Re: Help in upgrading a Apple IIgs

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

In article pliethen@globaldialog.com (Peter Liethen) writes...

>Hello all,
> I recently got a Apple IIgs from a friend who was going to throw it out.

    I'm glad to hear he didn't, no computer should _ever_ be thrown
out, every effort should be made to give it away to a needy family,
school or charitable organization (not everyone can afford a computer
and most often will be thrilled to have even an old obsolite system).
As a very last resort, they can be used for parts or recycled, though
I cringe at the very thought of recycling an Apple IIgs!

>I want to try and make it a useful system for my brother to use.

    With what's listed below it should be at least that, and with
some enhancements (extra memory, hardrive and accelerator) it can
even be made into a powerful system comparable in many respects
with "modern" systems.

>It is a ROM 01 IIgs, with 1.25 megs or RAM (Expanded with a Applied
>Engineering GS RAM III) I want to expand the IIgs to atleast 2.25 megs,
>4.25 would be the best. It also has a Datalink 2400bps modem in slot 2.
>Now, on with the questions.

    The GS Ram III could hold up to 4 MB using 1MBx4 DRAMs (SIP style,
not DIP) however these chips are fairly difficult to find these days,
and besides, most AE boards had flakey DMA compatibility.

    The Datalink 2400 modem is fine, but if you have one available,
you can easily connect up a 14.4K modem with hardware handshaking
cable to replace it (with an accelerator, you can even use up a
33.6K modem and probably even the newer 57.6K modems).

>#1. Where can I buy RAM new for my setup? What is the cost? It coudn't be
>more that $9 a meg.

    You can purchase a Sequential Systems RAM-GS board that comes with
4 MB pre-soldered in, which cost around US$89. The other option is to
buy an Alltech Sirius board, which holds up to 8 MB using 1 MB SIMMs
(same typed used by older Macs, so long as their at least 150 ns).
I'm not sure if you can purchase a bare card, but I seem to recall
it costing US$59 without any SIMMs installed.

    Once your upgrading, I'd recommend at least a minimum of 4 MB of
memory (any more is basically overkill, not too mention there are
DMA issues at stake). If purchasing a board new is too pricey, you
may want to look on comp.sys.apple2.marketplace, I'm sure you could
find a fully populated used 4 MB card for $30-$50.

>#2. I have a AppleTalk network. Can I integrate the IIgs into the network
>and access files of a Macintosh hard drive?

    Certainly, just plug a serial cable or PhoneNet connector into the
back of the IIgs. Download Apple IIgs System 6.0.1 and use the Installer
disk to set up things for an AppleTalk network (you will also have to
go into the Control Panel and set the 'Slots' for AppleTalk; the ROM 01
will require setting slot-7 with either slots 1 or 2).

    You can only "AppleTalk" one way, the IIgs will be able to see and
access the Macintosh hardrive but not the other way around. If you need
more details, David Empson is probably the most knowledgable and well
experienced AppleTalk person in this group to talk to. :) You can also
use Dejanews to do a localized search for articles that have been
posted to comp.sys.apple2 and look for keywords such as 'Appletalk'
and 'Empson' and you should find some very detailed articles and
instructions on what you need to do. One note, without a hardrive it
can be a bit tricky (you'd need to setup a special boot disk).

>#3. What would I need to add a standard external SCSI hard drive?

    A SCSI interface card. The three most standard are the Apple Rev C
SCSI, Apple High-Speed SCSI and RamFAST SCSI. The Rev C board is cheap,
but does not support DMA, term-power and somewhat inflexiable with non
hardrive SCSI devices. The High-Speed is/was the replacement for the
'C' which supported DMA, was more flexiable and in some cases, supports
term-power. The RamFAST is the most powerful, flexiable and fastest of
the three, it is also the only boards still sold today.

>#4. Can the IIgs be sped up without overheating the system, and without
>replacing RAM and other things?

    There are plug-in slot cards (which have a short ribbon cable that
installs into the 40-pin CPU socket) and accelerate the IIgs by means
of a faster 65C816 and fast static-RAM cache memory. They range in
speed from 6 MHz up to 16 MHz (FYI: a stock Apple IIgs is 2.6 MHz).

    The two choices are the TransWarp GS and Zip GS (only the latter is
still sold). The Zip GS is the better of the two, it consumes far less
power and runs _much_ cooler. It also seems to be the more reliable of
the two boards, not only in terms of compatibility and stability, but
DMA as well.

>#5. Can I use a ADB-powerd modem on the IIgs?

    If it only uses the ADB port for power, then probably yes. If it is
a software-based modem (i.e. emulates error correction, compression, etc
by software instead of hardware) then it will not work.

>Sorry about all the questions, I don't know must about the IIgs. Please
>e-mail me with a response, as I can't check newsgroups as much as I would
>like to.

    Some quick final tips to get you started: Apple-Control-Esc (press and
hold down each key, in that order) will get in into the built-in Control
Panel, where you can set many various options. Apple-Option-Control-Reset
will perform the self-test diagnostics (a good idea when you receive a
machine in unknown condition) and Apple-Control-Reset is how you do a warm
boot.

    As noted above, you should download the latest System Software, which
is System 6.0.1 from ftp://ftp.apple.com/dts/aii/. It will works with a
3.5 drive and 1 MB of memory, but a hardrive, extra memory and (if you
plan to use it's graphical interface) an accelerator are required to get
the full potential from it. You can read/write Macintosh HFS floppies
with that, which should be helpful in transferring things around until
you get AppleTalk running.

Mitchell Spector
spec@vax2.concordia.ca