//gs 'Limited Edition'

[Schmoburger]

So, what can learned people tell me about these machines, the //gs Limited Edition with Steve Wozniak's signature printed on the front bezel?

I procured one nearly 15 years ago, followed by another pair of standard gs's. What made these units special if anything at all, as compared to the plain //gs? This particular one has a 256k RAM expansion card and interestingly, has no barcode affixed in the designated place on the logic board and on the bottom label states "Patents Pending", whereas my other two, from memory, do not.

Any info would be great.

 

[unity]

As far as I know there is nothing special about them other than the stamp. And so many were produced that in reality, they are not worth much more than a regular IIgs. However, that does not stop people from asking a billion dollars on eBay for one.

As a collector, I will want one eventually. But beyond having one of each version, they do not interest me.

 

[TheWhiteFalcon]

They usually have a ROM 0 or ROM 1 board. If I got one, I'd just put the Woz top on a ROM 3 unit.

 

[Schmoburger]

Ah fair enough... yeh I assumed they were an early revision. 

I have a ROM 1 and a ROM 3 as well so will probably just keep this one standard for intrinsic historical/novelty value and use the other ones for the fun things. Ive never actually run gsOS on any of them because I have never gotten a copy onto disk. Pretty much, they have run as glorified IIe's

 

[TheWhiteFalcon]

Try ADTPro, I found out about that today. Wish we had a Mac equivalent.

 

[Schmoburger]

Might have a look after some sleep. I know at one point gsOS was downloadable from Apple's obsolete software library, just a matter of getting it onto a ProDOS formatted floppy or whatever the format is that the //gs utilises. I know at one point or another, MacOS still supported formatting as a ProDOS disk but I believe that ended in 7 or 8?

 

[TheWhiteFalcon]

ADTPro solves that issue.

 

[Schmoburger]

Excellent!

 

[Elfen]

As I remember from the Big Apple User's Group, there are a lot of issues with the limited edition Woz IIgs. Memory expansion is limited to 4 megs max and that depends on the ROM Version you have, as the older ROM 0 (I believe) can only address 1 or 2 megs of RAM. The newer ROM 3 can access 16Meg RAM Cards (AE made them, not Apple).

There are also issues with what ProDOS and GUI you can use with them as well. And finally, (not sure if this is the correct name for them) you cant use the IIgs TransWarp Accelerator (or as it the IIgs ZipChip?) on them without doing some surgery to the board.

The IIgs was Woz's idea before Jobs & Apple kicked him out of the company. Jobs thought that Woz's continue love for the 6502 Apple was going to interfere with the 68K Macs, and thought that the Apple II was a limited machine. The IIgs disproved it but with Woz gone, there was no more Apples in the Apple Orchard, only Macs.

 

[TheWhiteFalcon]

Where do you get your history? Jobs was long gone before the IIgs came out. You seem to blame him for a lot of things that he had nothing to do with, the man really didn't have any operational power after late 1984, and was gone for NeXT by 1985.

 

[Elfen]

I'm going by my memory - holes and all. And as I remember, the NeXT was not until at least the early 90s. Jobs may have putting thoughts to paper for the NeXT as an Apple Product, but the he took it with him when he was forced out. Jobs was there for at release of the Mac (1984) and the Mac II series in 1988 (TV show "Computer Chronicles" had Jobs demonstrating a Mac II in '88 as I remember). His Downfall was from Sculley (sic?) entrance into Apple as CEO and Jobs telling him (Not a direct quote) "You want to go back selling sugar water or do you want to change the world?" Sculley was CEO of Pepsi before going to Apple and took that as an insult and "fired" Jobs by 1991 or there about. Before that in the late 1980s, Jobs made Woz leave Apple because he saw the Apple series as a threat to the Mac Series.

But I'm not here to discuss computer history. I'm only sharing what I know of the machines and exchange technical information thereof. The IIgs was Woz's last machine with Apple. Then he made the universal TV Remote and a couple of things as well as teaching computer technology to Jr. HS and HS students as a school teacher.

 

[TheWhiteFalcon]

Again, Jobs was forced out in 1985. This is documented history.

 

[unity]

And NeXT was founded in 1985.

The Mac II was released in early 87.

Jobs came back to Apple in 1997.

 

[CelGen]

Honestly the "woz" IIgs is fine for whatever task you throw at the machine. Even GS/OS runs fine on it with 4mb. The TransWarp and memory upgrade costs hundreds anyways. You aren't missing anything without them.

 

[Schmoburger]

Yeh at the end of the day it's never going to be a machine I use for any kind of real productivity... Simply another interesting toy in a huge collection of many. I'll just use it within it's capabilities, as after all, I do still have the later ROM machines as well.