Talk:Apple IIGS

Apple IIgs article redesign

I feel the Apple IIgs article could use some major clean up work, so I'm starting by adding some of the sections missing that are now present and have become standard in the other Apple II family articles (which, by no coincidence, I wrote up and started--I think we need a standard layout for all the different Apple II computers). So, you'll notice the beginnings of a technical specifications, international versions, hardware revisions sections. There's also the new trivia section I added below it. I reworked the introductory paragraph some time ago, so it's just the middle that now needs tweaking.

I feel many of the existing sections need to be reworked and merged together, and of course more new sections added. For example, a whole section can be written about prototypes that were never released, like the Mark Twain. The article is also in desparate need of photographs, though I can provide most of that like I did for the IIc Plus article (I can probably take some screen shots with my Video Overlay Card plugged into a PC capture card).--Mitchell Spector /Apple2gs 00:43, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Pronunciation & naming

Does it really matter how it's pronounced? How the hell else would you say it? ("Apple eii-eii-gee-ess?"?). Maybe if there were some vowels there might be some room for confusion. -- stewacide 18:21 17 Jun 2003 (UTC)

By the way, I seem to recall that Apple used "Apple II-GS" rather than "Apple IIgs". Kat 18:53 17 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Should this really be the page that the redirects point to? The IIGS is clearly the correct version of the name, not IIgs. It's used throughout the article, and is easily seen on the picture. If I dug up the manuals for mine, it'd probably use IIGS, too. If there's no objections, I'll move it when I get the chance. --Xanzzibar 05:58, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I certainly don't object. Go ahead and move it. :-) — Frecklefoot | Talk 22:10, Aug 16, 2004 (UTC)

That was a silly reason for an article move. It's not as if the "IIgs" rendition doesn't appear officially. Watch the top of the screen when turning one on. The lowercase "gs" has always been considered an acceptable alternative to the smallcaps in the logo. —überRegenbogen (talk) 00:28, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Which is preferred? I think template:sc should prolly be used instead of the small tags in place, and it allows small caps to correspond to either IIGS or IIgs. (Copy this text from the browser to a plain text editor: IIGS vs IIGS. Both use the same template.) Potatoswatter (talk) 16:45, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Image of the IIGS

Oh yeah? Well I remember it as "Apple IIGS," so there! ;-) You know, it'd be really keen to have a photo of this short-lived home computer. Anyone got one lying around? Have a friend with one using it as a doorstop? — Frecklefoot | Talk 20:59, Jul 20, 2004 (UTC)

I think it was pronounced "two gee ess" as II is Roman numeral for two. It was the first computer I had. I was one of the first people in my little town to have a personal computer and I got my IIGS when they first came out I guess. (Although it may have been 1987 that I got it, but I don't think so) It lasted longer then any computer I think I ever had. It was pretty good with games.--T. Anthony 09:16, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

The //gs was a lame-duck computer from the start. Even before it was released, all the Apple ][ mags (of which I regularly read several) had rumors of the ][-series' demise, interspersed with rumors of this grandiouse "//x" system which was going to make the Mac user's drop their computers and go back to the Apple ][ line once again. That, of course, never happened -- the poor GS got precious little support from Apple, even though it had a fairly large fan following. I souped mine up pretty good for the day -- internal hard drive, IBM PC emulator card (PC transporter -- very cool stuff), etc. etc. But I eventually dumped it for a Mac LC II in 1992. I still own it, and it's been sitting in storage, only booted once or twice in the past 15 years or so... The machine had a lot of potential, but it went largely untapped. --Rehcsif 20:11, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Name origin

Anyone know how it got its name? The other II models tended to stand for something... IIe = educational, etc. Could the GS stand for "Granny Smith"? :-) --AdamAtlas

Apple II Graphics & Sound --PZ

I always thought that the "E" stood for "Enhanced." But now that I think about it, the E's were the ones our school used. The "c" was for compact? Anyway, PZ is right, "GS" does stand for "Graphics & Sound." Its abilities in these areas far outshined any of the others in the II line (or even the short-lived III!). Funny, I thought the article mentioned this... — Frecklefoot | Talk 20:02, Jun 15, 2005 (UTC)

I don't have a source, but I'm 99% sure the 'e' in //e stood for "enhanced", as in "Enhanced Apple ][". The Wikipedia [Apple IIe] article supports this. But GS definitely stood for "Graphics & Sound". --Rehcsif 20:07, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Interesting enough, the IIe was "un-enhanced" in earlier shipments. You had to then upgrade the logic board's CPU from a 6502A to a 65C02, and change out the ROMs in order to get what Apple called an enhanced IIe. So I can't really see the "e" to mean "enhanced". Otherwise, a IIe with an upgrade via the enhancement upgrade kit, you'd have a "IIe-e" (I just made that name up.) LOL! As for "GS", it did stand for graphics and sound. At the time the IIgs was being marketed, it had to compete with the Commodore Amiga family's collection of processors (Fag Agnes chip, etc.), which I felt at the time was the Apple IIgs' number-one competitor. The Ensoniq chip was a VERY big deal - so much so it was far more superior than what the Amiga 1000 offered in 1986. And with the AE Sonic Blaster, the IIgs ripped big-time! That's basically why Apple placed a heavy emphasis on the "sound" capability of the IIgs. Even today, many of my friends who once owned Amiga's admit that the IIgs dominated the audio. Groink 04:50, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

This doesn't belong here. But the e in //e definitely stood for enhanced (it being a great leap beyond the ][+). It certainly raised many an eyebrow when they released the Enhanced //e. Indeed some did occasionally call it a //ee. [Does that make it an ee PC? ;)] Meanwhile, some of us felt that //e+ would have made sense. Curiously an immediately pre-E2e machine-id list (the list of bytes in ROM that programmes look at to tell what they're running on) did list the info for the Enhanced //e as //e+.

