Re: IIGS cards

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

In article dwilson@mail.nas.com (dwilson) writes...

>I just came down with a IIGS.( rom version 01 ) It is equipped with a
>couple of cards which I can't figure out. First of all there's a "Color
>Switch" card connected via cable to a card called "PC Transporter"made by
>Applied Electronics.

    You mean Applied Engineering. The PC-Transporter is a co-processor
card for the Apple II that allowed it run IBM PC software, as well as
make Apple peripherials function just as an IBM peripherials when doing
so. The ColorSwitch is one example of that, it lets the GS analog RGB
function as a digital RGB display (and switch back to analog RGB when
in Apple mode, without having to swap cables).

    You will get the equivalent of an IBM XT (640K, CGA and 8086) so
it is extremely dated. You can run MS-DOS applications, display ANSI
and CGA graphics, even run Windows 3.0 (barely), just like a real XT
clone. It uses a NEC V30 processor, so it is somewhat compatible with
the 186 and it runs a tad bit faster than most XT's. It can function
as a RAM Disk device in Apple mode too, using a patch or driver.

>Secondly there is a card in slot #3 called "Zip GSX vers 1.0 that
>connected via cable to and appears to replace the original CPU chip.
>Does anyone have an idea of what they are and what they do? I'd
>appreciate any info you can provide.

    That is an accelerator card. As stock, the GS runs at 2.6 MHz, but
with that board you can run it anywhere from 7 to 16 MHz. It uses a
combination of a faster 65C816 processor, cache of fast static RAM 
(8K to 64K) and an ASIC. It's a very popular and useful accessory for 
the IIgs, as you'll find the system is _very_ sluggish without one.

    Assuming the DIP switches haven't been set to disable it, it will
automatically accelerate the machine, you do not need special software
to get it started (although a utility like "Zippy" or "SuperZip" comes
in handy for configuring the card). If your curious what speed yours
is, examine the tin oscillator on the upper-left corner of the board and
look at its megahertz rating. Just divide that number by four and you'll
know its speed (i.e. 32 / 4 = 8 MHz speed, 60 / 4 = 15 MHz speed, etc).
Of course one of the above mentioned software utilities will report both 
the speed and cache size for you, as well as DIP switch settings.

    Revision 1.0 is an early model, I recall it didn't work with DMA
that well, if at all. Version 1.0.2 is the latest and does, though
even so, the board will still work fine at accelerating your IIgs.

Mitchell Spector
spec@vax2.concordia.ca