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I finally got my Apple II GS in the mail...

F

facattack

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Joined
Mar 7, 2007
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Location
Bucks County, PA
... it doesn't seem to boot from the hard drive. I ordered System 4 upgrade disks as well, but they came on 3.5 and I've got a 5.25 drive that came with the unit.

The former user seems to have used it to play Apple II E games on it. It has a composite Apple II E monitor as well. Was it common for this machine to come out without hard drive support initially and needing to boot from a disk?
 
I don't have a hard drive for mine so I'm not what all it needs, but I know it has a BIOS .. can't quite remember how to enter it though.. (maybe holding the mouse button while it boots?) <google> Ok here http://www.geocities.com/profdredd/apple2/iigsqs.html </google> looks like you hold down the solid apple key while turning it on. That MAY have a boot order or boot option.

The other thing the site mentions which I wasn't aware of is the drive needs to actually HAVE a boot rom which not all external devices will.

Good luck,
- John
 
Oh.. I thought you were implying there was an external hard drive or something you got in the auction that you had it connected to. No, I don't beleive it has any space inside for an internal hard drive nor do I believe they came with one.

I bought mine used from a local goodwill so I didn't get everything that it may have come with. I do know they connect to the same Apple II drives though so if you get a regular 3.5" drive for an Apple II it'll connect fine.

I haven't used mine much since it was a bit less portable with the external keyboard, etc but I hear they're one of the few systems that can transfer data between MAC floppies and Apple floppies (making it worth having in a collection).

- John
 
I have an external Apple floppy drive in 3.5. It just says Model M0130 (they could be O's, I dunno) It has a port connector I have never seen before so I dunno what it actually goes to. Would it help anyone here out?
 
That's a Macintosh floppy. Thanks for the offer, though. But could you take a picture of plug output? Would be nice to see what it looks like.


Hrm.
The IIGS was highly expandable. The expansion slots could be used for a variety of purposes, greatly increasing the computer's capabilities. SCSI host adaptors could be used to connect external SCSI devices such as hard drives and CD-ROM drives. Other mass storage devices such as adaptors supporting more recent internal 2.5-inch IDE hard drives could also be used. Another common class of Apple IIGS expansion cards was accelerator cards, such as Applied Engineering's TransWarp GS, replacing the computer's original processor with a faster one. Applied Engineering developed the PC Transporter that was essentially an IBM-XT PC on a card. A variety of other cards were also produced, including ones allowing new technologies such as 10BASE-T Ethernet and CompactFlash cards to be used on the IIGS.
Click to expand...

Ooops. Should have read this more carefully.


If anyone else is interested in it, here's a web page I found.
http://www.faqs.org/faqs/apple2/faq/part12/
 
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facattack said:
I ordered System 4 upgrade disks as well, but they came on 3.5 and I've got a 5.25 drive that came with the unit.
Click to expand...
System 4? You might be confusing that with Mac system diskettes. There was a GSOS version 4, but it's a pretty unusual "upgrade" - more typical GSOS versions were 5.x and 6.x.
facattack said:
The former user seems to have used it to play Apple II E games on it.
Click to expand...
A very common use of the IIgs: a fast Apple IIe.
facattack said:
Was it common for this machine to come out without hard drive support initially and needing to boot from a disk?
Click to expand...
Yes. They were rarely outfitted with hard drives. Some relevant IIgs history:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_IIGS
http://apple2history.org/history/ah10.html
 
Sure, no problem. I attached a pic of the face of the drive and its port connector. I didn't know what it belonged to since all I have is the drive and it doesn't really say anything about itself. As far as I know, it works.

-VK
 
david__schmidt said:
System 4? You might be confusing that with Mac system diskettes. There was a GSOS version 4, but it's a pretty unusual "upgrade" - more typical GSOS versions were 5.x and 6.x.[/url]
Click to expand...


Well, the box says "Apple II GS System Software Update Version 4.0"

Included is:
Apple II (black border, white text)
Apple II GS
System Disk version 3.1
(That's all the text on the first disk)

Apple II
Apple II GS System Disk
Version 4.0

Apple II Gs System Tools
Version 4.0

Your Apple Tour of the Apple II GS

Apple II GS
Demonstratino Disk Startup

Apple II GS
Demonstration Disk Program


that's that.


That's interesting. The pin-out looks like it might hook up to my GS. But the page I looked at says that it's a Mac floppy drive. Either way, how much you want for it, Vlad? (I won't be able to get the money together until beginning of next month.) Then again, there's no eject button on the front. Might not work... From my limited experience with Macs, they eject VIA the software rather than buttons on the drive.


I found a page about drives here:
http://www.vintagemacworld.com/drives.html

Another page
http://www.gse-reactive.com/product_info.php?products_id=47


After searching for a while, I found a $45 3.5 drive that would work for Apple II. Next month I might as well do another search on Ebay.
 
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Hi,
Holding down the Option key on boot up wil get you to the control pannel. Kind of doubt full that you have a HD. If you did it would be a Vulcan or a Pegauses in the Power supply. You would HD controler card in on of the slots. Or if it is another micro drive (focus) or a CAFF type. If the battery is bad or dead, everything in the control pannel will default to standard settings. Most people that have HDs, have more than the stock apple ram cards.

If you need somethings for it ask, have about 4 people to get Apple II items out to at the moment.

TaKe Care
 
Congrats on the IIGS!

You have basically 2 routes for a Hard Drive on the IIGS, it is HIGHLY unlikely that it came with a hard drive.

1) You can obtain a Vulcan or Pegasus card and drive (in the case of the Vulcan it would be a hard drive inside a replacement power supply).

2) Apple High Speed SCSI Adapter and a suitable external hard drive.

These options are not cheap. Average eBay cost on the controllers is $100+

Good Luck with the system anyhow.
 
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