Re: Apple IIgs/OS

[supertimer@aol.com (Supertimer)]

Matt White <mwhite@cmu.edu> wrote:

>So I just found an Apple //gs down in one of our group's storage rooms
>(next to a whole stack of DEC 5000/120s).  It appears to be in fairly good
>shape, even if it doesn't have many frills (512KB with an original apple
>memory card, three floppies, no OS, can probably find a keyboard around
>here somewhere...).

The keyboard and mice are easy: just steal them from a Mac
user.  Any Mac after the Mac Plus and before the iMac has
ADB keyboard and mice.  These were first used on the IIGS.

You'll also want at least 4MB of memory and a hard drive.
Memory is cheap, so that should be no problem.
http://www.allelec.com/ Alltech Electronics sells the Sirius
RAM card (0-8MB) which uses very cheap 1MB SIMMs.
They might not be listing it on their web site because they
are revising it, but an email or call to them asking for it by
name will get you the card.

The second thing is a hard disk drive.  Alltech makes a
very cheap one, but you can probably find an SCSI card
for it on the used market for next to nothing and if you
have a Zip drive for a Macintosh or the SCSI model for
the Windows PC, you can share it with the IIGS (taking
it over when you need to boot the IIGS) thereby not
having to buy a separate hard drive for the IIGS.

Yup, on the IIGS, you can boot from the Zip unlike on
a Windows PC.  ;-)

>I used to have one of these machines when I was a kid and have many fond
>memories of it.  I've been toying with the idea of putting this system back
>together and was wondering what software was available for it these days?

Many.  The telnet, web, and ftp clients except the actual
TCP/IP software is commercial.  There are also telecom
programs ProTERM and Spectrum.  These have Zmodem,
VT100, and a myriad of other emulations and protocols
and can set the port speed at 57.6k.

http://www.crl.com/~joko Shareware Solutions II has a
bunch of neat commercial stuff like printer drivers for ink
jet printers, software for using TrueType fonts (to take
advantage of ink jet or laser printers), and many freeware
and shareware stuff as well.

Once you get online, there are also lots of freeware and
shareware you can get via ftp servers like the one
at http://ground.ecn.uiowa.edu/ and online services such
as America Online, Genie, and Delphi.  Free stuff like
Wolfenstein 3D for the IIGS or HyperCard for the IIGS.

On the used market, you can get music composition
software like MusicWriter, games like Out of This World
and SpaceFox and lots of other cool stuff that I can't
remember all of at this time (my own hard drive has
>500MB of stuff)...Tetris, DuelTris, BattleChess,
Chessmaster, HoverBlade, HyperStudio, Crystal Quest,
etc.

There are also a couple of CD-ROM titles for the IIGS.

>Are there ether adapters for these boxen?

There is an ethernet capable core in System 6.0.1 for
the IIGS, but it is disabled because Apple canned the
Apple II Ethernet card just before it was released.

SCSI to ethernet adapters are a possibility, but someone
has to write a driver for the Apple High Speed SCSI
card to work with one first.  The RAMFast SCSI card
can't do it because it has a hacked implementation of
SCSI.

For now, all we have is AppleTalk so that means any
network needs to have a Mac on it.

>You mention a telnet and web client, do these run under GS/OS?

Yes, almost all the software I mention runs under GS/OS.

The TCP/IP implementation is in the form of a Desk
Accessory so any program can plug into it.  Because
those clients run under GS/OS, the Desk Accessory
is available so they can use it.

>What programming tools are available?

There is HyperCard, which is free.  There is HyperStudio,
no longer sold but a school got a grant to use one by
speaking with the president of Roger Wagner Publishing
(Roger Wagner).

For "real" programming languages, speak to
MikeW50@aol.com who wrote and sells the Orca series
of languages which includes:

C, Pascal, Modula 2, Logo, GSBasic, and Fortran

All these except Logo (I think) can use the IIGS ToolBox.

>For some reason, I'd really like to see this box plugged into my TV/stereo,
>next to the playstation.

The TV probably does not have the bandwidth for the
IIGS modes unless it is an S-video TV (there is an
adapter called the Video Turtle).  The stereo will make
a GREAT output for the IIGS' 32 channel Ensoniq sound
chip.

Good luck!