There's a new IIGS accelerator called the AppleSqueezer GS (I'm its creator). It's a lot faster than the configuration you showed here, and comes with 14MB of built in RAM :) Also it's made with modern components, so a lot less likely to fail soon. Nice video!!

@adiamondforever7890

2 жыл бұрын

need to look into one for one of my IIGS's. Have fun

@randomexcessmemories4452

2 жыл бұрын

Where can we buy these?

@goeland4585

2 жыл бұрын

14MB?! What a madlad. If you have any videos about it I'll check it out ;)

@MaxOakland

2 жыл бұрын

that’s so cool Niek

@akkudakkupl

2 жыл бұрын

Schematics or it didn't happen 😁

12:14 not so much "fat fingers" as you missed a step, you want to loosen _both_ sides with the pry tool before lifting to prevent that popping out at you like that _then_ when you still fumble and drop it you can blame the fingers 🙃

Connecting ground on the old "stored" processor reduces the risk of ESD damage on it. It doesn't eliminate it completely of course but it's a lot better than leaving it completely unconnected so I bet that's why the put in that ground trace - and it's not like putting that trace cost anything.

Honestly I like the camera pointed at the monitor more than a direct capture.

@MattExzy

2 жыл бұрын

Yes! This needs to be a memo to all retro computer channel dealies. Feels much more 'hands on' and authentic - gives me a feel for the machine.

@kirishima638

2 жыл бұрын

Agreed. Hard to work on the machine too though.

You, my friend, need this chip puller. Changes your life.

@snesguy9176

Жыл бұрын

I'm amazed he doesn't have one as some one that messes with these old computers. I had one when I used to make genesis repro carts lol

As to the IIgs clock speed, it's my understanding that the early 65C816 chips were supposed to run at 4 Mhz, but weren't stable, so they downclocked to 2.8 Mhz during development. Once good 65C816 4 Mhz CPUs were available, the team upgraded the prototype to 4 Mhz, but since the 65C816 had may 1 clock cycle instructions and the 68000 used in the Mac had many 3 or 4 clock cycle instructions, a 4 Mhz 65C816 was faster for almost all tasks than the 8 Mhz 68000 in the Macintosh. So Steve Jobs as Apple CEO nixed the 4 Mhz IIgs, keeping it at the 2.8 Mhz it was finalized with.

@NJRoadfan

2 жыл бұрын

Jobs had nothing to do with it, blame WDC. Getting samples of the 65816 running beyond 3-4Mhz in 1985-86 during IIgs development was a problem. Even in 1989 when the TranswarpGS came out it was an issue getting 8Mhz samples running. The early cards were clocked around 7ish Mhz and had GALs to slow down the CPU during certain instructions due to bugs. It really wasn't until the modern Sanyo produced CMOS 65c816-14 that "good" CPUs became readily available. Those units would clock at 20Mhz without issue in many cases. The CMD SuperCPU for the C64 used these. Of course this was long after the IIgs was current.

@DavideNastri

2 жыл бұрын

Classic Jobs. At least his random quotes are fading out. In favour of Elon Musk. Yuck.

@akkudakkupl

2 жыл бұрын

@@DavideNastri at least Musk didn't con his friends. I hope 😁

@kaitlyn__L

Жыл бұрын

@@akkudakkupl no, just his business partners!

Oh those times when a postal stamp size game screen with 3 fps was "kind of playable" :)

My favorite part of that port of SMB is that it seems to be using a redone version of the music used for Thing on a Spring.

My first ZipGS was an 8 MHz/16K cache board like yours, and found it made the IIGS feel more smooth, but not necessarily "fast" per say. After replacing it with a 15 MHz/64k cache ZipGS (currently have it at 12.5 MHz) the machine just *flies*! Screen redraws are practically invisible, windows and menus just zap on and off the scree instantly! I can't use the GS without one. Used to have several ZipGS and TWGS boards on hand, but unfortunately I only have two ZipGS (12/64 and 9/32) and one TWGS (7/8). I guess I'm fortunate to have those at all! Small pet-peeve: You have your AppleColor RGB brightness too high. Optimally, set the contrast to maximum, and the brightness should be lowered until the background blacks are pure-black/invisible (the color saturation will vastly improve, as will text sharpness). Also, never touch the gold fingers on a slot card. The natural oils on your fingers can interfere with the electrical contacts and more importantly, touching that area can send ESD directly into the card! Incidentally, I've been an Apple IIGS user for 34 continuous years. Seriously, never once retired my machine or put it into storage, it's stayed on my desk and I've keep using it all these years! It's my favorite piece of tech of all time, beating even my SNES or Vectrex, and that says a lot!

