Re: Apple IIGS rom Upgrades

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

In article "Fishdad" <fishdad@twave.net> writes...

>I'm searching for an Apple IIGS rom 01 or rom 03 motherboard upgrade.
>I received a IIGS ;from someone that didn't want it any longer.  It is
>the original rom00 version.

    The ROM 01 upgrade is merely a single chip swap, only the ROM 3
required an entire motherboard swap (not that such an upgrade was at
all necessary, in fact Apple never even officially offered a ROM 3
upgrade).

    The ROM upgrade you need is free from any authorized Apple dealer, 
however, the offer is going to expire very shortly, probably within the 
next six months (August 1997 will be exactly ten years since the upgrade 
offer was announced). I've heard reports that already the offer has expired,
so you'll want to make a few phone calls before dragging the CPU box over 
to a dealer. Failing that, Alltech Electronics sells the chip you need for 
US$39 (a little pricey, yes).

>However I need the 01 or 03 rom upgrades to run appleworks.

    To run AppleWorks Classic? Nope, a ROM 00 will run that just 
fine, in fact all 8-bit Apple II software will run flawlessly with 
the original ROM version. AppleWork GS (the 16-bit version) is a 
different story however.

>I don't know squat about apple products or their operating systems
>so any advice and or hardware will be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
>fishdad@twave.net

    The ROM 01 or greater is required for running GS/OS (the current
OS), as well as the majority of software titles written over the past 
nine years. Without it, the system is basically nothing more than a 
fancy Apple IIe. Some native software still runs, but with the original 
ROM you can only run up to System 3.2 and a handful of very old games.

    The absolute minimum configuration to do anything useful with is
a ROM 01 (or better) with a 3.5 floppy drive and 1.25 MB of memory.
This will allow you to run System 6.0.1 and most available software,
although it will be cutting it rather closely. I'd highly recommend
at least 2 to 4 MB memory and a hardrive (an accelerator board is a 
nice addition too, if you use it on a regular basis).

Mitchell Spector
spec@vax2.concordia.ca