CompactFlash cards

How could a 16-bit system like the Apple IIGS that has been long obsolete be technologically able to read CompactFlash cards? --Nintendude 02:01, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Simple. Someone (in this case, Richard Dreher) thought it would be a challenge to design a slot-based CompactFlash reader, and so did. He wanted something more reliable and longer lasting than floppy disks. You might be surprised to learn about a decade ago a company developed and released an SVGA video card for the Apple IIGS as well, and more recently, two Ethernet cards to allow the machine to access the Internet through broadband ISP's. I believe there is even work being done for USB support on the Apple IIGS. The CompactFlash reader also works on the older 8-bit Apple II, which is a testament to how expandable the original Apple II is. That something designed in the 1970's can work with 21st century technology, if you design the right interface.--Apple2gs 05:47, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

That is just so amazing. I never though 8-bit equipment was forward-compatible with new storage technology either. Please mention it in the article. (unsigned comment from anon)'

Yeah, the CFFA by Richard Dreher will even work in the Apple II+ and Vince Briel of Apple I replica fame got it to work in an ORIGINAL Apple II. --PZ 05:48, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

CompactFlash uses a 16-bit ATA interface. So a IIgs-only CF interface would be an easier project than one for 8-bit machines. The CFFA card deals with the 16-bit to 8-bit business in a way that is fundamentally related to how an 8088 (internally a 16-bit CPU) interfaces to an 8-bit motherboard, or an 80386sx (internally a 32-bit CPU) interfaces with a 16-bit motherboard. They have an extra layer of latching, allowing the data to be passed one half-word at a time (a short-word as a byte, or a long-word as a short-word). —überRegenbogen (talk) 01:19, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Unicode title (␝)

There's the Character ␝, is it preferable to use this to display the title with the small caps GS (Apple II␝)? --Dispenser 22:38, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

It's not really readable (unless you squint) in Safari, for what it's worth. --KenshinWithNoise 02:54, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Cute, but a bad idea. "␝" is a glyph for representing the ASCII group-separator control character (control-]) in print. Using it to arbitrarily represent the letters GS is inappropriate and risky, as it might be rendered in an unexpected way.

For example, the letters are staggered (^G_S) in some fonts and superscripted (^GS) in others. A text-to-speech engine might speak it as "group separator").

Reasons like this are why unicode has separate codepoints for various characters—such as β (beta) and ß (eset)—which are are visually very similar (and, in some fonts, identical), but have very different meanings and pronunciations.
—überRegenbogen (talk) 01:48, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Binary prefixes

Recently changes have been made to this article to use binary prefixes (KiB, MiB, kibibyte, mebibyte etc). The majority of reliable sources for this article do not use binary prefixes. If you have any thoughts/opinions then this specific topic is being discussed on the following talk page Manual of Style (dates and numbers) in the sections to do with "binary prefixes". Fnagaton 10:52, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Internal speakers

This is just something that I've been curious about for quite some time... The internal speaker for the IIgs is rather quite amazing, and far outshone anything done for early PCs (even those that came out after the IIgs), yet the PC companies never tried incorporating such superior and easy-to-use technology into the old PCs. Admittedly, the common use of sound cards and external speakers made it unneccesary in the end, but even today PCs still have the PC speaker. So, basically, why not upgrade? It couldn't have been that hard, or expensive. -- unsigned

The Ensoniq synthesizer chip incorperated into the motherboard design that gave the IIgs its rich music and audio capability WAS definitely unique, though I suppose the fact Apple allowed it to tie into the internal speaker (same one used for 1-bit "beeper" audio for Apple IIe emulation mode) was ALSO quite unique. Sure you could (and would definitely want to) add a pair of external stereo speakers plugged in to the mono headphone jack or a stereo-out card, but I always thought it was really cool to hear such high quality music/sound coming from that tinny internal speaker.

PC designers put similar or better audio capabilities on ISA and PCI slot cards in the early to mid 90's, and recently directly onto the motherboard, but you're right that any have yet to let that audio direct to the internal speaker. It'd be trivial to do, but apart from the novelty factor, there would be no good reason to do it. Some PC cases don't even include an internal speaker today.

One thing I've always been curious about is the tone produced by the IIgs bell/beep that comes through the internal speaker. It is NOT Ensoniq based audio, but it is very different from IIe/IIc audio. Did the IIgs have a more advanced "beeper" (speaking toggling) than the 8-bit Apple II? I mean, could you produce the IIgs speaker beep on a stock Apple IIe?--Apple2gs 06:58, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Actually, nowadays, some PCs do have internal speakers linked to the sound card. Usually it's SFF systems that do that, to provide sound when there's no room for speakers on the desk.

