Re: The Apple IIGS - 25th anniversary!

[sporadic <sporadically@gmail.com>]

Amazing to think it's been that long!  I upgraded from a IIe to the IIgs while I was in high school.  I remembered I had to borrow some money from my sister since I didn't have the full $2K. Used the GS pretty much until the end of college when I finally moved to the AMD 486DX-40 running OS/2.  I kept the IIe and IIgs but parted out a lot of the goodies, like the ZipGSX, collection of GS+ magazines, original games, mouse for the IIe, SSC, etc., so I could afford the 486.

I've been hoarding Apple II hardware in the past few years, in addition to the IIe & gs from my childhood, I have 7 more GSes and 2 IIc+, and got both the ZipGSX, TWgs, and a Zip 4000.  Also added some modern hardware, like TurboIDE, TDX sound card, CFFA3000.  Missed out on the Uthernet/Lanced ethernet though, not that I really need it :)

I think the best part of playing with real hardware is nostalgia, it's like being in a time machine and all the wonderful memories come flooding back.  I love all the emulators available on OS X and Windows, but it doesn't "feel" the same as real hardware.  It's funny, I have a Sandy Bridge 2600K and I get more fun tinkering with a 10MHz GS than a 3400MHz PC, even if just for a couple of hours.

I do wonder what will happen to these systems though. I think all of us who grew up in that era and still tinker with Apple IIs is a shrinking population. I can't honestly say there's someone I can leave my collection to, who will really appreciate it. It's not just hardware either, I have a crazy large collection of old Nibble, inCider and A+ magazines. It's amazing I didn't trash them during the numerous moves between high school and now.  I shudder at the thought of all this just being junked and taking up space in the landfill somewhere.

Jimmy