In all fairness, both Woz and Jobs were gone by the time the IIgs came out, so the powers that be decided to keep it from cannibalizing Mac sales.

In my much younger days (25+ years ago) I attempted to overclock my ZipGS. Unfortunately I snapped one of the capacitors(?) off the board. I should really attempt a fix one day. Although the ribbon cable is also missing.

@DavideNastri

2 жыл бұрын

Do it! Good luck!

@MaxOakland

2 жыл бұрын

Oh man, the would be so disappointing

@atari2600b

2 жыл бұрын

For most of us, snapping a capacitor is a learning experience on sourcing & soldering & the occasional botch repair. I'm sorry you didn't grow up with the cool kids at the radioshack

@lemonherb1

2 жыл бұрын

ReactiveMicro can reproduce the cable

That Super Mario "port" with the Commodore C64 "Thing on a Spring" tune :)

Just watched a video about an LCD being installed inside the apple IIgs rgb monitor case and then saw this being posted right now! Its a IIgs kinda day. I used to have one that i got on ebay for $10 in the late 90s, with RGB monitor, keyboard, mouse, and a 3.5 and a 5.25 floppy plus a 1MB ram upgrade, but I gave it away because i got bored with it. Kinda wish I didn't.

I admit watching that motherboard flex made me sharply inhale! :)

A year ago purchased a poorly photographed IIgs on eBay quite cheap. When I received it, inside I found a ZipGS 1.02 and SCSI Card Rev C and an AE 4MB memory expansion. 8-)

@tetsujin_144

2 жыл бұрын

Nice score

I found the GSOS so easy to learn how to use. The bit I liked was it was idiot proof. It always asked you to confirm any changes which being a newbie was essential. I had a transwarp and i definitely appreciated it along with a hard disc.

Thank you for the "ground yourself" gag. As someone who does this daily, I have been waiting ages for someone in tech space of KZread to finally make that joke

Finally - someone did that grounding joke! Bravo 😂

Dr. Sean Beckett stepped into the IIGS accelerator and vanished.

Back in the day, I was very satisfied the 7MHz TransWarp GS. It made the computer much more tolerable to use, and my GS was my main day to day computer until about 1998. Congrats on your ZipGSX! I'm hoping to get the AppleSqueezer for my clear case "Not So Stealthy IIGS" build, but according to Nic that depends on when the plant in Singapore can get back online from the shutdowns and they supply the main component to his accelerator.

Nice video ! I love my Zip chip GS so much 🥰

You definitely need a clear-case monitor with this one!

A 1MHz 6502 is about performance equivalent to the original IBM PCs with their 8088 at 4.77MHz, so then you can think of the IIGS as a Turbo XT and the upgrade card as like one of those Intel drop in 286/386 upgrade boards. Also consider that the PC version of Wolfenstein 3D has been modified to "run" on an 8088, just about as well as it runs here...

hey great video! at school we had a mix of various Apple IIs and early non-color Macs to use. we never had the GS it was all like MS-DOS to get the apple to do anything. these machines do seem cooler than I would have thought to mess around with. we did later get a lot of computers updated, I think they got rid of all the classics, plus and 512K machines, and got LC2s and classic 2s throughout the computer labs. We did have a few standout machines added such as the Mac 2 vx and PowerMac 6100/60 also, but just one of each :)

Loved seeing the VCF shirt :)

Excellent!! Hopefully I will do the same on my stock GS. Do you need to replace or upgrade any of the ROMs on the motherboard?

For what it’s worth, as long as it’s done well (as you have), IMO recording the screen makes for superior viewing to screen captures.