As for a reason to not upgrade the sound capabilities... the IIGS's sound abilities aren't because of the speaker, but rather because of the superior sound chip. PC manufacturers didn't want to spend one cent more than they had to, and putting a sound controller on the motherboard would have made them even less price competitive than they already were. Bhtooefr (talk) 15:19, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

The "PC-Speaker" on IBM-oid PCs exists only for compatibility (though i still use it for certain things). It has been downgraded to a tiny watch-alarm style element on many machines, and even eliminated on machines with built-in PCM sound—with its signal being routable to the now main speakers.

The IIgs routes both the old 0xC030 toggle output and the ES5503 output to the internal speaker or headphone jack. I can't speak with authority regarding the way the hideous IIgs native beep is generated; but i suspect that it is an algorithmically drawn waveform, fed to the DOC. It is definitely not being generated by C030 reads (else it would sound much uglier).
—überRegenbogen (talk) 02:12, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

If the native IIgs "beep" is generated by the Ensoniq, why isn't it picked up through the molex pin connector used by stereo cards? Anything produced by the Ensoniq will always be heard through a stereo output card, interestingly the beep is not, which would make me think it's not produced by it. I suppose one could pull the Ensoniq 5503 out of the motherboard and see if the sound is still being generated (of course the GS itself might not function at that point). :)Apple2gs (talk) 01:42, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Ah. I was not aware of that detail about the pin. I'll have to do some nosing around on that. AFAIK, one of the 5503's oscillators is used for system timing of some sort; so yes, pulling it would probably cripple, if not stop a IIgs dead.
—überRegenbogen (talk) 09:42, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

There was actually a detailed discussion about it on comp.sys.apple2 late last year. Here's that thread on Google Groups: http://groups.google.com/group/comp.sys.apple2/browse_thread/thread/6e10cb7585e79a71/6fa6bd6204775d2f?q=IIgs+beep+group:comp.sys.apple2#6fa6bd6204775d2f

Long story short, there was a challenge to see if the IIGS's "beep" could be reproduced on an 8-bit Apple II using simple 1-bit speaker toggling. Although what was produced through some AppleSoft BASIC coding was a similar sounding waveform, it was still far from being a perfect match. From what I understood, the theory is the "beep" is just speaking toggling (like how you produce tones and beeps on an Apple IIe) but it is filtered through some of the Ensoniq's external sound circuity (not the 5503 DOC itself) which gives it a cleaner and more unique and distinctive sound than anything you can produce with an Apple II+/e/c speaker. That makes me wonder if it's NOT from the Ensoniq, and it's NOT plain 1-bit speaker toggling (a la Apple II, early IBM PC's) is it some unexploited sound capability the IIGS has that was never used apart from the system beep? :) --Apple2gs (talk) 07:56, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Trivia

Is anyone going to take the time to embed all the trivia items into the article? The goal on Wikipedia is to eliminate trivia sections. Groink 22:02, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

I attempted to merge the trivia, but it was reverted by another user, who believed that the original version was better because "all you've done is squeeze everything into one long paragraph (less clear)". I don't think that is an accurate representation of what I did, because I integrated almost twenty items into a variety of sections and paragraphs (some newly created), so I have reverted that revert. I think the extremely long trivia section detracts from the article, and these items better serve the article through integration into other sections. That said, if I've integrated some trivia facts into poor places, then feel free to move them around (or even remove them), but do not just revert my entire good faith attempt at improving the article. --Nick Penguin 19:07, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Added better photos of the Apple IIgs

Added better pics.

Also, we need a better pic of the Apple IIgs logo badge without the "macgeek" spam. --cbmeeks (talk) 16:37, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was withdrawn. JPG-GR (talk) 19:04, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Apple IIGS → Apple IIɢs — The Unicode small G looks better in the title bar etc of the web browser. The HTML markup can be retained within the article. Is Unicode acceptable for such uses? — Potatoswatter (talk) 22:52, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Survey

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's naming conventions.

• Strong Oppose Absolutely ridiculous. Article titles aren't formatted to "look better" - this is an encyclopedia. JPG-GR (talk) 08:24, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

• Well, it's obviously more accurate as well as looking better. Potatoswatter (talk) 11:57, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

"Looking better" has nothing to do with anything, as I've already stated. "More accurate" is relative, especially since you've provided no source that would even remotely imply that it is so. JPG-GR (talk) 20:22, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

The only thing I propose to change is the page title, which presently uses big caps, unlike the faceplate or Apple literature. I don't propose any changes to the article text. So when viewing the article, your window title and browser history will appear as when you click here, which does match Apple's styling. This is the only change I suggest and it won't affect a single pixel within the window. Does that clarify anything? Potatoswatter (talk) 22:37, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

