Re: Yay! Finally got myself a IIgs!

[Mitchell Spector <mitch2gs@hotmail.com>]

John <jlogo10@yahoo.com.au> wrote:

>On 29 Jun 2006 02:40:26 -0700, "skylarking" <petsoundsnz@gmail.com>
>wrote:
>
>>Even the Apple /// works ok? I thought that they were notoriously
>>unreliable, and that was one of the reasons they flopped.
>
>The first release of the Apple /// had a near 100% failure rate due to
>system overheating.  The revised model (Dec '81) was better and is
>probably the most common model found.  The Apple /// Plus released in
>Dec '83 was the most reliable revision of all but it was too little to
>late and was dumped early in 1984.

    I have one of the revised Apple III's as well, and, for the most part, 
it works fine while operating (I vaguely remember I would sometimes
have trouble getting it to cold boot but I think it is more a case of
age and loose chip contacts). It's worth noting if the keyboard "ON"
lamp burns out it starts up in an (endless) RAM diagnostic.

    The fixed Apple III is notable for having its built-in RAM on a
raised daughterboard, separate from the motherboard.

>The poor compatibility with existing Apple // software was also a major drawback 
>with the /// as it was designed to be a completely separate machine from the 
>Apple // line.

    Apple intentionally crippled Apple II emulation with specialized chip
circuity. You only had access to 48K RAM (regardless of how much 
memory your III had) and prevented from utilizing the 80 columns
text display or lowercase character set of the III. Not to mention any
of its other advanced features. A plug-in third party card called the 
Titan II+III allowed for unrestricted Apple II emulation (there was an
Apple II Plus and IIe version from what I remember).

>I have a 1982 release Apple /// with 256KB standard and a 10MB ProFILE
>hard drive. 

    I have a 256K Apple III, Monitor III and external Disk III 5.25 drive.
I still kick myself that I passed up a ProFile and controller card about
a decade back. Some Apple II cards will work in the III with special
software drivers though--I've not personally tried any.

>It's quite a nice machine to use and featured many
>advanced hardware improvements which became commonplace in the Apple
>//e and later machines (80 column display, bank-switched memory,
>upper/lower case support, video interlacing, inbuilt RGB, serial &
>disk drive ports).  

    There is also a built-in 6-bit DAC for audio, which puts it several steps
ahead of a standard Apple II (pre-GS). I've always been curious if anyone
wrote music software that took advantage of that...

Mitchell Spector