Very cool. What do you think about the AppleSqueezer?

That's a lot of flex on that motherboard 😬

Many kudos to the very generous person who donated this. You're awesome!

You absolute madman.

This was awesome. I have a //gs and Wolfenstein wouldn't even launch when I tried to run it. I guess it wouldn't have been worth it anyways!

Lol the grounding bit made me laugh

This machine came out in 1986, keep in mind that the Macintosh did not get color until 1987, and it cost 5.5 times as much, not including a monitor. I don’t think apple even realized how advanced the IIGS was, even with the sabotaged performance.

Grounding is SO important.

Like your channel... Big into Retro collecting and have a bunch of retro computers, audio gear, etc. Plan on doing restorations and expansions as well. Anything your looking for let me know I may have in my collection. Recently I found my Quantum 3DFX card with cables, disk, and manual going through some old boxes. Just don't have a Win95 machine to test it on yet.

The most important thing should be to increase the total cache memory on the card. Since it's socketed, can't you try to increase the cache size?

The motherboard flex had me yelling at the screen , it's not supported or fastened down very well .

I wonder if anyone ever did anything with the Ti 99/4A ? I think we got one in 1982 when I was 10. Along with some game cartridges, which if you had enough you clippd the proof of purchases to send off for the Terminal Emulator II cartridge & speech synthesizer attachment. (it made some of the video games talk and there was some basic programs you could create an entry field and whatever you typed it would say.) We didn't know anything about the whole hooking it up to the telephone thing. I think I have one of the white units that came out after the silver unit we originally had. I think I found it at a garage sale or thrift. We used the cassette tape to load the various Adventure games (you had to hook up the Adventure cartridge then load the game from cassette) and also save programs I typed from basic., as well as saving my progress from Adventure or Tunnels Of Doom.

You had me at chips and dip

Pulling chips and flipping dips? I love me some chips and dips! All kinds!

To be honest, I prefer camera pointed at the screen as long as it looks good and this looks. great!

Oh, you're going to keep doing videos on things that interest me? Fine, I'll show you. I've subbed and enabled notifications. And to add insult to injury, I clicked the Like button. Sorry, but I had to do it.

@another3997

2 жыл бұрын

Yeah, you show him who is boss! 😉

mmmmm dat space bar sound < 3

Good video

I look forward to a comparison video between the ZipGS and TransWarp GS. I really need to dust off my IIgs after about 3 years of sitting on my shelf...

Aight. Time to crash Reactive Micro's website. Also you could call LGR. He has a Transwarp GS. Maybe the two of you could put your machines head to head.

PCBwayyyyyyy is the way

We want "We're pulling Chips and flipping DIPS!" - T-Shirts!!😂😂

Nice!!! Btw: Does a "normal"IIGS fit and run in a IIe-housing (and supply) ?

@fnjesusfreak

2 жыл бұрын

ROM 3 doesn't, but the 0 and 1 do, and were designed to.

Before I do any computer work, from now on I will forever ground myself just like you did!

Interesting bit of lore. But by 1986, Steve Jobs had already left to "pursue other interests", as they say.

You need to get a transparent monitor shell if that exists. It's needed to perfect the prison style.

Very impressive. Is it possible to increase the window size on Wolf 3D?

