I scored with my latest acquisition!

[Polymorph <mike.a.stephens@gmail.com>]

Hi All,

I just wanted to share the details of my latest acquisition as I am over 
the moon!

A local free classifieds website (which I'd never before gone to BTW) 
had an advert for a IIgs. I had no idea how long the advert had been 
placed for, and there were no pictures supplied, but I thought, "What 
the hell, I'll see if it's still for sale".

I contacted the seller and it indeed was still up for sale. He said he 
didn't want much for it - maybe AU$20. I said I was prepared to pay up 
to AU$50 as I didn't want to feel like I was ripping him off. It hadn't 
been used for some time, so eventually we agreed on a price halfway 
between - AU$35. I asked him if he could send me some pics, and a couple 
of days later I get pictures of it all nicely packed away in its 
original box! It's a little yellowed, but not too bad. It also was being 
sold with a couple of half-height 5.25" drives (no 3.5" drives though), 
and some old 5.25" games and manuals.

I made the 1 hour drive (each way) and picked up the unit yesterday. He 
had a Mac monitor that he claimed he had used with the IIgs. I was 
sceptical, because as far as I know there are no Mac monitors that can 
handle the IIgs' 15kHz RGB output. Anyway, I took the monitor to test 
his claims (it turns out I was right and the monitor will be going up on 
eBay later today).

Anyway, I got the system home (much to my wife's disapproval) and opened 
it all up. When I opened the lid of the IIgs I was simply blown away. 
See my pics below:

http://www.cirruscomms.com.au/~mike_stephens/images/P1040644.jpg
http://www.cirruscomms.com.au/~mike_stephens/images/P1040645.jpg
http://www.cirruscomms.com.au/~mike_stephens/images/P1040646.jpg
http://www.cirruscomms.com.au/~mike_stephens/images/P1040647.jpg
http://www.cirruscomms.com.au/~mike_stephens/images/P1040648.jpg
http://www.cirruscomms.com.au/~mike_stephens/images/P1040649.jpg

Yep folks...its a Transwarp GS complete with cache card (!!!), a Vulcan 
GS with 40Mb hard drive (including the Vulcan controller card with 2.0 
gold ROM), a Chinook 4Mb RAM card, and a sound card of some description 
(not sure if this is a digitizer (input) or a multiplexer (output) card 
yet. Anyone know?). My AU$35 seems to have been a good investment!

I fired it all up, and while the fan in the Vulcan power supply is a tad 
noisy (which I already plan on replacing), everything works except for 
the monitor (which as I mentioned before I strongly suspected wouldn't).

Just thought I would share this story, as to find this stuff like this 
here in Australia is like winning the lottery. You don't find many IIgs' 
for sale, certainly not with this kit installed! This system now gives 
my main IIgs a run for its money which cost me an awful lot more!

Maybe finding this is the impetus I need to get my projects rolling 
again.  :-)

--

Cheers,
Mike

Find my Apple II projects online at:
http://apple2.sytes.net/

"It's my duty; my duty as a complete and utter bastard!" - Rimmer (Red 
Dwarf)