Re: Rom 04 GS

[a_specto@alcor.concordia.ca (Mitchell Spector)]

kauai96765@yahoo.com (The Apple Man) wrote:

>Does anyone know where to find the technical specs and the details of
>the Rom 04 IIgs?

    There was a five-page article in a 1996 issue of Shareware Solutions II
(Volume 3, issue 1) discussing the story of how 2 or 3 of these prototypes
were discovered, followed by an in-depth analysis/observation of the
machines. The issue before it actually had a high-quality photo of the
motherboard on the back page.

    It isn't actually the "ROM 4" (in fact these prototypes used the ROM 3
firmware) but had been called the "Mark Twain"--Apple's internal code
name for the the new IIgs redesign scheduled for a 1991-92 release. 

    These machines were _far_ from being finished, and probably would 
have added more features and capabilities as the project developed. 
At any rate, the prototypes uncovered had this:

- Built-in 1.44MB SuperDrive floppy (slot on case lid)
- Built-in SCSI hardrive
- Stereo-out jack (back port)
- Microphone jack (back port)
- Dual 30-pin SIMM sockets
- 2 Megabytes RAM built-in
- DMA SCSI controller intergrated into motherboard
- FDHD floppy controller intergrated into motherboard

Obviously the motherboard layout changed. I remember it was a bit wider,
things moved around, two regular expansion slots disappeared (plus the 
44-pin memory slot as well), it had a smaller yet higher capacity powersupply
and a support frame to mount internal drives, and so on.

These were so incomplete that they hadn't yet written the new firmware
(which, no doubt would have been "ROM version 4") or had the floppy
drive properly working (you can't eject disks and they don't recognize
high-density floppies). Looking at some of the images of boards, they
looked to still be in the alpha stage. Here's a photo of a "ROM 4"
board, as well as how it compared to a ROM 00/01 and 3 board:

http://persweb.direct.ca/mystix/ROM_MB.htm

>I know that several people have them but no one
>seems willing to share any of the details.  Any help here?

    Several people? I only know of two or three people who have these
(Joe Kohn and Tony Diaz) and from what I've heard, only about 20 of
these were every produced, with most of them destroyed by Apple.

    Interestingly, back in 1991, a friend of mine was a close friend
of a software developer here in Montreal (who worked for an 
internationally known company). He claimed to have seen a sneak
peak at a new Apple IIGS the company was given on loan, and 
described in near perfect detail, the Mark Twain above--with the
addition of a few more features.

    He later claimed to have made the whole thing up, but I always had 
my doubts (I suppose his friend wasn't too pleased for leaking out what 
he shouldn't have even been shown). The details he gave me were so 
close in fact, I remember Joe Kohn writing me to compare his Mark Twain 
with the prototypes I talked about on comp.sys.apple2 back in the early 
90's. :)

    It's obvious other IIgs prototypes were built and shelved at 
Apple over the years (inCider even reported about one in the
August 1988 issue) though I've always wondered if there weren't 
further developed versions of the IIgs Mark Twain built and lost,
like the one my friend described. I suppose we'll hear about it one 
day in the future from ex or retired Apple employees if they did
exist. I even learned about the project code name"Mark Twain" 
(long before most people knew what it related to) by talking to one.
I've also heard other interesting stories about Apple II prototypes 
that never-were from people who've worked at Apple.

Mitchell Spector
a_specto@alcor.concordia.ca