There's nothing to be clarified - I understand completely what you are proposing and it is a violation of our naming conventions. Just because Apple stylizes something in a fancy way doesn't mean that is how it should be displayed in an encyclopedia. JPG-GR (talk) 23:51, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't want to be a pain here, but which section? You've pointed at the entire article naming guide and Xanzzibar at the entire trademarks guide, which are large documents that don't appear to me to cover this at all. They both discourage use of non-alphanumeric characters, but ɢ is not such a case. I don't see any relevant capitalization rules, and don't propose changing caps anyway. If the body does it one way, why shouldn't the title follow suit? Potatoswatter (talk) 02:02, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

WP:NC#Avoid non alpha-numeric characters used only for emphasis - and yes, that is the case. Your little GS are special characters by the very definition that they can't be made using a single keystroke on the common keyboard. JPG-GR (talk) 05:15, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, that is not the definition of alphanumeric. Good day. Potatoswatter (talk) 06:23, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

You're missing the whole idea behind the naming conventions. Regardless, I have said my part. JPG-GR (talk) 00:00, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

• Support If it doesn't break anything, I don't see why not. It does contravene the trademark manual of style, but the rules for it seem arbitrary to me, rather than practical. --Xanzzibar (talk) 12:40, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

• Note that as rules don't differentiate between title and text, making title match existing text should be a win. (Assuming only relevant part is "Follow standard English text formatting and capitalization rules even if the trademark owner considers nonstandard formatting "official"," which is all I see.) Potatoswatter (talk) 15:14, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
• Since when does loosing readability not break anything? Vegaswikian (talk) 18:07, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose using stylistic fonts in article titles to match stylistic fonts in trademarked goods. Let's not open that box. --Justallofthem (talk) 16:51, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose Opposes MOS, and it's not ASCII, and it's not the most common way it is written in common usage. 70.55.86.39 (talk) 04:45, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose. Simply put, it violates the MoS. It is difficult to read, even on a high resolution monitor. Mixing fonts is normally a bad idea since the end result generally looks really bad and this proposal probably proves that point. Vegaswikian (talk) 18:07, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose. Makes URLs more difficult to work with.Racepacket (talk) 18:13, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
• Comment For what it's worth, small caps are simply another kind of capitalization, and existed long before trademarks. And the assumption that small caps are equivalent to large caps and not lowercase is suspect. But I do respect serious rejection of such Unicode that could break earlier browsers. Fortunately we have body formatting tools with excellent browser support so the status quo is fine by me. Potatoswatter (talk) 07:34, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Discussion

Any additional comments:

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Objection to small caps

I object to the rendering of the product name in small caps, this: IIGS. It should be simply IIGS. Why on Earth are the small caps used? Is there a style guide to this effect?

This encyclopedia is written in English, and standard English usage allows for the use of small caps in certain circumstances. Trying to ape the graphic presentation of corporate logo design and advertising departments is not one of these. Whatever typefaces the Apple Corporation may or may not have used in its promotional materials etc. is supremely of no interest to this encyclopedia. For instance, our article Macy's is not titled Macy*s, notwithstanding that Macy's Corp. uses the star in the logos, ads, and other promotional material.

See here for a complete education on this issue.

Barring any objection, or unless someone can point me to a style guide allowing or mandading this type of typography, I will shortly undertake a global replacement of the small caps version of this product name in this and all other articles with the correct version. Herostratus (talk) 05:11, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Please provide a link into that website. Searching for "small caps" on the homepage returns nothing. Potatoswatter (talk) 01:57, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

Regardless. It is just a website. The point is that I am correct by accepted convention. On the other hand, on reflection, I don't care that much about this actually. I will leave it as it is even though it is wrong.Herostratus (talk) 02:09, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

The logo uses small caps, that's why, so it's actually NOT wrong, and there's nothing that says we should do otherwise. So why object to it for no good reason? 174.23.96.21 (talk) 07:28, 11 May 2016 (UTC)

Graphics capabilities versus other machines

"At the time of its release, it was capable of advanced high resolution color graphics and then state-of-the-art sound synthesis that surpassed those of most other personal computers, including the black and white Macintosh (apart from a lower vertical resolution)."

Is "most other personal computers" by total number of machines, or by types? Because there were quite a few machines that could, graphically, beat it fairly badly, especially some from Japan (thinking of the FM77AV,) and the Amiga. (And I say this as a fan of the Apple II.)

Not disputing sound at all, though.

Not doing the edit, but here's proposed replacement wording:

"The IIGS offered improved graphical capability over the previous machines in the Apple II line and the Macintosh (other than a lower vertical resolution than the Macintosh,) as well as sound synthesis that surpassed those of most other personal computers at the time of its release." 130.76.96.23 (talk) 13:29, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

I'm OK with that. Yes the Amiga was a graphics monster IIRC, and though I don't know how many were sold, it was quite popular and well known among those in the know. Herostratus (talk) 02:24, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

I'd agree that line needs editing. It's a bit muddled, it sounds like it's stating it had superior sound AND graphics compared with all other personal computers of that era. Definitely had superior audio/music capabilities at the time of its release and into the early 90's, nothing else even approached it (I think the Roland LAPC-1 and MT-32 for the IBM PC would be the first. When were these released, 1989-90?). In terms of graphics, it fared pretty well for that era, superior to the Atari ST, comparable to the Amiga (though the Amiga had a slight edge graphically) but inferior to IBM VGA, which was introduced only a few months after the GS's release. --Apple2gs (talk) 15:36, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

With regards to VGA, it is interesting situation. It could display 265 colours at once, from an 18 bit palette (262,144), and although 640x480 is possible, 320x240 was more usual due to memory and performance limitations. Comparing this the IIGS, the palette is larger, but IIGS could display more at once, the resolution was higher, but typical use was roughly the same. So, VGA is better, but not by much. 60.240.207.146 (talk) 07:34, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

If memory serves me correctly, the most commonly used VGA modes where 320x200 256 colours (mostly games; VGA article states 320x240 was more popular but I think that isn't true) and 640x480 16 colours (Windows).

