The Apple IIGS was designed in response to the Amiga 1000 and Atari 520ST computers & could be considered a cross between the Macintosh & Apple II (naturally, it can't use Macintosh programs). It was (and still 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 for the IIGS could probably be counted on one hand. If the computer had been introduced a year or two earlier, things might have been different. 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 leaked out and a user group that 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 from Apple Records, the Beatles' record label. Apple never again put a synthesizer chip in any computer. Even today, the Macintosh does not have hardware synthesizers. The Macintosh works around this by using software-based synthesis.
It had a lot of graphic modes : All modes used 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 a possible 4096. 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, 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 supported scan line interrupts. Part of the screen could be in 640x200 mode while another part could be in 20x200 resolution. Such split modes were sometimes used in paint programs, where the menu bar was in 640x200 while the graphic was in 320x200.
SVGA modes with 24-bit color could be added with an additional video card (see the Second Sight SVGA card at Sequential Systems at http://www.sequential.com/).
- 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 border can each be set to different colors. Text mode is rarely used in GS programs since the OS, GS/OS, had 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 could be mixed with a truncated Low Resolution or High Resolution mode graphic. The text in mixed mode could be either 40 column or 80 column. Double Low Res and Double High Res modes couldn't be mixed with text.
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 was sold with a 3.5" floppy drive which not only worked on this computer, but on the Macintosh as well. It was also designed to support the Chinook CT-series 20MB to 100MB SmartPort hard drives, but Apple IIGS users usually added 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 1 GB Jazz Drives work on this SCSI port. A SuperDrive controller could be added for using 1.44MB high density floppy drives.
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The Apple IIgs was one of the biggest blunders Apple ever did! The Machine had an amazing graphics ability, fantastic sound system, the disk drives were whisper quiet and fast, the computer''s appearance on the desktop was pleasing, backward compatibility, and it''s operating system was the forerunner to the modern Mac one. A lot of care and time went into engineering this beast.
There was just one problem - the blunder was not the fault of the machine. NO, the problem was: Apple''s management was not interested in pushing it and preferred the Mac instead! BIG MISTAKE, if this had become the Mac, they would probably have millions and millions of more Mac users today! Such a waste!
I remember in my senior year in high school, the computer science department had brought in a whole room of these. The Apple IIgs was just better than the first few versions of the Mac at the time and we all preferred to use the IIgs than the Macs! I learned Pascal on the IIgs. I still have fond memories of this computer!
the elementary school i went to in the 90s had a whole computer lab full of these about 50 to 60 of them the only thing we could do on these was word processing or play a bunch of educational games like wild west math or number muncher they even had orgeon trail they were there until i was in the 5th grade back in 96-97 thats when the school upgraded to macs if i remember correctly they were perfoma macs
Friday 31st October 2014
Robert (usa)
I have a bunch of equipment for Iigs for sale
3 x iigs rom 1 machines all working 2 x memory expansion cards 2 x iigs keyboards 2 x apple keyboard II 7 x adb tank mouse 4 x 3.5 drives 1 x 5.25 drive 3 x iigs color rgb monitors System disks Modems
and also a rare system it is a Woz edition and in very nice condition it contains the rare hundred megabytes Vulcan internal drive with applied engineering vulcan card along with a rAm gs card and 3.5inch drive and a 5.25 drive all working with a perfect condition RGB color monitor with the Word Perfect corporation asset tag on itplease email me at A9163161094 at Gmail for pictures info and
Friday 17th October 2014
Tyler (us)
NAME
APPLE IIgs
MANUFACTURER
Apple
TYPE
Professional Computer
ORIGIN
U.S.A.
YEAR
1986
KEYBOARD
Detached 80-key full stroke with 10-key numeric pad and mouse connector
CPU
Western Design Center 65C816 (16 bit)
SPEED
2.8 MHz, switchable to 1 MHz
RAM
128 KB expandable to 8 MB
ROM
128 KB expandable to 1 MB
TEXT MODES
40 or 80 chars x 25 lines
GRAPHIC MODES
320 x 200 / 640 x 200 + Apple II graphic modes (see below)
COLORS
4096
SOUND
Ensoniq 32 with 16 stereo voices (+ 64 KB on chip RAM to store sound data), one voice is reserved for the system beep
SIZE / WEIGHT
28.5 (W) x 34.3 (D) x 10.1 (H) cm.
I/O PORTS
7 slots, ram card, RS422c (2), analogue RGB, Apple Desktop Bus (mouse & keyboard), Composite video, joystick, audio, disk port, AppleTalk
