Re: A2 Dream System

[johnt@meaddata.com (John Townsend)]

In article <2j8hd0$k6c@rbse.Mountain.Net>, quinn@Mountain.Net (Quinn Avery) writes:
|> Why a CD-ROM?  Is there CD software being produced for the GS?  For that
|>  matter, is there ANY commercial software still being produced for the II
|>  series?  All that comes to my mind is AppleWorks and ProTERM.

Oh boy, wait'll Jawaid gets ahold of that question... :-)  There's plenty
of CD-ROMs that are usable on the IIgs, but most of them weren't made
specifically for the IIgs.  There are all kinds of picture, MOD, sounds,
fonts, and text - not to mention developer information - CD's which were
actually made for Macs or PCs that are perfectly usable on the IIgs with
System 6 and (sometimes) additional software.  Jawaid's discQuest (or
however it's capitalized) program actually makes a bunch of actual
applications for these machines usable on the IIgs.  I'm sure he'd be
glad to tell you more...

|> Are all PC transporters 8088's?  Are they genuine motherboards you can
|>  simply upgrade to something better?

The PCT is a card that plugs into a slot of the Apple II, so obviously it
isn't a full-fledged PC motherboard.  It has a NEC chip that's basically
equivalent to an 8MHz 80186, an 8087-2 coprocessor, a maximum of 768K of
RAM, and an EGA-compatible display.  It's nothing fancy by today's standards,
but still quite usable.

|> How much would your system cost today (a breakdown would be nice), and where
|>  would I buy one?  Is a good IIgs priced competitively with a low-end Mac
|>  or a new clone 486 MPC system?

I don't even wanna think about it. ;-)  My guess is that putting a system
like this together now would probably cost around $2500 to $3000, if you
can find everything.  I've gleaned a great deal of stuff off the net (e.g.
comp.sys.apple2.marketplace and misc.forsale.computers.mac), and some of it
was bought new from mail order places like Quality Computers and Alltech
(see the FAQ for this newsgroup).  Still, if money is a serious concern,
you'd probably be better off at this point starting out with a PC or Mac
system.  If you can wait, though, you might wanna hold out for a PowerPC.

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