Re: Which //gs to buy?

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

In article bguenter@rummelplatz.uni-mannheim.de (Boris Guenter) writes...

>Jason A. King (jalking@telis.org) wrote:
>:    I want to know which ROM version of the //gs is the best to try and
>: buy. I don't know much about the //gs but have seen others mentioning the
>: ROM versions in their //gs's. Is it important? What will the different ROM
>: versions allow me to do or not do? Your info is valuable to me.
>
>Basically, there are two ROM versions (Rom1 and Rom3) available, if you
>don't count the Rom4 ("Mark Twain") machines which are only a few
>prototypes which are now priceless collector's items.

    I certainly wouldn't count the "Mark Twain", I think there
are less than 10 of them left in existence (by contrast, you'd
have much better luck finding an Apple 1). Also, although it
was nicknamed the "ROM 4", the prototypes still only had the
ROM 3 firmware installed.

>Strangely enough, there has never been a Rom2 machine.

    No mystery there, it was called "ROM 3" as it was the third
revision of the IIgs's firmware: "ROM 00" = 1st, "ROM 01" = 2nd,
ROM 3 = 3rd. Apple decided to skip the the "ROM 02" because it
would have been confusing with all the references made towards
the ROM 01 as the 2nd ROM, which is was. Unfortunately, I think
they caused even more confusion this way. :)

>There is also a small percent of gs machines with the original (Rom0)
>chips in it. These are now obsolete, very buggy and should be upgraded
>as soon as possible. The "Woz edition" gs is usually Rom0.

    It should be noted the original ROM is perfectly fine for
running an Apple IIgs in IIe emulation mode (as most schools
did, and still do today). The ROM 01 is necessary however if
you want to run _any_ version of GS/OS and the most software
written in the past 11 years.

>If you want to make the gs as compatible as you can, try to get a Rom1
>machine. Many older applications, games and demos are written for the
>Rom1 and crash on the Rom3.

    That is no longer as big an issue, seeing that most software
that was incompatible has been patched or updated. Admittely, I
can think of a few games still not ROM 3 compatible (i.e. Skate
or Die!, Captain Blood, Shuffle Puck Cafe, the deprotected copy
of Alien Mind).

Mitchell Spector
spec@vax2.concordia.ca