Comparing these one by one:

320x200: The IIgs could display only 16 colours per scanline. In practice this meant that in many cases its ability to use 256 colours couldn't be exploited to the fullest.

640x480: This compares very favourably to the IIgs, because the fairest comparison would be to the 640x200 2bpp dual-palette mode, which was used in the Finder and most GUI applications. VGA could display 16 pure colours, as opposed to 15 vertically hatched colours. Allowing the equivalent on the VGA yields 118 colours and they look better because you can use a checker-board pattern. And VGA had a wider gamut, twice the horizontal resolution for colour display, and more than twice the vertical resolution.

So the VGA card wasn't just a little better - it was a lot better. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.139.81.0 (talk) 03:06, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Sound

The opening paragraph says:

        "state-of-the-art sound and music synthesis which surpassed all other personal computers at the time".

But the article doesn't give much details. It refers to wavetable synthesis. There are several ways to make music/sound on a computer, and wavetable synthesis is just one. Was this computer capable of playing back digitised audio (amfm encoded?) or just wavetable? Since the technologies are rather different, I don't think the claim could stand on the basis of wavetable synthesis only. From today's perspective a computer capable of only wavetable synthesis might well be considered to have less flexible and inferior sound capability to one using AMFM wave. The comparison might be like comparing MIDI to MP3, different technologies with different aims, but in terms of sound reproduction, MP3 is far more flexible. Or something... 60.240.207.146 (talk) 07:05, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

What is AMFM encoding? Perhaps you mean continuous sampled audio? That requires periodically generating an interrupt and the hardware is simpler than wavetable synthesis. Also I don't think it falls into the category of "synthesis" at all, but instead playback, which appeals to a different market. I'd be surprised if the GS couldn't do that, but I don't know any details here. Potatoswatter (talk) 07:36, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

Well, the first thing to look at is the sound chip that was built-in to the computer: The Ensoniq 5503 DOC (with it's own 64K of dedicated RAM, used for waveform storage). This is the very same chip used in the Ensoniq Mirage and Ensoniq ESQ-1 synthesizer keyboards. If you're familiar with those, you'll know how flexible it was in terms of music synthesis. Like those synthesizer keyboards, it had a pretty much unlimited range, it could emulate very analog sounding instruments or realistic wavetable type instruments (making it sounds like a MOOG or Roland). The best examples of this flexibility would be Apple's synthLAB playing Midsummer's Dream, a classical orchestra piece (I posted it to YouTube awhile back) compared to Jimmy Huey's port of California Games that literally made the GS sound like the Commodore 64's SID chip.

In a nutshell the Ensoniq had 32 independent oscillators, which could be paired or played by themselves. Not only did you have far more voices (up to 32 voices compared with only 4 voices on the Amiga or Mac) but you could do much more complex waveform rendering. There's some interesting stuff about it in this IIGS sound FAQ (go to the section on technical specifications of the Ensoniq chip)

http://www.uni-giessen.de/faq/archiv/apple2.soundmusic/msg00000.html

--Apple2gs (talk) 09:46, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

Comparison?

How did the machine fare against say an IBM PC with Windows 1.0 or 2.0 installed, or the Amiga 1000 or Atari ST, or indeed the Macintosh Plus? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.139.81.0 (talk) 07:23, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Comparison in what sense? The graphical user interface and OS, raw performance or just overall features and capabilities? I would say, on a whole, it by far exceeded the IBM PC (1986 era), Atari ST and the Macintosh Plus, while comparable to the Amiga 1000--and in some ways exceeding the latter, notably in the audio department.

For the GUI, the IIGS ran circles around Windows 3.11 (and below), GEM and Workbench. MacOS at the time, of which it was modeled on, did not even support color or greyscale. However the Mac had a slight edge for vertical resolution (342 lines versus 200) which worked better for WYSIWYG and desktop publishing. Overall the audio capabilities on the IIGS were leaps and bounds better than any of those other machines. Graphic-wise (color), it exceeded what IBM CGA/EGA, the Atari ST, and the Macintosh and could do. And with 4,096 colors and an ability to display up to 256 colors per screen, it held up against the Amiga. It was however 16 colors per scan line though, while the Amiga could do 32 colors without restrictions, but that was minor.

