjoying Juiced.GS's pizza reception Wednesday night, the following ten contestants participated in Bite the Bag: Mark Frischknecht, Eric Rucker, Ian Johnson, Martin Haye, Ken Gagne, Ivan Drucker, Andy Molloy, Scott Miller, Peter Neubauer, and Geoff Weiss. Martin played the game with a metal splint holding a broken finger. As Geoff and Ken were the only two to have been attending KansasFest long enough to remember the game's last appearance, all other players were playing for the first time.
Eric and Scott were unable to pick up the bag in round one. Realizing the game's inherent challenges, the remaining contestants used their downtime to observe each other's strategies and engage in various preparatory calisthenics. The eight players remained until the eighth round, at which point Martin elected to drop out rather than strain his broken finger. Mark, Ian, and Peter were unable to pick up the bag. Ivan and Andy were able to play for two more rounds, until half of the bottom of the bag remained. Ken and Geoff battled it out for one more round, at which point the bag could be diminished no further. At this point, the winner was determined by who could hold the bag aloft the longest. Ken proved to the winner by holding the soggy bag for eight seconds.
As Ken and Geoff had won previous Bite the Bag competitions, they decided to allow this year's runner-ups to claim prizes. Ivan Drucker chose 8 Bit Weapon's Electric High EP music CD, courtesy Gamebits. Mark Frischknecht received anAssembler/Macrosoft package, donated by Nibble Magazine. Ian Johnson received a boxed copy of the game Axis and Allies, donated by Loren Damewood. Andy Molloy received a complete collection of Shareware Solutions II, courtesy Tony Diaz — and Peter Neubauer graciously donated his prize back to the pool.
Our thanks to everyone who stayed up late to revive and enjoy this KansasFest tradition!
The HackFest competition, which Eric Shepherd founded at KansasFest 1998, epitomizes the Apple community. The Apple II is a powerful machine that is extremely limited by today's standards, yet creative and innovative developers relish the challenge and fun of programming it to do things it was never designed to do. HackFest invites KansasFest attendees to produce cool, original code within the time constraints of the convention itself.
This year, four contestants underwent the trial, to great success. Scott Miller wrote the beginnings of a text adventure BASIC program based on KansasFest itself, dubbed "KQuest". Jeff Blakeney also took a stab at adapting a known brand to BASIC when he began developing a music rhythm game akin to Guitar Hero in GSoft. Peter Neubauer, last year's reigning champ, wrote a KansasFest trivia game, his first-ever 16-bit application for the Apple II, using a combination of Complete Pascal, SuperConvert. Martin Haye used his own Super-Mon utility to crack the copy protection on the classic role-playing game, Wizardry. These entries were judged by Ivan Drucker, Sean Fahey, and Ken Gagne, as represented by Ivan.
In first place, Martin chose the FC5025 floppy disk controller card as his prize. Peter Neubauer in second took the $50 cash prize, donated by Ryan Suenaga. Jeff Blakeney accepted a Juiced.GS 2011 subscription, while Scott Miller got a Replica I.
Congratulations to all HackFest entrants! Please continue development on your programs and release them when ready for all Apple II enthusiasts to enjoy.
Attendees of KansasFest 2010 were fortunate to kick off the event by listening to a keynote speech by Mark Simonsen, former president of Beagle Bros. When he was first approached to be the event's keynote speaker, his initial reaction was, "How did you find me??" It turns out that Mr. Simonsen is a serial entrepreneur who has founded, developed, bought, and sold numerous companies in his career. His work with Beagle Bros struck him as a lifetime ago, but as the dates for KansasFest approached, he began to dig out old notes and relive fond memories. By the time he was ready for his KansasFest debut, he realized and revealed that the ten years coding the 6502 constituted the best job he'd ever had. He was enthusiastic and gracious and genuinely appreciate of everyone's passion for his work and for the Apple II in general, as revealed in his keynote.
As seen in the above video, Mr. Simonsen came to Kansas City with a wealth of memorabilia from his days at Beagle Bros, which he has allowed us to share here.
Mr. Simonsen arrived at KansasFest on Tuesday afternoon and stayed through noon on Thursday, attending several events and even staying up late to watch the curious phenomenon known as Bite the Bag. He was as much a member of the Apple II community as he was our honored guest. On his way home, he emailed attendees to say, "Thanks for the invite to KansasFest. It was a blast! I was surprised by the range of ages and number of young people. It was a pleasure to meet you and everyone else at KFest. Have a great rest of the show. All the best!"
As many KansasFest alumni discover, the experience of KansasFest is one that stays with you long after you've left Kansas City. Mr. Simonsen followed up a few days later: "I'm sitting here at work doing important things but wishing I was still at KFest! I'm having withdrawals … because I had so much fun with all you guys."
We likely haven't heard the last from this Apple II luminary; as he concluded in his speech, he's been inspired to get back into coding — perhaps foreshadowing his next business venture? Maybe he was even looking for ideas when he wrote to us a week later: "So who won the HackFest? And what were all the entries?"
We'll have that information for him soon on this blog. In the meantime, thank you to everyone for making our keynote speaker's experience of KansasFest such a memorable one!
KansasFest 2010 is less than a week behind us, with some attendees still slowly making their way home. Those that have arrived are reporting more motivation and inspiration than ever for Apple II projects. Whether they're dusting off old computers, continuing their HackFest projects, or submitting their ideas for publication, KansasFest alumni find the experience is one that recharges its participants and lingers until they reunite in Kansas City a year later.
It's no surprise that KansasFest was a huge success. The event drew more than three dozen attendees, including Resource Central alumni Dennis Doms and Tom Vanderpool; former Beagle Bros president Mark Simonsen; numerous alumni, including Jeff Blakeney, our one international representative, returning to KansasFest for the first time since 2002; four returning first-timers from KansasFest 2009; and seven attendees who experienced their first KansasFest in 2010. There were also sessions presented remotely by absent alumni Eric Shepherd, Ryan Suenaga, and Steve Weyhrich, and even one by Wayne Arthurton, who promises that 2011 will be his first KansasFest!
Many of these sessions and others are available in the KansasFest file archive, with other media also available for those catching up on the event. Live reports were posted by Kirk Mitchell to comp.sys.apple2, while Andy Molloy, Mike Maginnis, and Sean Fahey reported for A2Central.com. First-time attendee Eric Rucker has written about his experience on his blog, while Ken Gagne is slowly uploading video recordings of the week's events.
Look for further updates on this site as well as everyone slowly recovers from a week of sleepless nights that will last a lifetime!
All KFest 2010 attendees are invited to participate in HackFest, which began at 7:00 AM today and ends at 10:00 AM on Saturday.
HackFest is a programming contest in which entrants compete to create the coolest Apple II program in the limited time of KansasFest. Programs need not be complete to be considered cool! View the complete HackFest rules for more details.
The judges, who this year consist of Sean Fahey, Ivan Drucker, and Ken Gagne, will review the entries on Saturday, with public demonstrations and awards at 4 PM.
Our thanks to Eric Shepherd for creating this tradition!
