IIe to IIgs upgrade

[casa@vesta.unm.edu (Jim Pittman)]

If anyone is interested, I recently got the upgrade kit for IIe to IIgs
from Shreve Systems.  It cost me $259 and I was supposed to return the
IIe motherboard for a $100 refund. (I haven't done that yet.)

Some comments on this deal:

The guy I talked to at Shreve Systems was polite and seemed to know what
he was talking about.  I believe I specifically asked him whether a new
ROM 03 IIgs system was available and he said he did not know of any.

Anyway, about the upgrade:

There was ZERO documentation, ZERO instructions, ZERO fittings such as
plastic standoffs, screws, rubber feet, etc.  All there was was a big
cardboard box with a lot of foam peanuts and a IIgs motherboard wrapped
in anti-static plastic and an aluminum chassis.

The aluminum chassis was noticeable thinner than the IIe chassis, not
painted, and seemed to be a softer alloy.  Ports on the back are NOT
labeled in any way.

I had to cut three small notches in the back of the aluminum chassis to
get it to fit the IIe plastic case.  Having no new plastic standoffs, I
had to use the ones from the IIe motherboard; the IIgs needs more but I
got by with the ones I had, and amazingly I didn't break any of them.
The IIe standoffs were definitely not a good fit to the IIgs parts.

The IIe power supply, keyboard and speaker all fit okay.

I plugged a Disk II controller with 2 5.25 drives into slot 6 and turned
on the power; the screen came up with an "Apple IIgs ROM 01" message and
something about slot 6 not containing a startup device.  Somehow I had
enough smarts to move the disk controller to slot 7.  Now it would boot
up with Appleworks 3.0, the ProDOS version of Copy II Plus, my ancient
DOS 3.3 System Master, and a few DOS 3.3 programs such as Write-Away.

I borrowed an old Imagewriter with a Mac cable; plugged it into the port
labeled Serial 1 and it seems to work fine.

Okay, so much for the upgrade kit. Now I have an absolutely minimum IIgs
that is next to useless. I can buy a 3.5 drive, a mouse, more memory,
GS/OS System 6, various manuals, a color monitor, a hard drive, etc etc
and then what will I have?  Would I be better off looking for a complete
ROM 03 IIgs system rather than buying all the parts to make this one
work? F'rinstance, I don't know whether the IIe keyboard is a limitation
or not.  Does a mouse plug into a port, or does it require a controller
card?  Same question for a 3.5 drive?  And, will IIgs cards fit into the
IIe case?

Any comments would be welcome.

Jim Pittman - University of New Mexico - 505-277-8131
casa@ariel.unm.edu (internet) casa@unmb (BITNET)