Re: ID these GS cards please

[supertimer@aol.com (Supertimer)]

suprdave@aol.comAolsucks (SUPRDAVE) wrote:

>picked up a crusty GS for $7 and it was full of cards:
>grappler +

Parallel card.

>language card <?>  why is it in a gs of all  machines i'll never know
>disk II card

Oh boy!  Langauge card and Disk II card, neither of which are needed
on the IIGS.  The previous user didn't know the capabilities of the
IIGS!

>ae z80 plus

CP/M card.

>something called an echo 2b.
>it has a wire going from the card to the sound
>output on the main board. what's this card for? does it improve on the built
in
>sound?

Speech synthesizer.  A little redundant to have this in the IIGS, since
the internal Ensoniq wavetable synthesizer provides much better
capabilities.

The previous only has a lot of legacy junk from a II+ or IIe that is of
no use on the IIGS.  I recommend pulling the langauge, disk II, and
echo 2b cards.  They are just sucking power.

>also got a pacemark gs super ram with one simm installed. will the machine
>automagically pick up on any memory size i install?

Pop in three more 1MB 30-pin SIMM units and you will have a
decently configured IIGS memory wise.  The IIGS really needs at
least 4MB.

>finally, there is a 7 pin connector (j25) beside the speaker output on the
main
>board. there is a cable that goes from that to a small 1.5 in square circuit
>board monted to the backplane. there's a wire that goes from the fan connector
>on the main board to this little circuit board which has an externally
>accessable 1/8 inch phono jack connector. what is this? no id marks on it
>either. some kind of sound upgrade perhaps?

It is a sound input card, really just a pre-amp to the ADC that is
built into the IIGS.  For sound output, connect a set of amplified
speakers to the headphone jack at the back of the computer (not
the jack from the sound input card, a microphone goes there or
you can connect a patch cable to a tape deck or CD-player).

The sound input card works with most digitizing software.  Some
can be found if you look in the AOL Apple II Forum at the
following keyword:

aol://4344:1264.a2main.10029531.514525857

(click on the Keyword button next to the URL bar, copy and paste
the keyword, and hit Go)