Re: Building the Modern Apple IIGS

["Glenn Jones" <rg.jones@rogers.com>]

Actually that is why the Bebox appealed to me so strongly.

Lots of built in goodies and expandabilty with off the shelf parts.

I have seen a ISA to Apple II bus adapters on the web somewhere

I didn't think of it at the time but   ...   this could have been the way to
migrate some of that cool Apple II hardware and allow it's use with Sweet
16....

To much of a *good thing* I guess   :o(


----- Original Message -----
From: "Supertimer" <supertimer@aol.com>
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple2
Sent: Sunday, February 23, 2003 3:13 AM
Subject: Building the Modern Apple IIGS


> Those of us who are original Apple IIGS users (or were)
> know that Apple dropped the ball when it came to the
> Apple II user base.
>
> There have already been too many debates as to why
> Apple never made a successor to the Apple IIGS or
> why the Macintosh is NOT it but the fact is, the
> Apple IIGS was the last of the line.
>
> For years, many of us upgraded our machines with
> third party enhancements.  We saw Mac and PCs
> come and we saw them go.  Mac LC came, I was
> not interested.  I upgraded my IIGS.  Windows 3.1
> PCs came and I upgraded my IIGS.  Finally, the
> Pentium class PCs showed up along with Win 95
> and 3dfx came out with the Voodoo line of 3D
> accelerators.  I finally moved on.
>
> I still have my IIGS and the sheer extent it has
> been upgraded is in itself a work of art.  I shall keep
> it as a testimony to what IIGS users could do in
> the face of betrayal from Apple.
>
> I always wanted to build the upgrade to the IIGS
> that Apple never provided.  I looked into many
> motherboards but none ever fit.  Besides, not only
> would it have to fit but it would have to remain true
> to the spirit of the Apple IIGS.  IIGS means
> integrated graphics and sound.  The IIGS 4096
> color palette graphics were decent in its days
> and the sound was first among any personal
> computer in its day.  There would also need to be
> a power supply that was compatible with the new
> motherboard.
>
> Now there is such a hardware combination.  There
> is a Shuttle PC kit that features a motherboard
> built around the nVidia nForce2 chipset with a
> tiny but adequately powerful power supply.  The
> sound is first class, nVidia's integrated
> SoundStorm system derived from the sound
> hardware in the Xbox.  The graphics are decent
> Geforce2 MX440 class.  This balance is very
> true to the spirit of the Apple IIGS.  In addition,
> the integrated features of this chipset incorporates
> everything imaginable.  USB 2.0, Firewire,
> network support, dual channel DDR PC2700
> (DDR333) memory support, HyperTransport
> interconnects, etc.
>
> The plan is to take the parts from the Shuttle kit
> and put them into the case of an Apple IIGS.
> The CPU would be an Athlon XP 3000+.  There
> would be two 512MB DDR333 memory modules,
> one in each of the 64-bit banks for full 128-bit
> dual channel bandwidth.  The Shuttle kit includes
> a heatpipe so cooling should be no problem in
> the crowded IIGS case.  The back panel would
> need to be modified for the new port configuration
> but that should not be too hard.  No extra
> peripheral cards are needed because everything
> is integrated.
>
> The keyboard will be a genuine Apple USB
> keyboard.  The monitor will be a PC 15-inch
> LCD screen (Apple LCD with ADC adapter is an
> option but the PC LCD is preferred due to price).
>
> The operating system will be Windows XP with
> third party software that includes various themes
> with the one active being the MacOS X lookalike.
>
> This project is still in the planning stages but if
> I am successful, I will post a step by step guide
> or upload a PDF document with illustrations.
>
> The hard disk drive will be installed inside the IIGS
> case but the DVD/CD-RW combo drive and floppy
> drive would be USB 2.0 external or FireWire to sit
> next to the case to remain true to the spirit of the
> original Apple IIGS.