Jason Scott of Archive.org will pitch a project he's working on that will impact Apple II users.

The Apple II was in production from 1977 to 1993. From early interest to broad adoption to being over shadowed by the Mac, followed by cancellation, diehard support, and retrocomputing revitalization, the machine has survived many eras and purposes. What was the golden age of the Apple II? What constituted its heyday, and how long did it last — assuming it's already over, or has even happened? Jason Scott will moderate this panel consisting of Bob Bishop (Apple Computer Inc.), Steve Weyhrich (Apple II History), and Geoff Weiss (Juiced.GS).

Jason Scott, creator of textfiles.com, BBS: The Documentary, and the online Twitter personality Sockington the cat, delivers this keynote speech at KansasFest 2009.

Recorded on Wednesday, July 22, 2009, by Sean Fahey.

A video of this session is also available.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 46:34 — 21.4MB)

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.

Before there was the first-person shooter, there was the second-person thinker. Come watch a one-hour cut of Jason Scott?s two-DVD documentary, GET LAMP, that covers the history, impact, programmers, and gamers of text adventures and interactive fiction.

The KansasFest 2010 session lineup, first posted last month, has grown to include several more presentations, courtesy several volunteers willing to offer their insights and expertise to KansasFest attendees:

• Stavros Karatsoridis will describe how to set up an Apple II to act as a "dumb terminal" for the Terminal application in Mac OS X.
• Ivan Drucker will debut his original programming utility: Slammer, which allows machine language to be inserted into a standard Applesoft program with practically no performance, dependency, or stability issues.
• Sometime this summer, KansasFest 2009 keynote speaker Jason Scott will be releasing GET LAMP, his two-disc documentary of text adventures. A special one-hour cut of this film, made exclusively for convention audiences, will be screened at KansasFest.
• Eric Shepherd, who in 2008 gave a presentation on iPhone programming, will this year introduce us to iPad programming. More than just "a giant iPhone", the iPad is a unique development environment, and Sheppy will review the differences between writing apps for the two devices.
• Ken Gagne of quarterly magazine Juiced.GS will make several announcements about the past, present, and future of the world's longest-running Apple II publication.

Formal sessions are an integral element of the KansasFest experience, offering Apple fans new ways and environments in which to use their favorite machines. The other half of the equation is the camaraderie offered by attendees and presenters: nothing recharges a retrocomputing enthusiast's batteries as fast as the energy of fellow hobbyists. With less than a week until the Early Bird registration deadline, you should sign up today to enjoy the sessions and friendships that are a hallmark of KansasFest!

In addition to yesterday's aural coverage of KansasFest 2009, several of this year's events were also captured on film. Sean Fahey of A2Central.com recorded the entirety of Jason Scott's keynote speech, up until the open Q&A afterward:

And KansasFest attendee Bruce Baker captured a few minutes here and there of four of the sessions:

A concerted and official effort will be made to record future KansasFest sessions. In the meantime, our thanks to the above volunteers for providing us with this media.

KansasFest 2009 will officially kick off with a keynote speech by technology historian Jason Scott, creator of BBS: The Documentary. For more details, see the press release.