Re: Seeking modern IIgs upgrade advice, esp. networking, speed, memory, storage and sound

[mjmahon@aol.com (Michael J. Mahon)]

erik swedberg asked:

>There seems to be bits and pieces of this information scattered all
>across the internet, but I'd like to get others' advice & experiences.
>
>If you want to upgrade an army IIgs-es, what are the best ways to go
>about it?
>
>1) Sound & midi interfacing. Are there any good available sound cards
>(or external interfaces) out there still, or do you have to track them
>down one by one on ebay? Is it best to build your own? If so, are
>there any good references out there, specific magazine articles or
>books? (The IIgs sound port isn't right for plugging straight into an
>1/8" mono jack/cable for recording purposes, and I need a better
>interface, either commercial or homebrew).

Actually, the IIgs is quite well equipped to deliver multivoice mono
sound.  I would recommend a trip to Radio Shack to get appropriate
adapter cables.

If you need stereo, you can try to buy them in onesie-twosies, or
you can build them.  It only requires one IC and a handful of parts.

>2) Harddrives - Are there good external or internal ones anyone has
>had good luck with? I had a harddrive-on-a-card once, but it didn't
>work! :)

There are no SCSI cards being made these days, and apparently
Focus "hardcards" are getting scarce, too.

If you need a bunch of them, your best bet is probably the CFFA
(Compact Flash For Apple II) card, which is currently being made.

>3) Memory Upgrades? How much is necessary & what's the cheapest route?

Of course, "It depends", but if you want to run GSOS and a full
range of applications, 4MB should do the job nicely.  Again, though,
there are none currently being manufactured (but contact Bill Garber--
he's been talking about making some).

>4) Networking & Speed Upgrade cards. Has anyone used the german
>LANceGS ethernet cards & TransWarp GS 32K cards with success?
>http://www.wbwip.com/shh/

A number of people have reported that they work well with the
software that has been written to use them.  They suffer from lack
of "system level" support, like file sharing clients and servers.

What you want for networking depends mightily on what you
want to do with the network.  If you want to share files and printers,
then the built-in Appletalk may be just the thing.

If you want to do something with Ethernet, it had better be able
to be done with an FTP client...

>Is the best route just to track down transwarp and ZipGS cards
>individually on ebay for $100+ apiece?

If you can find another way to get IIgs accellerators, there are
several dozen people who would like to know about it.  ;-)

-michael

Check out amazing quality sound for 8-bit Apples on my
Home page:  http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/