Should I have passed on a bare Apple IIgs?

[Dave Farquhar]

OK, so I saw an Apple IIgs today--just the bare main unit, with a single memory card in it. No disk drives, no keyboard or mouse or monitor. I never had one and I don't think I ever used one. I know an ADB Mac keyboard and mouse would work with it and those are dirt common, so that wouldn't be a problem, but hunting down disk drives and a monitor might be.

But who am I kidding? If I bought it, it would be to turn around and sell to help finance something I really want.

Can I make a cable to connect a IIgs to either a VGA or CGA-style monitor? Or will it work with an oldschool Mac monitor? Does a IIgs have enough value to even be worth messing with? I did look inside and it had the stock 65c816 in it, not an accelerator board.

[blue lander]

I don't think it'll work with an old mac monitor even though the connectors are the same. The IIgs needs a 15khz RGB monitor and the old Mac ones are all 31khz. I think the IIgs has a composite video output, though, so you could just use a TV.

[Ze_ro]

I have a bare IIGS in my basement too... One of these days I hope to deck it out and make it worthwhile computer, but at the moment it's little more than a Apple II with a detachable keyboard. Nice potential to the machine though, in case you don't already have an Apple.

As for the video, you could probably quite easily put together a cable to hook it to either a Commodore 1084S or an Atari SC1224, in case you have either of those sitting around. Anyone know if there are any resolutions that aren't available with a regular composite monitor?

--Zero

[blue lander]

I think you can view all the IIgs resolutions on composite, but it's so blurry you can't really read any text. It's useless for text adventures or anything.

As I recall, the sync on the IIgs is a little weird. I think it uses separate horizontal and vertical sync rather than a composite one like most 16 bit computers.

[Ze_ro]

Well, a little digging turned up this FAQ, which actually has some instructions on how to hook up a IIGS to an NEC Multisync II or either model of 1084S... from the looks of it, the IIGS uses a composite sync, which the FAQ tells you to connect to the horizontal sync (leaving the monitor's vertical sync unconnected). I'm not sure exactly how these sync signals work, but the FAQ claims both monitors will handle it fine.

From reading some of the information I've seen, I'm actually quite interested in trying out this GS/OS that the IIGS is capable of... How well does this perform on an unexpanded IIGS? Has anyone tried GNO/ME?

--Zero

[blue lander]

The Multisync II can work with just about any old computer under the sun, but when I hooked mine up to my IIgs, I had a hell of a time getting the colors right. Everything was slightly blue, even though other computers look just fine on it.

[idrougge]

The Multisync II can work with just about any old computer under the sun, but when I hooked mine up to my IIgs, I had a hell of a time getting the colors right. Everything was slightly blue, even though other computers look just fine on it.

I think a resistor on the blue line should solve that.