Re: IIgs RAM expansion options

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

In article pdueck@pli.mb.ca (Perry Dueck) writes...

>I have an Apple IIgs (ROM 01). It currently has the Apple 1 MB board
>(fully populated) in the RAM expansion slot. I am fairly new to the Apple
>IIgs, and I was wondering what boards are currently available on the
>commercial market (brand new) to expand the memory of an Apple IIgs (to
>replace my 1 MB board)?

    Replacing it with something larger is a good idea. As I've stated
before, 1 MB of memory is the bare minimum requirement, and that will
only allow you to just run the majority the titles out there. Enough
to give you a taste of the Apple IIgs but not enough to get anything
serious done with it (or not without major headaces and limitations).

>Also: Did Apple ever make anything larger in capacity than the 1 MB board
>for the IIgs? Or was it strictly 3rd party companies making larger
>capacity RAM expansion boards?

    Apple only offered a board that held 1024K (using 256Kx1 chips),
or in the case of Apple Australia, only a 256K board that was non-
expandable. Memory expansion, like most other enhancements made for
the IIgs, came from outside of Apple Computer.

>What other RAM expansion boards for the IIgs have been made and sold in
>the past by any companies?

    Quite a number actually. They've came from: AST, MDIdeas, Chinook,
Orange Micro, Applied Engineering, Applied Ingenuity, CV-Technologies
Haris Labs, Sequential Systems, Chinook, PaceMark Technologies, Alltech
and many more I'm sure.

    However, let's forget anything that didn't hold at least 4 MB. Then
scratch anything that was not fully DMA compatible (that is virtually
all the Applied Engineering RAM boards, which I'd avoid anyhow). That
leaves you with just a handful of cards worth mentioning. Of those that
are, that are no longer manufactured or sold, I would list these:

- GS Sauce (held 4 MB, SIMMs)
- RAM 4000 (held 4 MB, DRAMs)
- IIGS Super Ram (4 MB, SIMMs)
- CV-Technologies Memory Card (held 4 MB, DRAMs; more w/piggyback slot)

(there may be a few others worth mentioning, if anyone wishes to add
to the list feel free. MDIdeas OctoRam maybe?)

>Is it best to stick with a 4 MB board or should a person max out a IIgs
>with an 8 MB board (for the ROM 01) or a 7 MB board (for the ROM 3)?

    Stick with 4 MB, and for two reasons. 1) That is all you will most
likely ever require, I've never heard of any program need more and it
looks like there never will be. 2) Adding more than 4 MB to the memory
expansion slot usually means your forced to disable DMA, and cards
that claim to get around this often don't.

    Some may point out you could add 8 MB and allocate half of it to
use as a RAM Disk, but there is no point when hardrives are so cheap
and fast (with my RamFAST and 3 year old Seagate SCSI hardrive, I find
reading/writing is about as quick as off a RAM Disk. I just keep one
partition for scratch files and other junk :)

>Also, is Sequential Systems still selling both the RamGS and RamGS Plus
>boards, or just the RamGS Plus boards?

    According to their web-page information, they are still being sold.
Those incidentally (along with the Alltech Sirius RAM card) are the
only ones still being manufactured and sold today. Thankfully all
three are very decent boards.

    The RAM GS is a simple 4 MB card that uses 32 soldered in SIP DRAMs
(that stick out on their side) which is non-expandable. The RAM GS Plus
(formely the CV-RAM, and different from the original CV memory card)
also comes with 4 MB soldered in, but is expandable to 8 MB and is
_very_ compact. The only thing is it uses 1MBx4 DRAMs which are no
longer manufactured and rare to find in general.

    The Alltech Sirius RAM is a bare card which you can plug in up to
8 MB worth of SIMMs. The only thing is it is a very large board and
despite claims, is not DMA compatible fully populated (which is okay,
since neither is the RAM GS Plus which also makes the same claim :)

Mitchell Spector
spec@vax2.concordia.ca