Where the machine paled was in speed, although once GS/OS was introduced and later optimized (and programming on-the-metal was done so to speak) the machine held its own. What really killed it was a lack of support from Apple, and third parties too. It had so much potential and capabilities, but it was mostly ignored by the market and consumers because of its lack of support by Apple and expensive cost in comparison to the Amiga and Atari. I paid close to $4,000 for a basic IIGS setup in late 1987 (no hardisk even!), whereas a similarly equipped Amiga would have cost less than half that!--Apple2gs (talk) 19:04, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

>Comparison in what sense?

I think in all senses would be good. To get a general feel of where the machine was compared to other machines of its time. It had some rather unique features, but also some drawbacks.

People who read this article now, will necessarily see it from a modern perspective, but it would be more informative to see it in the light of other machines of the era, and readers shouldn't have to dig through all other articles on such systems. Quite apart from the fact that laypeople will have a hard time doing the comparison in the first place. (seconded by a layperson)

>IIGS ran circles around Windows 3.11

Having used both, I strongly disagree. There are a lot of smaller differences, some of which in the IIgs's favour, but Windows 3.11 had a killer feature that the IIgs lacked: proper multitasking and a swapfile. But Windows 3.11 came out in 1993 so it isn't a fair comparison to begin with; that's why I suggested a comparison with Windows 1.0 or 2.0.

The Apple IIGS Plus?

Is this section legit? I know the Mark Twain was prototyped but I don't recall it ever being officially released by Apple and tThe section it is under specifically states it only describes the revisions officially released from Apple. That said, I do think there should be a section that describes the Mark Twain so maybe it should be under a different section? --50.20.4.163 (talk) 15:05, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

With the removal of the IIGS Plus section, should the "Mark Twain" be added as a different section if there are sources? It really should be noted as the enhancements that were going into it were pretty substantial for the time (internal SCSI HD with built-in SCSI controller (iirc), internal floppy, faster CPU (iirc)). It's a shame not to mention it. --50.20.4.163 (talk) 14:30, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

Battery issues

The existing article doesn't mention how the original motherboard included a battery that Apple claimed would last 10 years. So they soldered it directly to the motherboard and placed it under the power supply. I had such a machine. How long did the battery really last? A couple months. Apple ended up replacing a lot of motherboards as a result. Will (Talk - contribs) 23:18, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

You're right, there should be a mention somewhere in the article of the battery-backed Control Panel and system clock. After all, a real-time clock was an a feature add-on with earlier Apple II's (e.g. TimeMaster II HO, No-Slot-Clock) so being built-in warrants a mention. As for the battery soldered to the motherboard, it's implied in the 'Revision history' section, under the 'Apple IIGS with 1 Megabyte of RAM (ROM 3)'. This is what I wrote in that section...

"The clock battery was now user-serviceable, being placed in a removable socket"

As far as the original motherboard, Apple claimed it would last up to 10 years under optimal conditions. That is, running the computer regularly (when running off DC wall-power, the 3.6v Lithium battery conserves power--it's NOT used) and in a location with normal room temperature and humidity. If you kept the machine powered down for weeks or months at a time, the battery would drain faster. High humidity could also shorten the battery life. I saw the battery on some boards last up to 15-20 years, and some maybe only 5 years or less. I think it's safe to say all those soldered batteries have long since expired by now in 2013. :)

There was a 3rd party replacement solution called the the "Slide-On" from the Night Owl company. You cut the leads to the existing battery, remove it, and then slide on the new battery (with coiled ends) onto the bits of wiring left behind from the old battery. No soldering, quick and simple. Doubt they're still around but I'm sure something similar can be found. I've had to change the batteries in my ROM 3 boards a couple of times, nice that it's socketed! --Apple2gs (talk) 17:42, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

IIGS - Rapid cessation of consumer support or software development while the machine was still being sold

As a relative layperson, in terms of computer use, I feel it is absurd and borderline criminal to discuss this machine without even a section talking about how it, and its users (which were many and paid Apple well for the product), were thrown under the bus by Apple in favor of other projects, with no support or software updates offered after a shockingly early period...I could not name the year, but it would be surprisingly early--not 1992--I remember the machine had already become a debacle for my family when I observed a distributor still cynically selling a new model (again, well after support had stopped and after software development (or at least release) had done likewise); a complete cessation of development of this machine, for the practical purposes of nearly any lay consumer, happened very quickly after my family bought it around 1990 (apparently--there seem to be hints throughout the rest of the article--for some sort of marketing reason wherein Apple...greatly desired a more advanced machine with backwards compatibility with other Apple II series, but...was afraid it would compete too effectively with its own Mac line [whaaaat...?], thus deliberate and unnecessary limiting of procesor speed? Well, whatever the reason, they wouldn't even sell us any damned software for the machine, or provide support for what they had sold, making it, functionally, useless. Early.). This article bothers me for its lack of direct mention that the machine was fundamentally quite capable for its time in important respects, but Apple simply stopped supporting it even as it used it as a cash cow to support development of the early Mac (which I have read elsewhere was not at that time profitable)...for whatever reason the IIGS was abandoned quite quickly--I can tell you there were no hard disks or other such upgrades actually available to me where I lived, nor mentioned, to my knowledge, in the IIGS consumer-created-and-edited quarterly newsletter which ran for several years in the early nineties, for the purpose of providing information to any users of the machine who desired to SOMEHOW find support or any usable software at all [tellingly, the standards of the software offered in this publication were sometimes low, and often unfinished, it being clear that the developers had abandoned the program(s) upon receipt of insider knowledge that Apple would no longer be supporting their own market as regards this machine.], which amateur newsletter was the ONLY source of support for the machine. It was a most pathetic (and expensive) situation for those who had actually bought the IIGS and simply had very little usable software to run on it [our word processor rapidly stopped functioning ; no help from Apple or elsewhere was available], and I would guess had to involve cynicism at some level at Apple (this is, of course, speculation). It enraged the previous generation of my family--the amount they paid for their IIGS machine was a great deal in those days for an American middle class consumer--to the extent that they still refuse to buy Apple products and deeply resent the company. Some substantial mention of this consumer abandonment phenomenon, please? The discussion of available add-ons and upgrades do not represent the reality of the user experience of this machine; I have read articles elsewhere confirming I did not imagine it this series of events. Thank you./ C.A. (primary source: personal experience in the early nineties and thereabouts in Oregon, USA) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.72.226.165 (talk) 17:45, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