@tetsujin_144

2 жыл бұрын

The IIgs (accelerated or not) might not be able to keep up. The video RAM on the IIgs runs at 1MHz, and Wolf 3D on the IIgs works by rendering the game first to fast memory (which runs at the speed of the CPU) then using the IIgs' RAM "shadowing" technology to copy the fast RAM to slow RAM with a technique called "PEI slamming" - basically the program has to copy the graphics data onto itself to trigger the "shadowing" feature. To do this as fast as possible, the program relocates the stack to coincide with the location of the graphics data so it can use a 6-cycle instruction (at 1MHz, because it's shadowing to slow RAM) to copy each 2 bytes of display data... So to "PEI slam" the whole display would take 96ms (frame buffer is 2 bytes per 4 pixels, so 1.5ms per pixel at 320 x 200), meaning that if the game were doing *nothing* other than updating the display from the double buffer, it could only get 10 frames per second running at full screen. Regardless of what kind of accelerator is in a IIgs, that's the speed limit for updating the display. As shown in the video the game is using around 30% of the display, so it should be able to update from double buffer in around 29ms, increasing the theoretical upper limit for the game's frame rate to around 33 fps. (EDIT): I'm not entirely sure I'm correct with my analysis of the timings here. the PEI instruction takes 6 cycles to read 2 bytes of memory and write it, in this case, back to the same location. Since it's a write to shadowed RAM the CPU does need to slow down to accommodate the speed of the Mega-II core. The timings I calculated supposed that the CPU would be clocked down to 1MHz for the whole instruction, but I've seen info that seems to indicate that it would've just had to wait long enough for the Mega-II to sync the update to slow RAM, so maybe PEI-slamming is faster than I thought (Somewhere between 2-3 times faster than what I calculated, by my guess, since only the "write" portion of the PEI instruction needs to run slower)

I know it's dumb but I laughed when you grounded yourself. :)

Transwarp gs - made by the Borg! 😲

The coolest thing is that the 65C816 at 8MHz can run Wolf3D better than some 286s at 10MHz (OK, a decent 286 with zero wait state RAM is probaby better, but still!)

I really like how you push this poor machine to its limits with new hardware.

is the conections to the original processor what allows the machine to recognize the processor, so it starts?

11:45 what a beautiful scene! where can i order this garden ornament? It's so cute, I want to have one

I once had 6 working ZIP GSX. I sold 3 and was left with 3 working cards. Over the years all 3 cards died. The ASIC on the ZIP GSX is dying of old age. In the coming years more and more ASICs will die, as sad as it is. I would not upgrade the card! It may very well kill it in the long run.

@NJRoadfan

2 жыл бұрын

Zip Technologies went the cheap to produce route of cramming the slowdown logic into a ASIC. The TWGS went with an early CPLD and discrete logic, the bonus of which is that it can be more readily upgraded, overclocked, and repaired.

@john_ace

2 жыл бұрын

@@NJRoadfan Hard to tell if it was the 'cheap' way. It was a pretty good accelerator and could easily archive 12,5 MHz at the time. With the later 14 MHz WDC 65c816 chips, the ZIPGSX can go up to 16 MHz in most scenarios (it needs selected 12/15ns SRAM for that to work). The ASIC is actually running at a constant 20 MHz with overhead 16Mhz is most likely at the upper end of technical possibilities. The 65816 CPUs at the time were buggy and reached 10 MHz at max (overclocking to 12 MHz was possible with selected chips). I have tested my defective cards and came to the conclusion that it is most likely the ROM in the ASIC that went bad. It may have a limited number of read-cycles before it dies. Sometimes heating the card to 150°C for 2 hours in the oven brought a card back for a few months... but eventually all cards died. I am the first to say, that the Transwarp GS is the better card despite the older technology and less efficient design. The TWGS is just a lot more repairable than the ZIPGSX. I have 3 TWGS and all work normally, one is even stable at 18 MHz (about the same speed in applications than a 15-16 KHz ZIPGSX). I would like to see a revamped TWGS with a modern FPGA at 20 MHz. It should be possible since the code for all the programmable chips on the card is known. The ZIP Tech guys were very good at designing cache circuits and were very good at large scale integration. The 6502 ZIP-Chip was a marvel at the time. It used an integrated ASIC, cache and CPU on a ceramic (later normal PCB) carrier in a "chiplet" style configuration. Very advanced at the time. I suspect something similar for the ZIPGSX ASIC and it may contain multiple chips/chip-dice. Maybe the 40pin 'debugging'-connector was used for programming the internal OTP-ROM? Here are some internal images of the ZIP-CHIP 4000 and 8000... as well as a lot of 6 defective ZIPGSX before repair. drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B5SAWSGa49rLamJSZTloVkphQjA?resourcekey=0-NPOtW0st5FVpAidNBKirPQ&usp=sharing

@oldguy9051

2 жыл бұрын

@@john_ace Some awesome images of the ZIP-CHIP internals - thank you!

