Apple IIGS

Posted by musovern on Mar 7th, 2018 in Apple, Vintage Computers | 0 comments

The IIGS was the first Apple computer system to utilise the Apple Desktop Bus (ADB). The ABD is a low-speed bi-directional serial bus that connects input devices, such as keyboards, mouse devices, and graphics tablets to the IIGS. It was later incorporated into the Macintosh line of computers, from the Macintosh II and up. ADB was eventually phased-out in favor of the more standardised USB (Universal Serial Bus) in the late 90’s.

As the Apple with the best color graphics, the IIGS also has the best sound. It utilises an Ensoniq sound chip, which has an entire 64K of RAM dedicated to it and is capable of playing 15 simultaneous sounds.

The IIGS has a GUI (Graphic User Interface) in 16 colors (up to 4096 colors in special graphics modes), a slow but powerful 16 bit CPU, great sound, and was loved by Apple fans everywhere. Sounds like a success – but by this time Apple was spending all its time and effort marketing the Macintosh line of computers, and the IIGS died a slow and uneventful death.

 

 

 

INTRODUCED: September 1986
DISCONTINUED: December 1992
PRICE: US $999 without monitor, US $1498 with RGB monitor
CPU: WDC 65C816 @ 1.0 or 2.8MHz
RAM: 256K, 8Meg max
DISPLAY: text: 80 X 24 maximum
GRAPHICS: 640 X 200, 16 colors max
PORTS: 2 serial, ADB (Apple Desktop Bus), External floppy port, Joystick port, RGB and composite video output
EXPANSION: 7 internal slots
STORAGE: External 800K 3.5-inch disk drive
OS: Apple GUI, ProDOS

 

Here is my unit: The Apple IIGS with ROM version 3