barresi@nymgr.dec.com (09/18/86)
Just picked up a copy on 'In Cider" which has the specs on the new Apple //GS [graphics/sound] So here goes along with some comments... Cpu-65C816 dualspeeds 1.0 and 2.8 MHZ (not much if any over the accelerators) Standard Mem 256. Expandable to 8MeB(No Problems here!) Rom 128k expandable to 1.125MB Graphics- Apple // compatible 40/80 column text Low hi and Double high res graphics. Super Hi Res at 320x200 with 26 on screen colors and 640x200 with 64 on screen color (really shading so divide by 4) Sound-Ensoniq 15 voice music/speech synthesizer chip with 64k of ram and 32 digital oscillators. Expansion-SevenApple // compatible slots with one dedicated slot for memory, which by the way is a full 24 bits. Ports-2 serial;Game/Joystick;Disk Drive (3 1/2 & 51/4);RGB color;Composite; Apple Desktop bus for keyboard and mouse;Headphone/speaker. It also has alot of VLSI stuff and the so called MEGA // chip, which is a //e with out th cpu and i/o stuff.Obviously theres alot more to it than what I just wrote so buy a copy of Octobers 'In Cider'. Personallyni'm not really that impressed. I mean they took alot from the MAC with all the windows/icons and stuff. I would of thought that the graphics would be alot bette and wit should've had a SCSi port built in. While reading the aricle I just felt that they just designed it with the what was already done with the //e [by 3rd parties]just put it all in a neater package I''ll wait till I see a REAL one before deciding to go IBM or not Joe Craparotta
craparotta@tipple.dec.com (Joe Crap) (09/29/86)
Well I just went down to Computerland to see the new Apple //GS. I must say I'm a little impressed. The RGB monitor is very nice! Also how everything is layed out helps alot. They were having some problems running the DEMO [it didn't work at all] and the new paint program by ACTIVISION. I did get to see a digitized Flower and it looked great. They couln't tell me if is was 320x200 or 640x200 graphics mode. I would guess the latter. Other than that he couldn't do much. He wouldn't open it up for me either!! They had the 1 meg apple card in also. Some of the things I don't like though was: No SCSI slot built in!!! Comes with only 256k of mem!! I tried asking if u could put in 1 meg chips instead and got the famous "I dont know but you can always buy the card" Also no stereo sound. He couldn't demo any sound stuff for me but when he powered it up and the 2 BOSE speakers went off ..WHOW... What a DING!! He asked me if I wanted to order one as I knew he would. All i had to do was put down 50% of the total price!!!! I then asked quite logically when he could deliver the //GS. He said hopefully by December!!!!! What a joke he wants my $$$ till DECEMBER!!!! And I'd even have the WOZ's signature... Well the WOZ's siggy would be nice but if COMPUTERLAND or any other dealer thinks I'm gonna give them my $$$ and wait they're all on drugs (thats a flame!!!) And if APPLE thinks people are going to wait I would tend to think that ATARI/IBM/AMIGA are going to be selling pretty hot. The diehard apple fans might wait but the majority of CONSUMERS WITH $$ aren't.... THE ABOVE VIEWS RIGHT OR WRONG ARE MINE PERSONALLY. THEY HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH THE COMPANY I WORK FOR.... TAKE 'EM WITH A GRAIN OF SALT.. THEN DOWN THE DRINK!!! Joe Craparotta
kamath@reed.UUCP (Sean Kamath) (10/01/86)
Two things. One, Apple didn't change the bit mapping of the hi-res
screen for a really good reason. A LOT of existing Apple software uses
the graphics screen. Remap the screen, and just try and play Wizardry
or Rescue Raiders. Compatability, folks. Sure, you can have all those
wonderful features everyone claims they want, right now, in fact. It's
called a MicroVax. But it won't boot Dos 3.3, nor run Applesoft
(Without a lot of help).
Second, if I want color backgrounds and screens and junk like that, I'll
buy an Amiga. Speed and capabilities aren't everything, you know. (Go
ahead, more flames...) (But I DO like the sound...)
________________________________________________________________________________
Sean Kamath
UUCP: {masscomp, decvax, allegra, psu-cs, ucbcad, ucbvax,
purdue, hplabs, hp-pcd, sequent, uw-beaver, ihnp4,
cbosgd, gatech, nsc-pdc}!tektronix!reed!kamath
CSNET: reed!kamath@Tektronix.CSNET
BITNET: reed!kamath@Berkeley.BITNET
ARPA: tektronix!reed!kamath@Berkeley
reed!kamath@hplabs
DECNET: RHEA::DECWRL::"decvax!tektronix!reed!kamath"
US Snail: Box 395 Reed College,
Portland, OR 97202
(503) 239-7458
These are not the fastest or best paths, just the easiest to use.
