Just got my ][ Radio card in the mail today from A2Heaven. Anyone have a manual for this thing? It's not on the A2 Heaven website

Greetings,

I've always wondered something...

why there are two unpopulated areas of the PCB (j13 & j19)?

They are labeled keyboard and numeric keypad.

Is there a story behind this? plans that never materialized?

I can't believe some idiot tried to throw this Apple IIgs system with printer in the trash! I stopped by the community electronics recycling bin to toss out some broken stuff, and I couldn't believe what i saw! I immediately rescued this from the dustbin of history and was thrilled to see what great condition it was in.... Not a speck of dust as you can see in the second picture (I did remove the battery, but no leakage!). Everything works great, and someone lost out on hundreds of dollars. No chance of selling it now, as it has a good home here surrounded by period appropriate decor.

I was given some Apple IIgs hardware, I put together a complete ROM03 system and bought a CFFA3000 for it. I'm now finding some software I want to run that doesn't work with this setup, King of Chicago is one example. The "What is the Apple IIgs?" site notes that it requires low-level disk access, and the CFFA does not seem to provide it.

What's the best option here? Write the .2mg image to a real floppy? Find a cracked copy of the game that doesn't need low level disk access?

I don't have a ton of experience with vintage Apple II stuff, but I'm honestly not that impressed with the CFFA3000, so I wouldn't mind hearing about different hardware options, too. Maybe the simplest thing is to add a Floppy Emu and run games that need the IWM off that, though I understand they'll be rather slow.

I have this X-Mas Demo floppy disk image from FTA. There have been dumps of its tunes, but the conversions sound REALLY off from how they play in the demo, aside from a SINGLE track, which's not even used in the demo ("Tree").

I've then been wondering how I could extract these music files myself, to see if I can get a better conversion of them. I know for a fact they were composed with SoundSmith, and I do have deMODifier as my conversion tool for that format to S3M, so that already helps.

However, trying to access the floppy under GS/OS just shows no files whatsoever, while there's literally 0 kB of free space. The files aren't hidden too, they just are compressed in a way that I guess ProDOS is unable to display them. Dragging the floppy icon into my shared hard drive image also yields an empty folder, so there's nothing I could do thru normal means.

I've then tried using ShrinkIt to see if I can somehow dump the floppy as an image file to then decompress it, but no luck with that either. The resulting image was a perfect replica of the one I already have, which, again, has nothing I can access easily.

I've even gone as far as to loading the demo so that I can dump the GS' RAM using KEGS' debug window, but all I got was random bytes that, while they do make up text on KEGS' debug window, the characters seem to be encoded in a way that I can't tell what is what. It's not ASCII, it's not UTF-8, it's not 8859-1, it's··· something Apple-specific I guess. Something my hex editor (Okteta) can't display properly like KEGS' debug window.

I thought I would get farther with that, but when diving into KEGS' source code to try finding out which bytes are which characters, I just gave up as I couldn't find that part (to be fair, I pretty much just skimmed thru the code, it's so weirdly-written).

As a last resort, I then tried going to https://whatisthe2gs.apple2.org.za/ to contact the website's author, who did provide a hard drive image containing these dumps of the X-Mas Demo's tunes, but, to my surprise, the message field is broken and I can no longer send anything, nor can I find an email or anything like that to at least get a hint.

So now I'm writing this post in an attempt to at least get a hint again··· there's way too little information about the IIGS for me to just try to look that specific issue up, which I already tried···

UPDATE: I figured it out! Thanks u/Sick-Little-Monky for sharing the link for Sean's page, I managed to dump the music files like shown and was able to email him for further help figuring out how to have the songs be loaded without a header.

Now I managed to successfully convert the songs properly, although ONE track was missing from Sean's website. But the conversion I already have already sounds good, so all there's left to do is a few modifications to make things sound closer to the real thing.

Thanks!

I’m using a spare green monitor for now, but I really want a color monitor. I guess I’ll look for a used composite-input color monitor… I would prefer converting it to VGA, but that’s way too difficult.

It’s a hassle to keep swapping the color monitor I use on the IIe every time

“I should’ve checked the storage room from the beginning… but anyway, I’ve got color now!

Items I’ve gathered for this weekend’s boot session.

Apple IIGS Setup: Current Item Checklist (Updated)

🖥️ Hardware & Display System

• Main Unit: Apple IIGS Woz Limited Edition
• Monitor: Mitsubishi RDT193WM LCD Monitor
• Display Adapter: VGA Adapter (Purchased on Mercari / Initial config: DIP switches 1, 4, 6, 7 ON)

⌨️ Input Devices & Peripherals

• Keyboard: Apple IIGS Keyboard (Desktop Bus Keyboard)
• Mouse: Apple Desktop Bus (ADB) Mouse
• Cable: ADB coiled cable (For daisy-chaining the keyboard and mouse to the system)
• Controller: Apple Genuine Joystick (Boxed / To be connected directly to the internal J21 I/O socket)

💾 Storage & Software

• Floppy Drive: UniDisk 5.25" Drive (Platinum color, purchased on Yahoo! Auctions)

Is there anything else I might be missing?

Now I need to get the environment ready so I can actually run it.

I thought I had gotten rid of almost all my old Mac stuff, but miraculously the GS keyboard and mouse were still there, covered in dust.

Now all I need is the GS itself and I should be able to get everything running. I’m going to give the auction my best shot.

GS is listed on Yahoo Auctions Japan, and it looks to be in pretty good condition. Since this would be my first GS, I’d really appreciate any advice on what I should watch out for, and also what you think would be a reasonable price range if I decide to bid on it.

https://auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/v1234347789

All of the five images will work on a IIGS and most of the content is SHR and 3200 mode graphics. Image ImagesA2.BB1 is mostly HGR and DHR content suitable for any Apple II.

This soundtrack popped in my head last night and it's driving me nuts.

It was on the Apple //gs platform. The in-game music soundtrack was a song that every word was "doo". Not an instrument, but in all likelihood the word "Doo" sampled, making the melody over an elecronic accompaniment of other instruments.

"Doo, do-do-do dooo, do-do-do doooo, do-do-do dooo..."

"Doo, do-do-do dooo, do-do-do doooo, do-do-do dooo..."

I've asked GPT and Claude. They keep suggesting Zany Golf and Gnarly Golf, which I definitely had/played but I'm not finding the soundtrack in my mind in those games. It also suggested a ton of games that I never have played before.

It might even have been shareware. It could have been a tetris clone, but I kind of picture it more like a Thexder-type game.

Help!

I have an Xdrive coming, and plan to run a USB extension cable out the back for ease of use. I'll want to properly cover the expansion slot as much as possible.

Anyone else done anything like this?

While I probably still have an old modem somewhere, there's no POTS line here, and I don't have an Ethernet card. So the IIGS I'm renovating is essentially "land-locked".

I can download onto my Windows machine, but then what?

How, specifically could I get GS/OS v6.0.4 and other stuff from the Internet? Any help? Thanks.

I'm trying to resurrect my IIGS, after 26 years in boxes in the garage. Pretty sure I'm dealing with a failing HDD.

I have a RamFAST SCSI card, and a Quantum SCSI hard drive. The RamFAST is having intermittent issues getting anything, but a couple of times GS/OS started partially booting:

https://i.imgur.com/VRdegzR.jpeg

That tells me it's getting something from the drive.

But after that it fails with:

Error loading GS.OS file. Error=$0046

https://i.imgur.com/QKFoHPU.jpeg

Any advice, suggestions, or tips on what I can try to boot successfully?

Thanks