I wholeheartedly agree with your assessment, being one of those Apple customers that was, as you say...thrown under the bus. Despite the Apple II being an enormously profitable and popular computer, and even still viable technologically, Apple was determined to eliminate it throughout the years. First with the Apple III, then the Lisa, and finally with the Macintosh. All three machines failed to replace or topple the Apple II, but with the Macintosh they just kept pushing against all logic. Even with a complete lack of support and going out of their way to FORCIBLY end the Apple II product line, it just kept going strong. I'd say even from a business standpoint its worth a mention of Apple's insanity, purposely trying to kill its cash cow while pushing not one failed technology to replace it, but three! They almost put themselves out of business! Loyal customers were betrayed during this madness of course.

But there was no better example of betrayal than the story of the Apple IIGS, and yes, I think this article could use some background history on that subject. The 8-bit Apple II was showing signs of obsolescence by the mid-80's, but the newly introduced Apple IIGS not only made it viable again, but brought forth new and exciting technologies that gave the Apple II the ability to go head to head with other modern computers. It even put itself in a position to replace the Mac and be the future of the company. During it's first few years, the IIGS OUTSOLD the Macintosh! Problem was, the illogic and insanity with getting rid of the Apple II was still very much alive and present within Apple, and so even though the GS made it out the door (I sometimes wonder how that even happened!) they purposely hobbled it to keep it from competing directly with the Mac. The CPU effectively limited to 2.6 MHz, only 256K of RAM, development of a true 16-bit OS delayed. Out of the door it SHOULD have and COULD have had a 4-5 MHz CPU, 1 MB RAM and a color Finder with 16-bit OS from day one. What was maddening was as the years went by, better technology was available to ship the machine with a 10-12 MHz CPU, 640x400 video modes and up to 256 colors per screen (without the per scanline limitation) but Apple refused to. It was blatantly obviously when a new release of the machine, in 1989, still locked the CPU down to 2.6 MHz and no enhancements to the graphics. I remember WDC's chip designer got kicked off the stage at an AppleFest conference for waiving a bag of stable 10 MHz 65C816 CPU's and saying Apple was refusing to use these in the machine. Apple refused to promote or advertise its own machine, support was virtually non existent, and worst of all, back in the early 1990's sent teams of Apple employees to convince third party developers to HALT their Apple IIGS software projects, in an effort to wean users over to the Macintosh (I'm not making this up, this had been exposed and written about). Even IIGS System 6 was released more as a tool to give users a taste (or tease) of the Mac, rather than to support the machine. It was like Apple had accidentally designed and released a Mac killer machine and wanted the "mistake" corrected!

I ordered an Apple IIGS in late 1987, and it was interesting, because the Apple dealer at the time warned me at the time I should re-consider my decision because Apple was planning to phase it out. I really wanted one though, and bought it nevertheless (I had been an Apple II user since the early 80's). Cost me just under $4,000 CDN at the time, a small fortune then. I had a great deal of difficulty finding software and support for the machine during the first year or two I owned it, and by mid 1990, just two years later, it became quite apparent Apple (and third parties) had given up on the machine. My brother also had the misfortune of paying $3,500 for IIGS system of his own just months before, and suffered the same neglect. I ended up spending several hundred dollars more to upgrade my IIGS with third party hardware add-ons to make it viable by the mid 90's (as Apple refused to) such as a SCSI controller, 4 MB RAM, hardisk and 8 MHz accelerator (later I bumped it up to 8 MB RAM, 15 MHz, VGA card, 1.44MB floppy, CD-ROM, etc) so my machine was ready and capable, but it had lost all support. I refused to switch to the Macintosh, wasn't interested and it was limited in many respected compared to my IIGS. Plus I wasn't about to support Apple with my money again after being taken. As it happened, I ended up going the Intel PC route by the late 90's and switched my long time alliance from Apple to IBM. Been 25 years now and I haven't bought a single Apple product. I'm only just now breaking that moratorium and planning to buy an Apple TV, but still have reservations and have to hold my nose purchasing anything Apple again.

