The Apple IIgs - A Look Back
By Michael Hickey
Copyright (c) 1994 Apple Users' Group, Sydney
Republished from Applecations, a publication of the Apple Users' Group, Sydney, Australia.
The Apple II computer is now 16 years old, and it's "latest" model is an ancient 7 years old. Released on 15 September 1986, the Apple IIgs started life full of promise with a twenty page glossy brochure, a fantastic demo and more graphics display modes than you could poke a stick at. Sadly, just a couple of months ago (in Australia) Apple Computer finally removed the Apple IIgs from its price lists, now it's time for one last look at the youngest computer in the long and distinguished Apple II line.
The Machine
The Apple IIgs was not supposed to end the life of the classic Apple II, as was the Apple III. The Apple IIgs had a strange start. To my eyes it seemed as though the Apple IIgs made to order for Apple Marketing who were concerned at the loss of sales to the Amiga and Atari camps. The IIgs project could also keep Steve Wozniak busy. Remember him? Woz had recovered from his car accident and was trying to develop his vision of the Apple IIx when Apple Marketing dropped their list of requirements on him (this, of course, is pure conjecture). The opportunity was seized and the Apple IIgs, in the fullness of time, was born.
Despite this flimsy raison d'etre, the Apple IIgs is still the greatest and most powerful Apple II ever made. It extended the Apple II line into the 1990's, far beyond the expectation of Apple's competitors, and "stole" hundreds of thousands of sales away from the Commodore Amiga and Atari ST in the process. It first came as standard (in Australia) with 512k RAM, expandable to 8 megabytes and 128k ROM, also expandable to 8 megabytes accompanied by a keyboard, mouse, colour monitor and a single 800k disk drive.
The ROM
The ROM makes the machine really special. It includes things never before found in any other Apple II or any Mac for that matter. A Control Panel for all common control activities (to set screen colour, port setup, volume etc.), colour Quickdraw II graphics routines, Applesoft BASIC, Desk Accessory Manager, FM synthesizer, complete enhanced Apple IIe ROM set, AppleTalk network support, Apple Desktop Bus firmware, SANE numerics, Event Manager, Tool Locator, video firmware, drivers for built-in devices, 65c816 monitor support and extensive diagnostic routines. What a mouthful! (ROMful?)
There was so much to be put into the 128k of ROM that many of the toolsets have to reside on the System Disk. At last count, my IIgs had accumulated 23 toolsets occupying a swag
of disk space. The IIgs can also support ROM Disks up to 8 megabytes (minus system ROM). This facility was first taken advantage of by the Applied Engineering RAM Keeper which allowed the expansion RAM card to be constantly refreshed from a battery or mains power pack.
With such a ROM disk installed, the hard driveless IIgs user could use part of the RAM as a startup disk dramatically reducing startup times. Apple never released a true ROM disk which had been tipped by many users. Luckily the price of hard disks dropped and replaced the need for such a pseudo-disk.
Graphics
The Apple IIgs can display up to 3200 colours (from a selection of 4096) on the screen with a practical limit of 256 colours. Yes, that's right, 8 bit colour on an Apple II in 1986!! Unfortunately, most early paint packages restricted users to only 16 from a palette of 4096 colours (16/4096). Still, 4 bit colour from a 12 bit palette is better than monochrome any day! Even the latest paint package, Platinum Paint version 2.0, limits the user to that same 16 from 4096 colours, but it's what you do with those colours that really counts. (A 256 colour, graphics editor is in the PD library - just ask for Cheap Paint!)
The Apple IIgs suffers quite a bit from its low vertical resolution of only 200 lines, compared to the first modular Macs which could display 342 lines and the latest Macs which routinely display 480 lines! While the 12" monitor allowed an entire page width to be visible (in 640 mode), only about 20 lines of (8 pt) text can appear legibly.
The Apple IIgs can also use the plain 40 and 80 column text screens, the LORES and double LORES screens and the HIRES and double HIRES screens of the Apple IIe and Apple IIc. This means the Apple IIgs has 6 graphics modes and two text modes, a wide variety suited to supporting the older Apple II software many people owned when they first bought a IIgs, while providing a solid base for the future.
Sound Capabilities
The Apple IIgs has the best sound capabilities of any general-purpose computer. It has a 15 voice, 32 oscillator FM synthesizer chip, the Ensoniq chip, the very same chip used in the $30,000 Mirage synthesizer! This chip also has an 8 bit analog to digital converter that is routinely used for digitising sound input. The sound capabilities of the Apple IIgs are as yet unsurpassed by any other computer, including the Centris 660AV and the much touted Sound Blaster Pro for MS-DOS machines.
