Muzz73

Hang on... as a former IIgs guy (yes, I loved it, but liked my ST's better), I need to chime in on the old argument about pricing and bang-for-your-buck. The IIgs might have been listed as having a $999 starting price, but you have to remember that Apple only sold you a CPU. If you wanted ANYTHING to go with it (monitor, disk drives, or even a keyboard & mouse), you had to pay separately for it. Everyone I knew that had the typical IIgs setup with an AppleColor RGB monitor, one 3.5" 800K FDD, one 5.25" 140K FDD, basic ADB keyboard, ADB mouse and 256K, 512K or 1.25MB (depending on when you bought it) paid $2,300 for their system and that didn't even include a crappy Imagewriter II printer, a SCSI card or even an internal fan (yes, the fan was extra/optional). If someone spent $2,300 on an Amiga or Mega STE at that time, the IIgs would only have its sound hardware to fall back on and, as previously mentioned, because of the processor Apple used, the 8-bit bus and lack of software support, even the Ensoniq chip was crippled. I need some help on something... I had always thought that the Ensoniq chip was 32 voices, 4 channels. I know that the IIgs' bus couldn't support that, so they paired the oscillators and made 16 voices, one of which was reserved for the system beep (what a waste), giving it 15 usable Wavetable voices for synthesis, with the IIgs' mono output. So... was the chip stereo, or quadrophonic? Another thing to consider; the IIgs' expansion slots were tied to the built-in hardware's functionality, so if you wanted to use bus cards, you had to go into the Control Panel and turn hardware off. It went like this... Slot #0: for RAM expansion only Slot #1: Serial printer port Slot #2: Serial MoDem port Slot #3: Apple ][/][+ 80 column card (most people ran their IIgs in IIe mode w/Extended 80 column support, so people often put their accelerator here) Slot #4: Mouse card slot (also not used in IIgs mode) Slot #5: 3.5" FDD Slot #6: 5.25: FDD Slot #7: Auxiliary slot, anything goes (usually a SCSI card) So if you wanted to use say, slot #2 for an internal MoDem, you have to turn off the second serial port on the back, rendering it useless. If you decided to put your MoDem in slot #1 instead, it'd cost you your built-in printer port, etc. The IIgs was a great idea, but it should have been a platform unto itself. The backward compatibility was both its saving grace, as well as its downfall. Like 64 mode on a C=128. They had to build in backward compatibility to make it attractive, or no one would buy the blasted things. On the other hand,, nobody programmed IIgs or C=128 software, because they could just release an Apple ][ or C=64 version, knowing that it would run on the newer machines. Catch 22. Anyhow, that's what I have to throw out there right now... I've owned a IIgs, several ST's and a few Amigas (along with countless other machines) in my time and loved them all. I just found the IIgs' quirks... interesting!

You know what burns my backside on ebay (apart from everything being RARE)? When someone picks up a box full of stuff at a yard sale for $5, breaks everything apart and tries to squeeze the daylight out of people. OK, I can see parting out a system. I wouldn't want to have to bid $50 on a box full of stuff and pay nearly that to ship it, when all I need is the 1050 drive, or something to that effect. But some of these guys will sell an old computer "as is due to age" and sell the PSU separately in another auction as "unknown condition". Sometimes they'll even sell the case housing, motherboard, keyboard and screws separately. Ugh! Rant concluded. Thanks! Louis

I had one serial port pin corrode on my old 520STm, back in the day. It had a white, crusty coating growing on it, so I used a little CLR and an eye-dropper to apply it to that silly pin. Problem solved! Thanks! Louis

Yes, unfortunately, I have never gotten my knuckles around an STe system of any sort, because here in the states they still go for big $$ ($200+, depending on the system). I have tried many times to get them off of ebay and get sniped last minute every time. One day, it will be mine... oh yes, one day... Louis