Re: apple IIGS

[spec@vax2.concordia.ca (Mitchell Spector)]

In article dn15236@navix.net writes...

>1.  My GS's calendar when I book up the system disk system 5.0.4 only
>seems to go until the year 1999 and then it is blank.  Is this the
>END????

    If you use System 6.0 or later there is no such problem. In fact
System Software should be fine for at least another 40 years (if you
play with the date setting in System 6.0.1, it goes as far as 2039).
I hope to still have my system 4 decades from now, but I wonder how
much of a 50 year old computer system will still be operational. :)

>2.  Another question what kind of modems can the GS handle.  (i.e. what
>is the fastest)

    The built-in serial port handles up to 57600, which is perfect
for 14.4K modems. It is possible to use 28.8K modems and faster,
but you can't take full advantage of their data compression (you'd
want to set your port speed to 115200 to get optimal performance
out of a 28.8K or 33.6K modem for example, and the GS cannot).

    Also note, if you use a modem above 14.4K, your going to want
an accelerator card to keep from dropping characters on screen.
I find a 14.4K is fine for a IIgs, but if you download frequently
then a 33.6K modem can come in handy. There is little point in
hooking up a 57.6K (X2/V90) modem however.

>3.  I plan on getting a hard disk, and these focus drives seem
>interesting, from what I hear they are an ide interface with a notebook
>style  drive(2.5") this info could be wrong, but if it is right, could
>this be upgraded with a larger 2.5" drive or is this all hard wired

    You heard correctly. I believe the card and firmware support
a wide variety of sizes, so all you need do is swap the existing
mechanism with a larger one (the only catch is the 20 MB FocusHD
doesn't come with a mounting bracket or something like that).

>4. Does anyone know how to get a hold of Stephen Buggie(i think that is
>his name)  He sent me some disks and I lost his address....six months
>ago....Sorry for being so late

    He just posted some information about contacting him (phone #,
e-mail address, postal address) to this group yesterday.

>5. I read posts on here about building an accelerator for the GS.  Is
>this just wishful thinking?...I hope not.  IF the company that used to
>make them years ago doesn't see a market for them anymore, why don't
>they just release the secret plans or something to that effect there's
>got to be someone who could build us one.  Ideally a newer  faster one
>would be great.  I'm saving up.....

    I don't think the market is large enough to support the costs
involved in designing and manufacturing a new board from scratch.
Apparently REMcorp felt they couldn't even break even manufacturing
their _existing_ ZipGS board when parts ran out.

    I get the bad feeling most existing hardware available for the
Apple II is getting too costly (from a profit stand point) to
justify manufacturing replacements when stock runs out. Has anyone
checked with Sequential Systems if they're still producing the
Second Sight, RAM GS, RAM GS+ or RamFAST SCSI? I know Alltech has
already dropped the SoundMeister stereo card for the above reason.

>6. What is the latest version of Appleworks GS?  I have Appleworks GS
>1v2.
>    Has anyone looked into the almight y2k prob with this program?

    Version 1.1 (circa 1989) is the latest. I'm not aware of any
year 2000 bugs in the program, but if there are any, I wouldn't
hold by breath about seeing them fixed. As it stands now, the
program has been discontinued and support dropped (not that it
makes a difference since no one was able to properly get the
source code to compile).

>7.  What difference does 8meg  RAM have over a 4meg RAM.  Do programs
>run faster??

    Nope. You just have more free memory available to programs.