Here is an article I wrote for new users of the Apple IIGS computer: Welcome to csa2. Since you are a new Apple IIGS user, allow me to give you a tour of the unit. Here are pictures of the IIGS in action with great software: http://ground.ecn.uiowa.edu/apple2/Misc/advertisegs.gif http://ground.ecn.uiowa.edu/apple2/Misc/a2gsintro.gif The IIGS is an amazing machine given its age. It can run a free version of Wolfenstein 3D, has its own UNIX, and even its own TCP/IP capable of 32 simultaneous sockets! Email is due to be released soon and ftp is already here. A web browser of sorts is already here as is telnet! Here are some information and specs for the IIGS: There are two things you need to do to get the IIGS usable. First, get a hard drive for it. http://www.allelec.com/ Alltech Electronics sells an internal hard drive for the IIGS that is a hard drive on a card. No extra controller needed. It is an IDE controller plus notebook mechanism. It costs $79. For that price, you also get the most modern Apple IIGS System Software, GS/OS (System 6.0.1), which is normally on six separate floppy disks (a hard drive is needed to get the most out of it). You also get tons of freewares and sharewares. The hard drive is called the Focus hard drive card. Look for it on the Alltech site. The other thing is memory. Alltech (see above for web site) also sells the Sirius RAM card. They are revising their web site, so this product may not yet be on there, but just call them and ask. It is a 0-8MB memory card that can be expanded in 1MB increments using 1MB 30 pin SIMMs. I'm sure you have an old 386 lying around that you can gut. The IIGS' minimum recommended standard is 4MB. Here are the specs for the IIGS: 1. Make and Model: Apple IIGS 2. Released: 1986 (256K model) and 1989 (1.125MB model) 3. Follows: Apple IIc 4. Followed by: Apple IIc Plus 5. CPU: Western Design Center (not to be confused with Western Digital, the hard drive maker) 65C816 running at 2.8Mhz. Processor has 24-bit addressing (16MB memory space). Speed can be dropped down to 1Mhz for compatibility with emulation of IIe applications. Speed can be increased to 15Mhz with an add-on CPU card. 6. ROM: 128K in the 1986 "ROM 1" model 256K in the 1989 "ROM 3" model (Apple skipped ROM 2 so as not to confuse "Apple II" with "ROM 2") ROM is expandable to 8MB (some cards use ROM space as non-volatile battery backed virtual disk storage for instant on applications [RamKeeper]). The ROM contains much of the GS Toolbox routines. These routines are patched by disk loaded code in later system software revisions. 7. RAM: The 1986 model has 256K built-in to the motherboard. The 1989 "ROM 3" revision has 1.125MB built into memory. The Apple IIGS is expandable to 8MB of RAM with the right memory card. Many applications, such as Apple Computer's HyperCard program for the GS (GS version of the famous Macintosh program) need at least 2MB. Extra RAM goes into a special memory expansion slot on the motherboard. Both Alltech Electronic (http://www.allelec.com ) and Sequential Systems (http://www.sequential.com ) are selling 8MB memory cards as of October 1998. 8. Case: Attractive platinum ABS impact resistant plastic. The keyboard and mouse are separate from the unit, as are all disk drives. 9. Keyboard: Full layout keyboard with numeric keypad. The keys have good tactile feel and click slightly with each keypress. They have rollover for fast typist. The Apple IIGS uses Apple Desktop Bus (ADB) standard keyboards and mice. This means it can use many such input devices designed with the Macintosh in mind. Any Mac made after 1986 has an ADB port, but the IIGS was the first computer with one. 10. Display: The Video Graphics Chip (VGC) is a custom video chip that provides all of the GS' graphics modes. All modes use a 12-bit palette for 4096 colors. --320x200 with 16 colors --320x200 with 256 colors: in this mode, the VGC is taking advantage of the fact that it has memory for 16 separate palettes. Each scan line can be assigned any one of these 16 palettes for a total of 256 possible colors. This mode requires no CPU assistance and is often used in games. --320x200 with 3200 colors: in this mode, the CPU is used to swap palettes into and out of video memory such that a separate 16 color palette can be used on each of the 200 scan lines for 3200 possible colors. This mode is often used for viewing graphics. --640x200 with 4 pure colors: this mode is bland and is not often used. --640x200 with 16 dithered colors: in this mode, the pixels in the graphic screen are grouped into even and odd columns. The even columns can have a palette of 4 pure colors out of a of 4096 possible. The odd columns can have a second palette of 4 pure colors. The GS dithers the adjacent colors for 4x4=16 dithered colors. This mode is widely used in productivity programs and also in Apple's Finder for the GS. --Fill mode: for faster rendering of graphics, the fill mode is a hardware mode in which an outline of a graphic can be drawn and the outline filled by a solid color without needing to draw in all the pixels. --Combinations and variations: the Apple IIGS has scan line interrupts. Part of the screen can be in 640x200 mode and part of it can be in 320x200 resolution. Such split modes are sometimes used in paint programs, where the menu bar is in 640x200 while the graphic is in 320x200. SVGA modes with 24-bit color can be added with an additional video card (see the Second Sight SVGA card at Sequential Systems http://www.sequential.com/ ). The card is capable 1024x768 resolutions with an SVGA monitor. The Apple IIGS also has all the graphics modes found on the Apple IIc. --Text mode: 40x24 and 80x24. Characters are formed by a 7x8 pixel matrix. Text mode is monochrome but can be set to a specific color. The background and boarder can each be set to different colors. Text mode is rarely used in GS programs since the OS, GS/OS, has a graphic desktop. --Low Resolution: 40x48 pixels in 16 colors. --Double Low Resolution: 80x48 pixels in 16 colors. --High Resolution: 280x192 pixels in 6 colors --Double High Resolution: 560x192 pixels in 16 colors. --Combinations/Variations: 4 lines of text mode can be mixed with a truncated Low Resolution or High Resolution mode graphic. The text in mixed mode can be either 40 column or 80 column. 