IIGS DEVELOPMENTS
By Peter Phillips
Copyright (c) 1990 Apple Users' Group, Sydney
Republished from Applecations, a publication of the Apple Users' Group, Sydney, Australia.
Reprinted with permission from January 1990 issue YOUR COMPUTER.
OK, I KNOW. It was called the Apple II developer's conference, but the IIGS was centre stage the entire time, and the 'other IIs' didn't really get a look in. Odd, you may say, when the installed base (Apple's jargon for total number) of IIes far exceeds that of the IIGS. But, I can assure you the IIGS is currently Apple's most highly supported computer and this conference, held at Manly in October 1989, was yet more proof of this. Printing lead times mean you don't get to read about it till January 1990, but better now than never! Here's an overview of the conference, as well as a brief look at some locally produced, commercially available IIGS products that were on show.
The conference was for developers only, and around 60 such individuals paid their money to attend the two day event. They came from Sydney, Perth, Melbourne, Queensland and Canberra. Apple Australia organised the event, and were able to convince Apple Inc. (USA) to send three of their front liners to present talks to the group. The conference was mainly that... talks and presentations, by both the US visitors and local developers. I attended, as a developer, presenter and reporter, and came away more enthused about the IIGS than ever before. The Apple magic is far from dead - in fact I got the clear impression that the excitement of the early days is returning, evidenced to some extent by the presence of a number of very young developers.
Although all sessions were interesting, the most awaited were those presented by the US visitors - information that was given without hype, but with much humour, intelligence and honesty. These guys knew what they were on about and didn't mind sharing it. There were many highlights and I'll try and condense them.
The first speaker was Jonathon Fader, Manager of the Education and Multimedia Evangelism Group. It seems, according to Fader, that Apple is experiencing very little competition from the IBM Dos stable when it comes to computers in education. At least in the US the trend is clear, Apple IIe and IIGS computers are in schools covering kindergarten to Year 12, with Macintosh systems in higher learning institutions.
And Apple aren't about to let go of this. They recognise the seeding potential this strategy, in which today's students become tomorrow's Apple devotees. But to ward off the competition, Apple has several plans of attack, including concentrating on making the Mac and the IIs far more interactive. A complete networking system was established at the conference, using a Mac as the 'server' and some eight IIGS computers as the 'stations', all interconnected using Appletalk. I used it to download
programs, install programs on the server, and to just get the feel of the system. Like all networked systems, it was slower than stand-alone, but it was reliable and easy to use with its mouse driven desktop interface. In fact, it was not much different to stand-alone, except for the presence of the server icon, which acted just like another drive.
Also attending the conference were developers from an Australian company (whose name I forgot to record, unfortunately) who are presently marketing an alternative system to Appletalk. Their system is currently in contract for Australian schools, and they also export their system to the US. Both systems are compatible, and now that the move is on for 'network' friendly software, we can expect to see networking in schools become even more popular. One interesting thing I discovered is that Appleworks classic is so network unfriendly, Apple convinced Claris to write a special version suitable for networking. This product is only available for such systems, and comes with a site license and all the necessary enhancements. But hardware is one thing, software is the other. Apple's main push is for more and more educational software, but written to take advantage of the IIGS. In the States, many schools are updating to the IIGS as their II plus, IIe and IIc computers finally fall victim to student overload. And schools in the US have no more money that those in Australia it seems. Fader made the point that such purchasers generally wanted a system that costs the minimum but lasts forever. In support of the costing, he referred to the new IIGS, with its onboard 1.125M of RAM, increased ROM, and other enhancements. This computer still costs the same as the old IIGS which came with only 256K of RAM.
During the Q and A session, I asked what Apple was doing to support third party printers, as I've always maintained the Imagewriter printer is overpriced when compared to other printers that will often outperform the Apple product. The answer was encouraging. Apple have now made available full details of their printer driver requirements, and will support any individual or printer manufacturer who wants to write a driver routine to support a particular printer. I believe that as a result, we will soon see drivers that support printers such as the HP range (DeskJet and so on), and all the various Epson types (over those already supported) as well as a range of others.
One potentially embarrassing question asked of Fader referred to the desirability of raising school students on Apples knowing they would be more likely to encounter MS-DOS machines in the work place. He replied that this was not perceived as being a problem by most educational institutions in the US, and that the Mac was becoming an industry standard. Because of its Mac-like qualities, the cheaper IIGS with its colour and sound enhancements thrown in, was seen by schools as being the best way to go, particularly when most of the previously purchased Apple software would still run.
