Newbie Apple IIgs questions

[David Murray <spamsucks@stopspam.com>]

Hi guys.. I'm an old-school computer user.. I have extensive knowledge of 
Commodore and Amiga computers as that is what I grew up with.  I'm even 
really good with 6502 assembler.. but of Apples, I know little.  I do 
have extensive knowledge of the Macintosh, though.

So here I am.. I was just given an Apple IIgs and I can't quite get 
everything working.  I've looked around on the internet and haven't been 
able to answer some questions.

First off, I can't get any color out of the composite output jack.  It is 
just grayscale.  I have figured out how to get to the control panel and 
it is set to "COLOR" on the monitor section.. but still no color output.  
I do not have a RGB monitor that will work with it.  Is it like the Amiga 
systems where the hardware only outputs grayscale to the composite 
connector?  Although, I'm impressed how clear it is on my Commodore 1084 
monitor, especially the 80 column mode.

Second.  I have two 3.5" floppy drives.  They are part# A9M0106  However, 
when I connect them to the back of the IIgs and turn it on, I get a black 
screen and the computer won't do anything.  It doesn't matter which drive 
I connect, same thing.

I currently have no O/S disks, but I've downloaded the images from 
Apple's website and I'll be putting them on 800K disks using a Macintosh 
up at work tommorow.  but I have a few questions about GS/OS

Are there any working, free IP stacks that support PPP?  I have a router 
with serial ports on it that can accept incomming PPP connections.  So 
that would be a quick, easy way to connect the IIgs to the internet.  
I've done that with an old Mac LC and it worked fine.  Unfortunatly, the 
router doesn't support SLIP, which I did see a website where there was 
TCP/IP via SLIP.

And lastly.. Just a general question.  I used IIgs systems back in junior 
high and didn't realize they were any better than a IIe because all we 
were allowed to do was write programs in BASIC.  I was unaware of the 
existence of GS/OS until a few days ago.  Knowing what I know now, at the 
time the IIgs came out if your choices were a Macintosh SE or an Apple 
IIgs, why would you pick the SE?  I mean, other than higher clock speed 
it seems like the IIgs was a superior system.  Of course, I had an Amiga 
back in Junior High and thought that Macs generally sucked back then.. 
but I like them now, but that is another story..   So the main thing is, 
why did people choose the Mac?

--DavidM