Re: Rescued Apple2gs

[supertimer@aol.com (Supertimer)]

"P.Morano" <epmorano@sprynet.com> wrote:

>I pulled this A2gs from a dumpster. It was complete(monitoe, keyboard,
>mouse, joystick,ect.) so I hooked it all together plugged it in  and it
>seemed to function ok. This little machine seems to have grown on me- I
>can't seem to get myself to get rid of it.??? so since it has a home w/me my
>question is what can I get this thing to do?

With the right hardware (namely 4MB or more of memory and a hard
drive), the A2gs can be a pretty cool computer.  For example, there
is the equivalent of a Mirage or ESQ-1 synthesizer inside (the rage
among musicians in the 1980s).  There are also pretty cool games for
this unit...such as a free version of Wolfenstein 3D that has some
weapons derived from DOOM and better sound effects than PC or
Mac versions.

>Unfortunatly there was no books
>and most of the floppys were in poor condition. It has a 5.25 and a
>3.5(800k) drive(s).

You'll most likely need more storage and more memory.  A hard
drive of at least 20MB (at least 300MB or more is ideal...with units
going up to 4GB, but no one has that...still nice to know it can take
such large units) and 4MB (and up to 8MB) of memory.

>The disks that survived- some document+spreadsheet
>program plus some how to write basic tutorial.No books. Any help would be
>greatly appreciated. I don't own any apple comps besides this one. You may
>e-mail me as not to waste space on this newsgroup. Thank you in advance.
>Paul Morano                   epmorano@sprynet.com

Go to http://www.allelec.com/ Alltech Electronics and look for a
cheap hard disk and some memory...

It will accept IDE or SCSI hard drives.  For an SCSI controller, look
for the Ramfast card at Sequential Systems http://www.sequential.com/
For IDE, which is cheaper, contact Alltech...who sells the Focus hard
drive...and IDE hard drive on a card...

The place you want to contact to get software for your Apple IIGS is
Alltech Electronics.  Their web site is http://www.allelec.com/ ...
this web site hosts Mac and PC hardware too, so you will have to do
some digging.

When you get on the web site, click on the Apple II link and then
click on "hard drives" and get yourself a Focus hard drive for your
IIGS.  The benefits of this drive are that it contains the complete
Apple IIGS operating system, GS/OS at System 6.0.1.  You need this
to take advantage of the best GS specific software.  The drive
also contains many sharewares and freewares, so for your investment
(starting at about $50 U.S. dollars) you can start building your
software library.

Also click on "Apple II Software" for software like AppleWorks GS
(a graphical version of AppleWorks...much like Microsoft Works
for an old Macintosh).

To run most GS software, you need AT LEAST 2MB of memory (you can
start many with just 1.5MB, but do ANYTHING like PRINT and it
will run out of memory).  4MB to 8MB is comfortable for most
functions.  Click on "Apple II Memory" and get the Sirius RAM
card.  You can get it with 2MB now and populate it with 1MB SIMMs
(once standard for Macs, PCs, and Amigas) up to and including
8MB.

So, to summarize:

1) Link to http://www.allelec.com/
2) Click on "Apple II" to enter the A2 area
3) Click on "Memory" and buy a Sirius RAM card with 2MB to 8MB
   (2MB model is expandable to 4MB later or max 8MB with 1MB
    SIMM).
4) Click on "Hard Drives" and buy a Focus hard drive (these
   start at $50 and contain freewares and sharewares and also
   pre-installed System 6.0.1 -- you know, Finder and stuff).
5) Click on "Apple II Software" and buy a copy of AppleWorks GS
   or any other GS software you like.
6) Download freewares and sharewares from the A2 web site at
   http://ground.isca.uiowa.edu/ if you want more.

Now assuming you don't want to spend this money on a computer
you picked from a dumpster...you should STILL take a look at
these sites just to see what kind of computer the IIGS is and what
it can do...