Re: New IIgs owner.

[supertimer@aol.com (Supertimer)]

Alex Eisenhut <eisenhut@technologist.com> wrote:

>That's too bad. I wonder if I can write from a C64's 1581 drive?
> 
>Well, thanks for your reply. I wasn't exactly overwhelmed by responses.
>I guess the Apple II community is a bit 'closed' compared to the C=
>community. Or maybe the IIgs is an orphan, who knows.

The Apple IIGS is most similar to the Amiga 1000 in the C= world.
It doesn't have a 68000 processor but in every other aspect, it is
more Amiga-like than C64-like.  The ideal memory range of the
IIGS is 4MB to 8MB of memory which is direct accessed, not
page flipped.  The IIGS also has a display palette of 4096 colors
up to 3200 of which can be used in a display at once.  The sound
chip was the most advanced in its time - 32 channel wavetable
synthesis (the oscillators are doubled up for higher quality sound
resulting in 16 voices if you use the OS tools).  Some trivia -
the Ensoniq sound chip was designed by ex-Commodore folks
who designed the C64's SID chip and was the basis for the chip
currently used in the Creative SoundBlaster AudioPCI card.
Starting at the IIGS' model chip, the sound turned wavetable.
The AudioPCI's updated version has more channels, is 16-bits,
and capable of higher sampling rates, but is otherwise the same
general design.