Re: The Apple IIGS - 25th anniversary!

[Tony Kavadias <tonzaggl@gmail.com>]

At the time the Apple IIGS was released, I was actually a reseller.
It was exciting to see all of the marketing materials for the new
machine, including that pamphlet that Mitchell framed!

I kept the brochure for a while, but along with a lot of other Apple
II literature, had to be thrown out.  The ROM 3 Apple IIGS I once
owned went to another younger fan who needed the machine more than me!

Being a reseller, I had access to a lot of things, and the Apple IIGS
I built myself had 2 MB of RAM, 2 Apple 3.5 drives (I never really got
myself into the 5.25 floppy disk territory just for the sheer
challenge of moving as much software as I could to 3.5" disks),
AppleColor RGB monitor and an ImageWriter II.  By the time I finished
the system, it was worth well over AUD$6000, and I was just about to
buy a SCSI card and hard drive, but at the time, wasn't convinced that
the performance of the card justified the card's cost.  That money
went to the cost of a Mac SE/30 when I decided to move on.

Along with the Apple IIGS, I had reams and reams of developer notes
from AAPDA before the Firmware and Hardware Reference texts came out
to Australia.  Had to say that writing for the Apple IIGS was
difficult in the first few years of the machine's life since you had
to write much of the tools yourself before you could get to the
machine's goodies!

But unlike today's machines, at least you could GET to the machine's
goodies!!!


—tonza