Re: Some IIGS Questions

[spec@vax2.concordia.ca (Mitchell Spector)]

In article c@mindspring.com (c) writes...

>I recently pick up a IIGS from a neighber's trash.

    Ouch, that's a new low (I've seen and heard of 8-bit Apple II's
thrown in the trash, but I think this is the first I've heard of an
Apple IIgs being sent to a landfill; except possibly the time there
was a report from my friend about brand-new static bag sealed ROM 3
logic boards being tossed in a dumpster :/).

>I just hate to see an Apple Computer getting trashed.

    Any computer getting trashed is wrong, but for some odd reason
it seems worse to find an Apple made computer in the trash (maybe
because they were so expensive and elegent asthetically, as well
as functionally). I saved a pair of IIe's from the trash on two
separate occasions, as well as a NEC V20 based PC with 30 MB HD
just two weeks ago. In any case, glad you rescued it, you've got
quite a fun machine there. :)

>I would like to spend some money to get
>this machine to work. Here are my questions:
>
>0. Can anyone tell me how much RAM is in this machine ?

    Turn it on while holding down the 'Option' key, this will bring
you to the built-in Control Panel (the rest of the time, just press
and hold down Apple-Control-Esc, in that order, and select it). Now
select the option "RAM Disk" and examine what is marked for 'Largest
Selectable' and add 256K to that amount--that is how much RAM is
in the system.

    The original motherboard (known for having ROM revision 00 or 01)
came with 256K built-in, the later model (know as ROM revision 3) had
just over 1 megabyte built-in. Additional memory was added through a
plug-in board that went into the special memory expansion slot (that
is the slot separate from the rest, it is found in the bottom-right
corner). The most common board was the Apple brand that held 1024K,
although there were 3rd party boards that held up to 8 MB. Today the
standard amount of RAM is 4 megabytes (you can even plug SIMMs onto
certain boards).

>1. What monitors can be connected to it ?  Where can I get them ?

    You want an analog RGB monitor that does NTSC frequency (e.g.
those used by the Amiga or Atari ST). Apple made the AppleColor
RGB that was designed specially for the IIgs--I'd recommend adding
that as it has really above average color and a nice picture. I'm
sure you can find one on comp.sys.apple2.marketplace for $25 or so.

    Another alternative is to connected an SVGA card (a single one
exists, called the Second Sight) and use a modern 14" to 19" video
display. The only catch is it's quite expensive and does a poor
job at shadowing standard IIgs video modes.

    In the meantime, there is a composite-out jack, which will let
you get a picture through a TV/VCR setup, monchrome or color composite
monitor (albeit with a very blurry and hard to read picture, not very
suitable for the 12-bit color palette or resolution the GS uses).

>2. What hard drives are compatible ?

    There are controller cards that let you use EIDE and SCSI drives
(two notable examples: TurboIDE and RamFAST SCSI) not too mention an
internal HardCard solution which mounts a 2.5" IDE called the Focus.

    Generally, in order to make an Apple IIgs usable (well, more
than simply a fancy Apple IIe compatible) you'll require 2-4 MB
of memory, a fair sized DMA hardrive and an accelerator board to
push its processing speed.

>3. What software titles are outthere and where I can buy them ?

    Start off by getting the latest System Software from Apple's FTP
site (ftp://ftp.apple.com/dts/aii/) which is System 6.0.1. You might
also want to get ShrinkIt-GS which will handle *.SHK/*.BXY/*.SDK
archives if you want to download shareware. Make sure you have at
least ROM version 01 though, otherwise you'll find yourself stuck
(it will report the ROM revision when you turn it on or warm boot
with Apple-Control-Reset; if not, then it's a ROM 00).

    Seven Hills Software sells commercial titles (www.sevenhills.com)
and Shareware Solutions II carries many others (www.crl.com/~joko).
Unfortunately, about 98% of all the games and other commercial titles
are no longer sold or available from any source. You can probably
find some on the marketplace group mentioned above for a start, or
try other sources.

>4. There is a card inside with the words "PC Transporter" etched on it.
>Can anyone tell me what It does ?

    It's a co-processor board, basically an IBM XT squeezed on a card.
There is a NEC V30 running at 7.16 MHz (faster than most 8086's) with
the ability to run MS-DOS software and CGA level graphics. It can do
some neat stuff in Apple mode too. An interesting card for its time,
but rather highly obsolite today, for a PC clone.

>Any help will be appreciated . thanks

    You might want to read the Apple II FAQ (www.visi.com/~nathan/a2)
for more detailed information, or my own IIGS FAQ if I can find some
time to get back to writing it. ;)

    There's some neat stuff about the IIgs--it's basically like a
hybrid Apple II/Macintosh with a lot of Amiga spirit and features
inside. There's an Ensoniq 5503 wavetable synthesizer chip in there
and it runs a pretty decent GUI (before Windows 95, it was nicer
than anything available on PC's). I'm sure others will fill you in
on extra details concerning its hardware and software.

Mitchell Spector
spec@vax2.concordia.ca