Re: Please Help w/purchase.

[nathan@visi.com (Nathan Mates)]

In article <Pine.GSO.3.96.980208091526.1690B-100000@andromeda.azstarnet.com>,
Geoff  <geoff@azstarnet.com> wrote:
>1..Has anyone had good dealings with a specific company that sells
>outdated supplies/computers?

   I've heard no complaints about the vendors listed in section 10.2
of the csa2 FAQ at http://www.visi.com/~nathan/a2/faq/csa2.html 

>2..It's my understanding that I want a IIGS with a ROM 03 in it, and yet I
>mostly see people selling IIGSs with ROM 01.  Is there a big difference
>between the 2? More preciseley, can anyone tell me the major differences
>between the two.  I understand the board w/ROM 03 comes w/1 meg of ram
>soldered on.

   See the FAQ, section 2.6 on the GS. The ROM 3 comes with more ram
onboard (but still needing more anyhow to run modern stuff), and a few
other enhancements, but for an equivalent total ram, the system
software makes both pretty much indistinguishable to properly written
programs. [In fact, the ROM 3 is slightly less compatible with some
games and demos] Get a cheaper ROM 01 and put that $ into buying ram
and/or a HD.

>Other than that i didn't see anything in the FAQ regarding the
>differences.  I could of overlooked it, afterall it's like 90 pages :)

   The ascii versions posted to this newsgroup at the start of the
month were 4445 lines long. At 1" margins top & bottom, that's only
74 pages. 

>3..Does anyone sell the motherboards(That's what i understand
>is necessary to change from ROM 01 to ROM 03)?

   As I said above, don't bother.

>4..Can anyone recommend a good start(hardware wise) for this computer?
>[i.e. 80 column card, 20 meg scsi drive w/xxxxxx scsi card, xxxxxxx ram
>card, xxxxxxxxx accelerator card,] In other words,.. i want to get a good
>IIGS system going,.. what is the basic hardware setup for something like
>this and how much could i expect to spend?

   80-column capability is built into the motherboard. I'd recommend
at least 2MB ram total, but with 4MB cards being the semi-minimum for
new cards, get that. I think pricing is about $60-80 for a new 4MB
card, but you might be able to shop around.

   20MB will feel small shortly, go with 40-60MB.  The two good SCSI
cards are Apple's High Speed SCSI and the Ramfast/SCSI board. Apple's
is only available used, and has some compatability problems with
devices which require scsi termination power to be supplied (such as a
Zip drive alone on the chain). Ramfasts are available new, are faster
than Apple's cards, but some very large modern scsi HDs (Quantum
fireball 750+MB, etc) require the card to have a SCSI ID, which the
ramfast doesn't do. If you're sticking with <500MB HDs, then the
ramfast is almost certainly the better one. Alltech's Focus internal
HDs may be cheaper and easier to set up (unless you have scsi HDs
lying around), but less expandable.

   Accelerators aren't available new anymore (weren't being bought,
production ceased, then suddenly everyone who wasn't buying got scared
and drove up prices for the used ones), so they may be more pricey or
hard to find than the other components.

Nathan Mates
--
<*> Nathan Mates http://www.visi.com/~nathan/      <*>
# What are the facts? Again and again and again-- what are the _facts_?
# Shun wishful thinking, avoid opinion, care not what the neighbors
# think-- what are the facts, and to how many decimal places? -R.A. Heinlein