That frame background on wolfestein 3d totally looks like techmoan’s lounge wallpaper, don’t shoot the puppets!

You should get a clear case for that monitor

YEAAAAAAAAAA LETS GOOO IIGSSSSSS

Here is a grail “Mac” to find… the NewTek One or NuTek Duel. They are pretty rare and a compatible Mac, not a clone. Ran Motif on the desktop and had an OS that had a reverse engineered Mac compatibility layer.

I think you forgot the link to the video of you building the II GS!

Lol good silly grounding 👍🏻

Had the IIGS beaten the Macintosh , running at the full 8mhz I purpose that the next generation of the Apple II line would eventually been the Platinum line using components of the 2000's all the way to present day dubbed the stealth line of computers. using components like HDMI, USB, Serial, Parallel, Thunderbolt, and lastly a Compact flash Card reader present at the back of the machine.

The Woz should've been in charge of Apple's product line.

Overclock video please :)

You need a zen garden to properly ground yourself. 🤣

Dude, what's the frame rate of your camera? How the hell do you have it pointed AT your monitor and there isn't a bit of CRT flicker? Your camera must be incredible. O_O

It seems like there should have been some sort of attempt to use the original CPU as a part of the accelerator in order to get even MORE performance out of it, but maybe that simply wasn't possible. Either way, very cool!

I would. But I have a "no tattoo" policy. But your channel RoCkS! Cheers AR

Something I don't get, how did the apple 2gs do that amazing Port of Rastan if it was struggling with super Mario?

@lemonherb1

2 жыл бұрын

It all has to do with the tight coding talent of John Brooks.

@tetsujin_144

2 жыл бұрын

I am curious about this myself. I suspect that part of it is that we perceive the speed issue more in Super Mario Bros (a kind of simple, but fairly fast-moving game) than in Rastan (which should have buttery-smooth scrolling, but the game itself is slow enough that a bit of chop is maybe less noticeable)

2:06 is a card meant to pop up here with a video link?

If only they had gone with the ZILOG Z8000 processor could have been a real speed merchant.

Ive been wanting to Number Munchers with Nintendo 64 graphics

All that excitement over 8mhz. That's only a little more than 2x speed

@tetsujin_144

2 жыл бұрын

If even that... Because the system still has a built-in bottleneck of the 1MHz Mega-II core, which includes the graphics chipset and its RAM...

There are special pliers for removing chips and processorcs. Also so close to 40K subs :)

👍

Meanwhile I'm wondering two things about the GS. 1. Is there a way to make a graphics card for it both so it can accept a stock VGA monitor (and now have HDMI hookups) and to give a little bit of processingoffload from the primary CPU. Sure the hardware can be made but how would you make whatever the equivilant of a driver for it? After all you'd need to tell EVERY graphic call to go to it instead of the CPU. 2. What would it take to make system 7 work on it?

@starletscarlet

2 жыл бұрын

I'm pretty sure both of those are impossible. The CPU architecture is entirely different from the Macintosh line, and it's probably hard coded in how it's graphics work.

@rydot

2 жыл бұрын

GSOS was an entirely different operating system than "System 6" for the Macintosh. So, to get System 7 to run on it, someone would have to re-write the Macintosh operating system to run on the IIgs hardware. In reality, GSOS already had many features of Macintosh System 7 either built-in or available as 3rd party software. (Truetype fonts and a "Multifinder"-like experience being examples of the latter)

@Mr_Meowingtons

2 жыл бұрын

yes some one makes a tap to get VGA out of it..

@HoJoGoGo

2 жыл бұрын

There was a VGA card for the IIgs called the Second Sight, which are pretty rare. Using an Oak VGA chipset, it provided both native graphics modes and enhanced VGA ones. Search for "iigs second sight" and you can find the manual for it.

@fnjesusfreak

2 жыл бұрын

1. It's been done, but... 2. A Mac on a card, basically.

Mario with "thing on a spring" music?

Nintendo legal would like to: *Know your location*

0:18 Steve Jobs photo

i think im more impressed how it ran at 2.8 mhz.

can it run doom?

Cool, commenting for yt algo.

