The Truth About the New 1 Meg IIgs
                              By David Fein

     I went ahead and sold my old IIgs, and purchased a new 1 meg IIgs.  I love the extra speed.  Most people think that the system just has extra ROM and RAM, actually there are many other changes.  Most of the changes made to the ROMs have been incorporated into System Disk v5.0.2 and above, so I will try to go into only the changes specific to the new GS.
     First of all, they finally made the battery replaceable, The IIgs Battery is in a little box on the motherboard that can be opened, and the battery replaced. The Smartport has been redesigned so that all of the block reads go into fast RAM, which means that the 3.5 in. drives access faster than ever before.
     Being a programmer, I am in love with the fact that the "Visit Monitor/Memory Peeker" CDAs are no set in battery RAM so that if you modify relative byte $59, Both CDAs will be automatically loaded.  The Memory Peeker now has an abort listing option built into it.  Also, Apple has finally finished the Trace and Step routines in the monitor.  No longer does my computer just ignorantly prints the word "Step," or "Trace" respectively when I try to access the routines.
     Object drawing has been fine tuned in ROM so that objects will now draw faster only in this machine.
     I also appreciate the fact that the Mouse port routines have been rewritten so that when you are using a GS/OS specific program, the mouse is active, and doesn't need the slot set to Mouse Port.  This works because apple re-wrote the mouse routines to work under true sixteen bit.
     Due to the redesign of the motherboard, all of the sound routines now work fine.  Some people have complained to me that the IIgs was incapable of keeping a solid tone without some breakup, and now that apple has redesigned the motherboard The new machine can.  Also my internal fan no longer interferes with the Ensoniq Chip.
     Although I do not really have a use for them, this machine has sticky keys and a keyboard mouse function built in.  Funny thing is that the Mac has this as a Permanent Init file, where Apple felt that it should be in the ROM on the IIgs.  For those who do not know what sticky keys are, sticky keys is basically for the handicapped.
     With sticky keys, you are now capable of pressing commands like OpenApple-Control-Reset without having to press all of the keys at the same time.  The directions for doing so is that you need to press the shift key five times, and then press and release the OpenApple key, and then the control key, and then the reset key, and the machine will reboot.  Sticky keys can be used for any such keyboard combinations.  Even if you need to do a control character.
     Now the keyboard mouse, that is another story, I personally do not need to use the numeric keypad as the
mouse, and find it ridiculously stupid, but for some people, they may like the little trick that I use.  To activate the keyboard mouse, you have to press OpenApple-Shift-Clear. Once you do, the numbers on the keypad move your mouse.  The amount of movement can be altered in the control panel. Now, the tip I have for anybody who might be able to use this, either on the Mac, or on this machine, is that when you move the cursor onto something you want to drag, you can press the "0" key on the keypad, and this will lock your button down until you press the "5" key to release the drag. Apple was nice enough to leave your actual mouse activated while you are using the keyboard mouse, so this could really help anyone who hates having to hold the mouse all of the time, and move.  I have a Kensington Turbo mouse, and it already has that function built into one of it's two buttons, so I do not really need to use this
     There is now a two pin Molex connector on the motherboard that Apple didn't seem to document in the (now 392 page!) Apple IIgs Owner's Reference.  This connector, when you put a connector on it, will now remove the ability of the use to access the control panel.  Definitely a needed addition to the machine for schools.
     The new ROMS have the following tool sets built in to them:

               Window Manager
               Menu Manager
               Control Manager
               Scrap Manager
               Font Manager
               List Manager

some of which have already needed to be patched by GS/OS.

IF YOU ARE CONSIDERING BUYING A IIGS, DO NOT LET YOURSELF GET
FOOLED!!!  There are some dealers out there that are telling
their customers that they will offer them a 1280K IIgs (Old
IIgs with a fully populated memory card) for the same price as
the new machine, and that it is a better deal because of the
extra memory.  This is not true!  Due to the fact that the
above tool sets are now in ROM, they no longer need to be
loaded in the first place!!! Therefore you do not need the
extra RAM, and if you do get it, you will just be using your
extra RAM to load those tools, and it will take you longer to
boot your system!  However, I do admit that if you are using a
//e specific program you will have more memory, but you will
have your computer enhanced as far as Apple computer says you
should be able to, (1280K with 256K on the motherboard, and
1024K in the memory expansion slot,) therefore you will not be
able to upgrade to more memory in the future as computers seem
to require more and more RAM.  The new GS has a totally free
Memory expansion card slot that you can put an apple card in
the slot, and upgrade your new machine to two megs.  Another
point that Apple seems to ignore is that the "Apple IIgs with
1 megabyte of memory" (which is the official title to
differentiate between the two machines... I prefer the beta
title of "Discovery",) is that the machine does not have only
1024K which is 1 meg, but it has 1152K.  The machine actually
has 1024K + 128K.  On the old machine with 1280K, you would
have only 128K of extra memory, and the new machine has an
extra 128K ROM to make up for it. Programs such as Appleworks
GS, and others that claim to need 1280K will still work
perfectly on the new machine with 1152K. THE 1152K IIGS IS
EQUAL TO THE 1280K IIGS WHEN REFERRING TO REQUIRED MEMORY!!!
So the advantages are to go with the new machine, and as per
apple's claim that all you need to do is upgrade you old IIgs
to 1280K, and run System Disk v5.0 or above, I say they are
right, that you will not get too much more, but I wouldn't
like to go back. I have already found two easter eggs in the
new 1 meg Apple IIgs.  All of the Apple IIgs's since it's
first introduction have had the first easter egg, but this
machine adds a twist. When any IIgs crashes, the apple
character goes back and forth across the screen, if you press
Option-OpenApple-Control-N, the names of some of the people at
apple who worked on the machine comes up.  But, on the new
machine, along with the names, the computer has a digitized
sound in the ROMs, of the Apple II Development team all saying
"Apple II!". The second easter egg is in GS/OS.  I already
posted somewhere else that if you are in the finder, and press
down and hold Option-Shift, when you pull down the "About the
Finder..." option, it changes into "About the System..." and
you get the names of the people who wrote System Disk v5.0 or
above.  Well if you move your cursor to the word Apple IIgs on
the screen, and click, the computer will then again yell
"Apple II!". The following is a list of just some of the
programs that I have found to not work correctly on the new
machine:

          ZZ Copy (Will not accept the password)
          Solitare GS          (Claims can't find)
          Pyramid Solitare GS  (card sets on my  )
          Poker GS             (hard drive.      )
          Nucleus (Won't even boot)
          Dalton's Disk Disintegrator V5.0 (Freezes at the graphic screen)

Most of the problems I have been having with incompatibility
is associated to either disk access, or keyboard input.  Since
this machine is going to be the standard, either Apple has a
bug and will correct it, or everyone will have to change their
programs for future compatibility.