The other two US visitors were Ray Montagne and Matt Deatherage, who are both design engineers associated with the IIGS. These two 'gods' spoke about System 5.0 (we don't call it GS/OS 5 anymore), and also handed out copies of System 5.0.2 The new system cleans up a few bugs that crept into System 5.0, but doesn't offer any further speed enhancements. But then, System 5.0 is a hard act to follow.
Their aim was to acquaint Australian developers with System 5.0, Appletalk, tool revisions, other innovations, and to answer questions. As well, they had a lot to say about Apple's philosophy on software development. The big push is for Appletalk 'aware' software, as well as the adherence to the human interface guidelines. This latter concept refers to the use of the desktop and to making all software look similar, so that users don't need to spend unnecessary time learning new software.
Much of the talk presented by these two experts was of a technical nature and I'll spare you the details. It's sufficient to say that Apple see other software developers as being very important, whether in Australia or overseas. For example, System 5.0 includes a number of resource files, specifically for programmers and a whole session was spent on this topic.
Although many of the developers were from professional organisations, a number of young developers also attended. One young programmer (16 years old) showed me a game he had written that included high quality, interrupt driven sound. He wrote the program with a combination of BASIC and assembler subroutines, using the monitor to write much of the assembler code. The game was mouse operated and in full colour, even though the software looked a bit like IIe code. What he had achieved would have been impossible on any other Apple II computer, and he had happily mastered the IIGS by building on experience gained from his IIe days.
The fundamental philosophy behind writing a program for the IIGS is to use the toolbox. Here you have all the routines to perform most of the heavy duty tasks, and a program in its simplest form is nothing more than a series of toolbox calls. In other words, Apple have done all the hard work for you, and with a few books - available from AAPDA, 36 Victoria St, Erskineville NSW 2043, (02) 550 5533.
Quite a number of those attending had already produced products for the IIGS, including three enterprising members of a Queensland based company called Power Up Technology. I was shown their IIGS stereo card which includes all the hardware to couple sound into as well as out of the IIGS. This card, compatible with any program that uses the Supersonic card, is available for around $89, and gives stereo, despite what you may have been told.
While on the subject of sound, several music programs yet to be released were demonstrated at the conference. Both programs were of the playback variety, and believe me, you "ain't heard nuthin' yet." There's two reasons for this -
programmers are starting to learn the sound system, and the sound tools have been improved.
On the software scene, developers have been active since the IIGS first hit the country. Readers may be familiar with Graphix Exchange, a program written by local developer John MacLean that handles any type of graphics you can think of, with the ability to convert from one form to another. For example, a standard 320 super resolution graphic from a GS paint program can be converted to a Print Shop graphic and vice versa. It also includes scaled transfers, which allows a composite graphic to be constructed from a number of individual graphics from a range of sources.A great program for handling graphics on the IIGS, and straight of Oz!
Power Up Technology gave me a review copy of their recently released communications software package called DataWorks. This program is text based and runs on the IIe and IIc as well as the IIGS, requiring keyboard operation rather than mouse. However, it supports the IIGS hardware, such as the modem port and, runs under ProDOS.
I ran the program through all its paces, and found it very easy to use and free of any nasties. It supports ASCII, Xmodem, Ymodem and Binary 2 file transfer protocols. Binary 2 is a protocol developed by Apple, based around the Xmodem system and is generally used when transferring data between two Apple computers. Dataworks also supports Viatel, though with some limitations. The manual is one Power Up can be proud of, as it provides instructions to a level that suits a beginner without becoming patronising. Dataworks should be available through most dealers, at around $89. Otherwise try them direct at PO Box 295, Cannon Hill Qld 4170 (07) 395 6719.
Finally a shareware program, written by a Victorian developer, Peter Watson. Under the title of PAW, the disk has a number of utilities for use with the Apple Programmers Workshop (APW) or ORCA/M, both of which are assembler programs for the IIGS. Some of the utilities also run under ProDOS and others are for use with Applesoft and GSBasic. The utilities include routines to compare text files, an Applesoft to GSBasic conversion, and one called MassFormat, which allows the user to format a whole lot of 3.5" disks in minimum time. The disk is a mere $25, or $10 if you don't want the source code. Great value, and it's available from Peter Watson, 33 Eram Rd Box Hill North Vic 3129.
There were other developers at the conference with products nearing completion which I hope to be able to review when they are released. So not all IIGS software/hardware is imported. Which is good news for us and the national debt.

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