1:49 Another Steve Jobs photo

What’s a Maryoh?

@another3997

2 жыл бұрын

It's like a Mario, but with a funny accent. Most people pronounce a lot of words incorrectly. Especially in the USA, where they claim to speak "English"... but being an actual, real life, living, breathing native Englishman, living in England, and speaking actual English, I refute that claim! 😁

@jnzooger

2 жыл бұрын

@@another3997/r/wooosh

Pullin' chips and flippin dips sounds like it would have been an edgy thing to say in 91.

Is the Zip2GS a faster upgrade than the TransWarpGS, or just more rare?

@lemonherb1

2 жыл бұрын

I think it's rarer. The TWGS was just a more popular product at the time in comparison. That said, the ZipGSX had a smaller chip count which also made it run cooler than the TWGS. And apparently the ZipGSX can't be overclocked as much as the TWGS, so for those who want to run the fastest still look to that board.

I’ve never heard of super Mary-O…

Woz was so bummed when Apple killed off the II.

@another3997

2 жыл бұрын

Everything has it's day, the Apple II included. But that day was gone, things change, technology moves on, and some things just get left behind. At the time, Motorola's 68K processor line simply promised a more stable future than the WDC 65xxx series.

@tenminutetokyo2643

2 жыл бұрын

@@another3997 I know. I used to be a mega 68K Mac developer back in the day.

My IIgs is tricked out with everything but a dang accelerator. Even with all my II’s extra stuff, many of the better games just don’t play well or at all.

Seems silly to limit the cpu speed just so it doesn't perform better than the new models that they were planning to release. They could have just tried to have the planned models to have a higher clock speed than the IIgs.

@another3997

2 жыл бұрын

I suspect that story is a mixture of speculation, truth and slightly distorted facts. Apple had to look at long term development. The 65xxx processor series wasn't being developed at the same rate as Motorola's 68K series, which were the logical alternative if you didn't want to go to x86. Just like Apple were forced to use PPC when development of the 68K series stalled. But eventually PPC suffered a similar fate, with the IBM designed 'G5' series struggling to keep up.

@tetsujin_144

2 жыл бұрын

Apple had a very successful product line in the Apple II... But the platform was also almost a decade old by the time the IIgs came out. By focusing on the Macintosh they were able to establish a platform that carried the company through the next 35+ years. I don't know the extent to which the stories are true, of Apple intentionally limiting the IIgs performance to avoid competing with the Macintosh platform (and the Macintosh II was indeed faster than 8MHz) but I think they were right to focus on the Mac. With the Mac they managed (barely!) to stay afloat through the 1990s, when other giants of the 1980s like Commodore and Atari were going under.

You never said... were you grounded?

You desperately need a DIP extractor. It's a u shaped piece of stamped steel with two inward facing tabs at the open end that you slide under the end of the ends of the chip so you can pull it straight up and out.

Wait you didn't follow the manual correctly when it said the ground yourself I think it means ground yourself in this reality and you just grounded yourself in nature

The way they treated owners of this machine is what originally started my Apple boycott in 1989. It stands to this day. I will never have an Apple product in my house for the rest of my life.

@another3997

2 жыл бұрын

I'm not particularly bothered about Apple products in general, but that seems like a rather extreme attitude, considering it happened 30 years ago. Apple aren't the only company to sideline a portion of their customers in order to move things in another direction. Some people dispute the idea it was even Apple's fault, but rather than the chip manufacturer, WDC. After all, despite many promises, Motorola later struggled with 68K development, and both they and IBM eventually hit a wall with PowerPC. In both cases Apple were forced to change platform to survive.

@StormsparkPegasus

2 жыл бұрын

@@another3997 It wasn't because of the speed of the machine and the reduced speed of the CPU, it's because of the way *Apple* treated their customers. They promised an upgrade, demoed it, then said "we're not releasing it, you'll just have to buy a Mac". This was actually the last good product Apple made. Macs have always been utter garbage. Their other products are cheaply made crap that they charge a premium for. When Apple's most powerful machine is less than 1/5th as powerful as my computer while costing more than twice as much, yeah it's lolworthy.