Re: Whats it for?

[a_specto@alcor.concordia.ca (Mitchell Spector)]

"william strutts" <wrstrutts1@home.com> wrote:

>How do you fit the board into a IIe?  I have one of those
>IIe ready boards.  I examined the IIe case but I don't see
>any way of mounting the IIgs motherboard in there so that
>the Floppy, monitor and all the other ports are accessible.
>You would have to cut the metal case of the IIe to get it
>to fit.

    As part of the official IIgs upgrade kit, Apple included a
replacement base pan that had cut out openings for the 
new motherboard port connectors, as well as tall vertical 
(mostly) slot openings for expansion cards.

    The kit also included new badge plates that replaced
the "Apple" and "//e" identification on the front case (it
was in the same style, but with a smaller Apple logo, and
"Apple" and "IIgs" in the newer Garamond font). As well
it included a booklet describing the difference between 
the IIe and IIgs (it did not include a mouse however).

>Okay.  However, that does explain the extra connectors
>on the motherboard.  I was wondering why it still had
>a IIe keyboard connector and a IIe style power supply

    This was because you kept your IIe case, IIe keyboard
(and numeric keypad), powersupply and speaker. The IIe
keyboard and powersupply plugged into those old style
connectors.

    One drawback with this was the IIe keyboard was _not_
ADB compatible. It could not detect if the shift-keys were 
pressed and the numeric keypad (even on a Platinum IIe)
was not seen differently from the home-row number keys.
Many games used the keypad for directional input as one
example of this being a problem.

>connector which I don't have on my other IIgs ROM 3
>model.

    The ROM 3 board phased out support for the IIe upgrade,
both the pin connectors and solder pad location were gone.

Mitchell Spector
a_specto@alcor.concordia.ca