I hope they work. (Most notably the US Snail Service :-)kus3@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP (robert kusumoto) (10/02/86)
Well, I was lucky enough to see the brouchure that the Apple dealers reieved the week before the //gs was released, from it, I can say that the computer is pretty impressive for the base $999 for the CPU, mouse and key- board. yes, its only 256K RAm, and 128K ROM, just make sure you get those 2 separated, ok? and its upgradable to 16 meg, fully accessable without bank switching. from that meeting, I heard that it was 90% software compatat- able with the //e emulation mode and all the hardware expect the aple ssc and the applied engineering cards worked. the ssc didn't work because of a different communications chip that was in the gs, while the ae card were some unknow reason at the time. its too late now but if you went in early and reserved one of 7 //gs that each dealer recieved a week ago, you would be playing around with it now, otherwise, you will have to wait til AFTER Christmas to receive this lovely product. Hopefully, I will get that brochure back and reproduce it, in full for you all to enjoy Bob
ranger@ecsvax.UUCP (Rick N. Fincher) (10/02/86)
> Well I just went down to Computerland to see the new Apple //GS. I must say > I'm a little impressed. The RGB monitor is very nice! Also how everything is > layed out helps alot. They were having some problems running the DEMO [it > didn't work at all] and the new paint program by ACTIVISION. I did get to > see a digitized Flower and it looked great. They couln't tell me if is was I had a similar problem with the demo. I had set up a RAM disk in the Desk Accessory and it didn't leave space for the demo. Set the RAM disk to 0 bytes and run the demo and stand back! If you liked the gong, the jazz and voices will knock you out. Rick Fincher ranger@ecsvax
craparotta@tipple.dec.com (Joe Crap) (10/04/86)
One other thing that I forgot to mention... What happened to the CASSETTE PORT.. Hey Apple whats up???? Kidding aside they could've had more *(*)s and given us some better basic.... I plunked my name on a list anyway..... Everyone is talking about the bus being only 16 bits... I read that the data bus is 24 bits... Is this the internal bus??? Also they could've givven us some 16 bit expander slots to play with.... Joe PS: any one know specs on the vr241 as i would like to use that as my RGB monitor instead of paying $$$$ Any help would be appreciated...
daveh@cbmvax.cbm.UUCP (Dave Haynie) (10/07/86)
> > > One other thing that I forgot to mention... What happened to the CASSETTE > PORT.. Hey Apple whats up???? > > Kidding aside they could've had more *(*)s and given us some better > basic.... I plunked my name on a list anyway..... Everyone is talking about > the bus being only 16 bits... I read that the data bus is 24 bits... Is this > the internal bus??? Also they could've givven us some 16 bit expander slots > to play with.... The data bus is 8 bits long. The address bus is 24 bits long; during the first half of a cycle the high order 8 bits of address show up on the data bus, where they are externally latched so that they'll be around for the second half of the memory cycle, which is where most of the action takes place. There's no way you could have 16 bit data bus expansion slots, I don't know what they do with the addressing of these slots now. > Joe -- ============================================================================ Dave Haynie {caip,ihnp4,allegra,seismo}!cbmvax!daveh "Techno-Hippie, heathen, designing evil computers" These opinions are my own, though if you try them out, and decide that you really like them, a small donation would be appreciated.
ranger@ecsvax.UUCP (Rick N. Fincher) (10/08/86)
> > Well, I was lucky enough to see the brouchure that the Apple dealers > reieved the week before the //gs was released, from it, I can say that the > computer is pretty impressive for the base $999 for the CPU, mouse and key- > board. > > yes, its only 256K RAm, and 128K ROM, just make sure you get those 2 > separated, ok? and its upgradable to 16 meg, fully accessable without > bank switching. from that meeting, I heard that it was 90% software compatat- > able with the //e emulation mode and all the hardware expect the aple ssc > and the applied engineering cards worked. the ssc didn't work because of > a different communications chip that was in the gs, while the ae card were > some unknow reason at the time. its too late now but if you went in > early and reserved one of 7 //gs that each dealer recieved a week ago, you > would be playing around with it now, otherwise, you will have to wait til > AFTER Christmas to receive this lovely product. > > Hopefully, I will get that brochure back and reproduce it, in full for you all > to enjoy > > Bob The Super Serial Card works, software for the SSC may not work with the built-in serial port though because most of it directly manipulates registers on the SSC ACIA. The chip is different on the gs (a Zilog same as the Mac) so register diddling isn't compatible. The firmware commands are the same though, so most printers and thing that don't diddle will work.
ranger@ecsvax.UUCP (Rick N. Fincher) (10/10/86)
> The data bus is 8 bits long. The address bus is 24 bits long; during > the first half of a cycle the high order 8 bits of address show up on the > data bus, where they are externally latched so that they'll be around for > the second half of the memory cycle, which is where most of the action takes > place. There's no way you could have 16 bit data bus expansion slots, I > don't know what they do with the addressing of these slots now. > I think he meant 24 bit address bus expansion slots. This could be done easily, although it would probably be better to demux the 8 high address lines on a card. Rick Fincher ranger@ecsvax