recent Apple IIGS addition and inquiries!

["Luke Forat" <iceman@nospam.digidude.homeip.net>]

    Hello folks,

    I just got a IIGS to sit beside my IIe. It is a Euro version and came 
with 2 5.25" drives, an Imagewriter and it's original color monitor - but no 
disks. It had no expansion cards, just the memory card with 256K which I 
replaced as I had another one around with 1MB on I got from ebay with a 
bunch of other stuff. I had no documentation for these memory cards, but I 
figured that the 2 jumpers on them should be both set for a full blown 
configuration. I looked around but found no details or manuals for the GS 
memory card, but then again, maybe I missed something. In any case it boots 
and it sees the 1MB (I see it from the internal RAM drive CP).

    I "threw" in some of my A2 disks and noticed that I had also to set the 
"Alternate display mode" to on for some of them to work properly. Naturally 
I had already set the system speed to 1MHz for full A2 compatibility. Apart 
from that, they all worked fine.

   However, the 3.6V lithium battery is dead (not surprised) so it won't 
retain configuration and clock. I was thinking of replacing this battery 
with a CR2032 socket and a stanard CR2032 cell. I would fix the socket with 
some "hot glue" on the MB or some plastic mold. Alternatively, I could place 
3 small NiCd cells (a 3 series pack for motheboards) and trickle charge them 
from the 5V line through a limiting resistor and diode as I have done before 
on other old motherboards. However, I think I prefer the 2032 cell for this 
setup as this machine won't be used that often (I don't really have the 
space to keep them both "exposed" and the NiCd cells will eventually die and 
short.

    I have another problem: I have no system disks. As the GS came with 
5.25" floppies I suppose there were 5.25" system disks? I have the 5.04 
system disk images from Asimov but it's for 800K floppies. Does anyone have 
a 5.25" version or know where I can get one (if it exists)?

    Also, is it really worth while purchasing an 800K floppy unit for my GS?

    Thanks for any feedback or pointers.

-- 
    Luke