These days the sound capabilities of the IIgs are exercised by quality sound for games and "MOD" music as well as being used in Hypercard stacks, general purpose programs, and as event managed sounds, much as they are used on the Mac.
The CPU
The processor is a 16 bit Western Design 65c816 cpu which was restricted to run at only 2.8 MHz, a slight improvement over the 1 MHz of the Apple IIe. The processor is close kin to the 8 bit 65c02 chip used in Apple IIe and IIc's, with an increased instruction set allowing it to process 16 bits of information at a time. The 65c816 cpu also has a 24 bit address bus which allows it to directly access 16 megabytes of memory without resorting to programming tricks like bank switching.
This chip has since then been chosen as the engine for the Nintendo* game system and can now achieve speeds of up to 20 MHz. Most commonly, the Apple IIgs is accelerated well beyond its native 2.8 MHz to 7, 10, 12 or even 14 MHz. While speed comparisons are not truly valid between different processor families, the stock IIgs performs about as well as a Mac Plus and a 7 MHz IIgs keeps pace with a Mac LC quite happily. The 14 MHz Apple IIgs outperforms the LC III but only just.
Interfaces
The Apple IIgs is well equipped for interacting with the "outside" world. It has the usual twin serial ports, external drive port (for 5 1/4" and 3 1/2" drives), Analog RGB and composite video output, Apple Desktop Bus port, Game port, headphone/speaker jack, and a mother board connector for the sound I/O. As well as all this, it has seven general purpose Apple II slots for connection of specialist cards such as scanners, accelerators, SCSI or IDE drive controllers and more! And, a special purpose memory expansion slot.
Operating Systems
The Apple IIgs can run all the older operating systems such as Apple DOS 3.3, Pascal, ProDOS, GS/OS and CP/M and MS-DOS, when equipped with the appropriate co-processor card.
The latest system software, IIgs System 6.0.1, lets the IIgs use ProDOS, HFS, Apple DOS 3.3, Pascal and MS-DOS disks (appropriate disk drive required). The HFS (standard Mac format) and ProDOS capability is available from the standard 800k disk drive supplied with every IIgs.
Apple IIe Emulation
Forget that clunker, the Apple IIe emulation board for the Mac, you don't get a IIe, just a clever clone, and a slow one at that, as an incentive to buy a Mac LC. The IIgs IS a IIe AND a IIc rolled into one PLUS all the extras! Imagine an Apple IIe with a minimum of 512k RAM, 80-column card, a math co-processor, a network card, an accelerator card, twin serial ports, Smartport floppy controller, a mouse, a sound card, an RBG monitor and an EXTRA seven slots. All that would still not make it an Apple IIgs because of the other clever things in it!
You don't get many of the comparable Mac features available from the emulation card. If you really want to emulate an Apple IIe, go out and buy a second-hand one for about $250 - $450, then you can multi-task! In my humble opinion, the Apple IIe emulation card is Apple Marketing's joke on the world.
Finale
Now, compare ALL that to the Apple IIc or even the enhanced Apple IIe. Compare it to the Macintosh Plus, which was released only a few months before. You could even compare it favourably to the Mac LC!! For many people, the Apple IIgs was (and still is) "the computer for the rest of us".
In fact it wasn't until the release of the Macintosh II that Apple had another machine with the ADB keyboard and mouse, and half decent colour capability. In fact, looking at the first Macintosh II is like looking at the Apple IIgs (only wider).
While a success in terms of retaining sales which might otherwise have been lost to competitors, Apple Marketing couldn't find an appropriate niche for the machine. Is it a business computer? Is it an education computer? Is it a "home" computer? The fact is, that the machine was ideally suited to all of those purposes with the right software.
As the trade winds blew most strongest from the education corner in Apple Marketing, it was decided that it must be an education machine, leaving the real drivers of computer purchases, the expanding home/small business market, out in the cold. Given that the Apple IIgs was, and still is, often under-used as a fast Apple IIe with some extras, by the majority of users, it was doomed as a product.
Many owners of Apple IIgs's STILL don't know of the power and flexibility they can have by extending their computer investment by as little as a few hundred dollars. Apple did attempt to address some minor shortcomings of the Apple IIgs but held back from producing the IIgs plus, a machine with 640*480 display, a built-in hard drive and a fast 12 MHz processor, among other things.
Apple Marketing, who so obviously created the IIgs, have finally removed the machine from Apple's price lists after several years of non-promoting the product. Perhaps the Apple IIgs was stealing sales away from the new Mac LC by virtue of its superior Apple II compatibility.
The IIgs really never had a chance, despite its obvious promise. The poor IIgs was not even allowed to succeed as a cash cow, unlike the immortal Apple IIe.
Apple II ... Forever?

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