gronke@percival.UUCP (Lisa Gronke) (10/24/87)
While we are waiting for Sean Kamath's tome to appear, I thought I would post this brief report written by Larrie Easterly which will appear in the next issue (if we every get a newsletter chairman) of STEMS from A.P.P.L.E. (Apple Portland Program Library Exchange, the Portland, OR, Apple II users group). Larrie is currently co-president of the club and is a IIgs owner. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- AppleFest by Larrie Easterly There is only one way to describe AppleFest 1987; IMPRESSIVE. The San Francisco Civic Auditorium was packed with displays and people throughout the show while the seminars and product demonstration rooms on the upper floors of the building were filled to capacity. Leading figures throughout the Apple industry were in attendance as well as company presidents and engineers. Some of the more notable products shown were; MouseFiler by Harbor Software, a mousetext based desk top, looked like a very good desktop for IIe and IIc users and it is fast. Life boat, Harbors disk recovery program looked good too with a new version in works The Zip Chip by Zip Technolgies is a pin compatable chip that replaces the 65c02 in your IIe or IIc. Once installed your machine will run at a full 4 meghertz speed. Thector by Seria Online is a very fast and graphically amazing arcade game for the IIGS. PC Transporter by Applied Engineering was there and running all sorts of MSDOS software. Lots of hard drives by CMS, Sider, and Hammer were available in 20, 40 and 60 Meg sizes. CMS is handled by Call A.P.P.L.E. in Seattle. Digital Vision's Colour Computer Eyes is a good video digitizer for the IIGS. It even converts images to double high res. Call A.P.P.L.E. shared their booth with APDA. Future Sound's audio digitizer and software put the current version or the one from MdIdeas to shame. CheckMate Technolgies' Memory Saver Board is great.They have a 2 meg ram board coming out in November that will use 256k chips. MdIdeas Sound board has some new software coming. Their accelerator board for the IIGS, called GSX, is running at 180% increase at the present. They expect to ship late this year. Spring Board Publisher will be out in November. Applied Engineering's video digitizer is in for total redesign Epic Modems has a 2400 Baud model that fits inside your II for $179. There was a strong rumer of a new Apple computer coming next year as well as lots of new hardware. Look for new games from Infocom with graphics soon. TML and ORCA will have a compiled BASIC for the IIGS out soon. Apple's own BASIC is available from APDA as a beta version now. New system disk 3.1 with Finder is now avilable for the IIGS. A IIGS version of Fantavision is available now with an upgrade available to current owners from Broderbund for $20. Broderbund also has a version of Printshop for the IIGS. An upgrade costs $20. An interesting sidelight is that Printshop was origionally designed with no output feature. The printer output feature was an afterthought only weeks before it was to ship. Two on Two basketball by Activision is real good. Great graphics. Next AppleFest will be held in Boston in the spring and San Francisco in the fall. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lisa Gronke, sysop, Applephilia BBS at (503) 591-8090 UUCP: ...tektronix!reed!percival!gronke
fiddler%concertina@Sun.COM (Steve Hix) (10/26/87)
In article <953@percival.UUCP>, gronke@percival.UUCP (Lisa Gronke) writes: > > The Zip Chip by Zip Technolgies is a pin compatable chip that replaces the > 65c02 in your IIe or IIc. Once installed your machine will run at a full > 4 meghertz speed. > Sounds fascinating. How do they deal with time-critical software timing loops (such as reading the Disk][ in ProDos and Sloth3.3)? Apple got around the problem by slowing the clock whenever the one of the disk signal lines (I forget which) was asserted. This has the side effect of slowing the effective clock speed to some lesser value than the maximum. Do they also change the system clock rate? How do they keep from mucking up the screen clocking stuff? I'd love to see this, especially if it works more or less transparently. seh
friedman@aramis.rutgers.edu (Gadi ) (10/27/87)
In article <31973@sun.uucp> fiddler%concertina@Sun.COM (Steve Hix) writes: > > The Zip Chip by Zip Technolgies is a pin compatable chip that replaces the > > 65c02 in your IIe or IIc. Once installed your machine will run at a full > > 4 meghertz speed. > Do they also change the system clock rate? How do they keep from I read about this chip in the lates Nibble magazine. (There is even a large ad by Zip Technologies.) From what I remember, this chip contains an on-chip cache, and clock. Internally, the chip runs at 4 mhz, but it does all it's memory access at 1mhz. Otherwise, you would have to replace all the motherboard logic to cope with the higher clockrate. Gadi -- Gadi uucp: {ames, cbosgd, harvard, moss}!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!friedman arpa: FRIEDMAN@ARAMIS.RUTGERS.EDU
halp@batcomputer.UUCP (10/31/87)
In article <2050@aramis.rutgers.edu> friedman@aramis.rutgers.edu (Gadi ) writes: >In article <31973@sun.uucp> fiddler%concertina@Sun.COM (Steve Hix) writes: > >> > The Zip Chip by Zip Technolgies is a pin compatable chip that replaces the >> > 65c02 in your IIe or IIc. Once installed your machine will run at a full >> > 4 meghertz speed. >> Do they also change the system clock rate? How do they keep from > >I read about this chip in the lates Nibble magazine. (There is even >a large ad by Zip Technologies.) From what I remember, this chip >contains an on-chip cache, and clock. Internally, the chip runs at >4 mhz, but it does all it's memory access at 1mhz. Otherwise, you >would have to replace all the motherboard logic to cope with the >higher clockrate. > The Zip Chip approach is apparently quite different than Applied Engineering's TRANSWARP card. TRANSWARP supplies a 65C02 running a 3.6 MHz, and 256 of fast memory. TRANSWARP accelerates everything, unless told not to. Dip switches allow devices connected to particular slots to run at a 1 mHz rate, while other stuff, such as all memory, goes at 3.6 MHz. Software commands also allow global decelleration to 1 or 1.7 MHz. I just received an add from Roger Coats (1-800-438-2883 0800-1700 PST) offering TRANSWARP with the 65C02 replaced with a 6xxxx (I don't have the ad in front of me), which is said to allow things that the 65C02 can't do, for < $200. >-- > > Gadi >uucp: {ames, cbosgd, harvard, moss}!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!friedman >arpa: FRIEDMAN@ARAMIS.RUTGERS.EDU -- | Bruce P. Halpern Psychology & Neurobiology & Behavior Cornell Ithaca | | ARPA: halp@tcgould.tn.cornell.edu | | BITNET: HALP@CRNLTHRY D57J@CORNELLA D57J@CRNLVAX5 | | PHONE: 607-255-6433 Uris Hall, Cornell U., Ithaca, NY 14853-7601 |
halp@TCGOULD.TN.CORNELL.EDU ("Bruce P. Halpern") (11/04/87)
Correction: It was Roger Wagner Publishing, Inc. Chip was a 65802, I believe. If you'd be happy with a 65C02 (normal configuration) on Transwarp, The December A+ has a CDA Computer Sales (800-526-5313) ad on page 162 offering an AE Transwarp for $175 + shipping (2%, at least $3.50). CDA is apparently at 31 Marshall Hill Rd., West Milford NJ 07480. ****DISCLAMER: My comments, etc., are my own shakey opinions ******** | Bruce P. Halpern Psychology & Neurobiology & Behavior Cornell Ithaca | | ARPA: halp@tcgould.tn.cornell.edu | | BITNET: HALP@CRNLTHRY D57J@CORNELLA D57J@CRNLVAX5 | | PHONE: 607-255-6433 Uris Hall, Cornell U., Ithaca, NY 14853-7601 4 s s