Back on topic, I think Apple's betrayal of Apple II users/owners and their bizarre and backwards business strategy at the time should have a write up in the article. It would have to be done in an impartial way however, as this is Wikipedia. Really though, this whole article could use a rewrite from the ground up.--Apple2gs (talk) 22:55, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

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The Apple IIGS (styled as IIGS)

The Apple IIGS (styled as IIGS) I'm not sure what default web page fonts are used, but in 2022, the logo and the "stylized" logo look exactly the same. I suppose there's subtle differences in how roman numeral 2 gets displayed as upper case "II" (ii). And there was apparently some discussion 15 years ago about whether the GS should be smaller (half-height?) than the II. But at least on all monirots I've seen by default (Windows 10 and various linux distros) the two look the same. I'm not sure how this should be dealth with, but it probably should be. 75.71.166.197 (talk) 00:46, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

Apple limiting performance

A recent well-researched blog post posits that the oft-repeated claim of Apple deliberately keeping the clock speed at 2.8 MHz so as not to compete with the Macintosh may simply be a myth - https://www.userlandia.com/home/iigs-mhz-myth

The main point is that there were many other reasons (better supported with actual evidence) why the clock speed was low. Adding a disputed tag for the meantime. Mr Minderbinder (talk) 03:41, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

"Source: some guy on the internet." (As opposed to lots of guys on the internet.) In spite of supposedly being "well-researched" this blog post seems to make no attempt to locate the source of that "oft repeated claim" to see where it originated, and whether that source was credible.

Putting that to one side, the fact is that Apple did ghetto-ise and ultimately dump the II line in favour of the much more profitable Mac; and even if CPU yields were a factor in the decision to massively underclock the CPU in the IIGS it was certainly very convenient in terms of that agenda. 82.15.19.183 (talk) 16:52, 24 August 2024 (UTC)

As the author of the article (which is a transcript of the much more comprehensive video version), allow me to point out several things:

1. A common source for the claim that Apple intentionally limited the IIgs during its development is linked in the post, which is itself a cited source in this wiki article, and it's not a very good one. It's a French site with no citations at all (versus the many I have in the video and post).

2. There's even more citations and sources in the video version, which I haven't yet found a way to best put into the blog post.

3. In the interest of civility, I did not specifically call out several well-known people who have circulated such claims in the past (either in videos or on the web). But this wiki article was one of those sources cited by those people for a long time until the current wording was adopted a while ago. Just look at its edit history for that section. It's only fairly recently that the language has been reduced to what it is.

All of that said, there's tons of linked citations (both in the video and blog post) that detail the technical and political problems surrounding the IIgs and the 65816. The fact of the matter is that Apple couldn't have clocked it faster than 4 MHz in 1985-1986 because of the REP/SEP flaws, and even if they did, the cost of faster RAM needed for those speeds in 1985-1986 would've been prohibitive. Even reliable 3.58 MHz on 4 MHz chips was troublesome during that time, and gaps had to be filled with chips downrated to 3 MHz. And by the time the late 80s came the faster chips were not available in any kind of mass production quality. Even the accelerator companies, who needed much smaller quantities than Apple, struggled to ship faster boards due to supply issues (which is backed up by contemporary reports that I've linked and cited).

There's really two distinct problems: 1. why didn't Apple run the 1986 IIgs at 3.58 MHz and 2. why didn't they release a faster one in the 1989 timeframe? Both questions have perfectly reasonable technical answers that don't require conspiracy.

Did Apple not push the IIgs as much as they could have? Yes, that's true, and I say as much. But even if they managed to ship, say, an 8MHz IIgs in 1989 it still would've been limited by its I/O system (as seen by systems with accelerators).

I am just some guy on the internet; but I at least did the work and all of the sources I used to back up my argument are laid bare. I'm not sure of the best way to edit the wiki article to better lay out the technical issues the IIgs faced during its development and lifetime, but let's take the three lines in question:

"The 2.8 MHz clock was a deliberate decision to limit the IIGS's performance to less than that of the Macintosh."

There's no evidence for this. During development 2.8MHz was chosen because of yields and issues running near 4 MHz.

"This decision had a critical effect on the IIGS's success; the original 65C816 processor used in the IIGS was certified to run at up to 4 MHz."

This is misleading. The processor was certified to run at 4 MHz, but the yields were abysmal and REP/SEP meant it wouldn't be reliable if it was. It would also have needed more expensive 120ns memory. The speed difference between 2.8 MHz and 3.58 isn't nothing, but it's not the same as not using an 8 MHz CPU.

"Faster versions of the 65C816 processor were readily available, with speeds of between 5 and 14 MHz, but Apple kept the machine at 2.8 MHz throughout its production run."

This is true, in that the chips did exist, but also still misleading because until the Sanyo redesign in 1992 anything faster than 4 MHz was a crapshoot or required overvolting. The REP/SEP flaws were not fixed until 1992 and by then it was too late. 6 MHz and 8 MHz parts existed on paper, but not in any real quantity until well after the IIgs shipped, and even those quantities were small. Honestly, the whole paragraph should be cut until a more thorough explanation of the '816's production history can be distilled into how it relates to the IIgs. Dvincent747 (talk) 13:15, 25 August 2024 (UTC)