11. Audio: The Apple IIGS uses the 32 channel Ensoniq 5503 DOC wavetable sound chip used in Ensoniq's Mirage and ESQ-1 synthesizers. Although classics today, the Mirage and the ESQ-1 were professional synthesizers into the late 1980s. The 32 channels are commonly paired by the OS tools of the GS into 16 stereo voices, with one voice being reserved by the system for timing and the system beep. The GS is commonly called a 15 voice unit. Programs that don't use the OS and hit the hardware directly (games and demos) can use the 32 channels as 32 separate voices. See this link for more information: http://www.ensoniq.com/multimedia/semi_html/index.htm 12. Media: The "SmartPort" external drive port supports both Apple IIe/IIc UniDisks (3.5" and 5.25" models) and Apple IIGS daisy-chain 3.5" drives and Apple 5.25" disks. It is also designed to support the Chinook CT-series 20MB to 100MB SmartPort hard drives, but Apple IIGS users usually add an SCSI card to the system for faster hard drive access. The difference between a UniDisk and a IIGS 3.5" drive is that the IIGS drive is controlled directly by the computer while the UniDisk has a separate processor. The UniDisk is thus much slower (up to 4x slower) than a IIGS 3.5" drive. The SmartPort can support two 800K 3.5" drives, two 140K 5.25" drives, and one 100MB CT100 hard drive simultaneously daisy-chained to each other. The Apple IIGS often shipped with the Apple High Speed (DMA) SCSI controller in an expansion slot for controlling SCSI devices. Even 100MB Zip Drives and 1GB Jazz Drives work on this SCSI port. A SuperDrive controller card can be added for using 1.44MB high density floppy drives. The Apple IIGS' operating system, GS/OS, is modular. Like the Macintosh OS, INIT, extension, Desk Accessory and Control Panel files can be added. These appear under the Apple menu in GS/OS programs such as Finder. GS/OS also supports the installable file system concept. Apple made several file system translators (FST) available: ProDOS, DOS 3.3, Pascal (UCSD), MS-DOS, ISO9660 (CD-ROM), and HFS (Mac). Using the HFS file system, the GS can access a single storage partition of up to 2GB. It also supports multiple partitions, some ProDOS (32MB per partition) and some HFS. 13. Input/Output: Two RS-423 ports (uses Zilog chip, same as Mac, for Appletalk and 56.7k serial port max) Composite display output (NTSC or PAL depending on the country) ADB port (for keyboard and mice) RGB monitor output (Drives an analog RGB monitor. Besides Apple's, Amiga and Atari ST monitors work with the right cable) External Drive "SmartPort" (IIGS daisy chain 3.5" or UniDisks 3.5" drives, Apple 5.25" drives, and CT-series 20MB to 100MB hard drives) Joystick port Headphone connector Seven Apple Bus expansion slots (inherited from IIe) One Ensoniq sound connector (for input to the ADC for recording samples and access to the raw synthesizer output signals). One special memory expansion slot (supports up to 8MB of RAM expansion and 8MB of ROM expansion). 14. Trivia: The Apple IIGS was designed in response to the Amiga 1000 and Atari 520ST computers. It was and is a quantum leap for the Apple II line. Sales were strong initially and the IIGS even outsold the black and white Macintosh units that were its contemporary. Sadly, Apple wanted Macintosh to be its future. The total number of advertisements and commercials can probably be counted on one hand. If the computer had been introduced a year or two earlier, things might have been different. As things stood, the Apple IIGS disappeared from the market in 1992. In one final gasp, the Apple II supporters at Apple designed the Apple IIGS Plus, code named "Mark Twain." It had an 8Mhz 65C816, a built in SuperDrive, 2MB on the motherboard, and a hard drive. Prototypes were leaked and one user group has one and wrote a series of articles about it. Apple management vetoed this unit. The Ensoniq chip in the Apple IIGS was a brilliant move by Apple, but it drew a lawsuit by Apple Records, the Beatles' company. Apple never again put a synth chip in any computer. Even today, Macintosh does not have hardware synthesizers. Macintosh needs to go around this with software based synthesis. In a twist of irony, you can currently do preemptive multitasking (like Amiga) on the Apple IIGS with the addition of a free product called GNO/ME, providing a UNIX like multitasking kernal under the GUI, much like AmigaDOS...while Macintosh lacks such a capability until Rhapsody is released (well, there was a UNIX variant for Macintosh, but it was discontinued by Apple). The Apple IIGS also has the ability to do cooperative multitasking (Macintosh style) with a product called The Manager...works to turn the GS Finder into a Macintosh type Finder (allows more than one program open and overlapping on the GUI and cooperative time slicing). 15. Emphasis: Small business, Home, Education, Gaming, Programming 16. Net Resources: http://ground.ecn.uiowa.edu/ (1.7GB A2 knowledge and software repository) http://www.sequential.com/ (Video cards and storage) http://www.allelec.com/ (Various hardware and software) http://www.hypermall.com/byteworks (OS, programming, books, and software) http://www.byteworks.org/ (new URL to the previous site?) http://www.wbwip.com/juiced.gs (IIGS specific magazine) http://www.crl.com/~joko (General Apple II newsletter) 17. Picture http://ground.ecn.uiowa.edu/apple2/Misc/a2gsintro.gif http://ground.ecn.uiowa.edu/apple2/Misc/advertisegs.gif