New Apple IIgs

[foody]

Do you still need Apple's permission for a 24 year old product and more ?

 

[Quadraman]

Do you still need Apple's permission for a 24 year old product and more ?

Since the laws were overhauled a while back, yes, you do. The length of term of patents, copyrights and trademarks was greatly extended. 24 years is nothing.

 

[krfkeith]

Well of course we would get permission [] ]'> Also I am adding a Poll to see whether or not its a good idea. For those of you who don't know too much techinical stuff : yes, the idea is to put it on a single chip.

 

[chris]

Good on you. Can't say I know if I'd buy one, since I have a IIgs, but it would certainly be a worthwhile project.

 

[foody]

Here is my curious question. Why not develop cards also for Apple II gs expansions slots to give it improvements and additional features? Think of it as us little children who like to use the seven slots like a lego game or customizing our favorite robot with additional features but in this case the robot is an Apple II gs.

 

[returningmacuser]

Still wanna do it?

 

[foody]

Yes I would.

 

[krfkeith]

Well, I would like to, but honestly, I just don't think anyone cares anymore. I have realized I am much more zealous about collecting then everyone else (or most atleast)

 

[Twilight_Rodent]

Maybe not as many as you like, but as for as collectors go, there is quite a few more aggressive then you. Willing to drive thru at least 3 states to buy out collections that cost thousands.

 

[luddite]

Maybe not as many as you like, but as for as collectors go, there is quite a few more aggressive then you. Willing to drive thru at least 3 states to buy out collections that cost thousands.

Maybe you should seek help for that ;-)

 

[krfkeith]

well, if I were to do this. I think a better project would be a completely new Apple II that is usable for today's purposes. Something based on the 65832 (if was completed enough to write a working Verilog version, or so I've heard).

 

[Twilight_Rodent]

Maybe you should seek help for that ;-)

I have been asked that. But no no that was not me that did that. I only bought out collections that were in the hundereds. Althought I might resemble these people.

This may be a new mental disorder in the years to come. A subset of OCD which will be the OCCD where computer is one of the Cs.

Take Care

 

[magnusfalkirk]

Yeah it could be called "Obsessive Computer Collecting Disorder" and characterized by the need to collect massive amounts of outdated computer hardware and software. [] ]'>

Dean

 

[returningmacuser]

well, if I were to do this. I think a better project would be a completely new Apple II that is usable for today's purposes. Something based on the 65832 (if was completed enough to write a working Verilog version, or so I've heard).

There are schematics somewhere on the web. I found them somewhere, I just forget where. I think they were somewhere on apple2.org.za. Check all the mirrors, you'll find it eventually. Maybe someone could use these to build a working FPGA based 65832 for use in a homemade "Apple IIGS /e" running at 20 Mhz, with a working Rom 04 and 4MB of RAM. What would be really neat is if someone reverse engineered GS/OS and made a 32 bit version with Quicktime, 32768 color mode, native CD support, and some of the more tantalizing features of Apple's cancelled Copland OS.
This post kinda makes me wonder what kind of unspeakable rockage would occur if there were a Coldfire-style update to the 65xx series. the thought of running a 100 Mhz Apple IIGS makes me drool...

 

[krfkeith]

There was a Terbium 32-bit 6502 successor from Western Design Center. But of course, it got canceled. There have been a few hobbyist attempts to create 32-bit 6502s, but with no luck. I'm not sure how, but perhaps we could take the 65832 design and speed it up somehow. Does anyone know how a processor is sped up? Someone talked in another post about how FreeScale could easily speed up the 68040 with enough work to 800mhz.

 

[returningmacuser]

Double post... >_

 

[chris]

The problem about just scaling processor speed up on stuff like this is that most of the old computers were dependent on the speed of the processor being consistent.. I'm not sure if the Apple II was but it wouldn't be surprising to me.

Plus, a lot of the applications (read: games) were dependent on that 1mhz or 2.8mhz processor speed, depending on whether you were in Apple II mode or IIgs accelerated mode, and they definitely wouldn't run too well on something 100x/30x the speed.

 

[krfkeith]

Well, yes they did depend on the speed. But that is why the IIGS has an underclocking feature built into it. We could call it the Apple IIfx (yeah and sell it for $10k!). What I wonder is, how fast computers would be if they had remained stagnant in speed, then the proccesor speed was greatly increased. Just imagine how fast everything would be! The problem with current computers is that the speed doesn't increase to the user, because as the machine is sped up, the software gets more bloated. Anyway, the tricky part would be the OS. We could always compile NetBSD or something for it, but that wouldn't be anything special. The problem is that from what I have heard, the GS/OS is somewhat complicated. It has a toolbox and everything just like the mac did. A great deal of reverse engineering would have to happen. However, if the goal of this is to get BSD or Linux or something to run on a 32-bit 6502, then I'm out, that is no fun. Just some thoughts

 

[Cory5412]

.... a 64-bit 6502, now there's something worth looking at.

Seriously though, I am intrigued by, and I'd even go as far as to say I like the idea of the IIgs clone. What it sounds like to me is the best thing to try to do is to make it something accessible to as many people as possible. Up to about $100 for something that's a complete starter kit into the world of IIgs would be pretty nice. Especially if you got the rights to distribute some software with it, one or two different variations of the operating system (GS/OS 6 with hypercard, and prodos, at the very least)

The biggest most-important things would be that it's a fairly small box in moderately attractive (not really ugly) packaging, and I think it's moderately important to include basically the same ports as the original IIgs (although the funky monitor port could be swapped out for VGA)

Then you could look at building in the functionality of some of the more fancy cards, for example, by emulating a scsi addon card and including a Compact Flash slot.

But I don't know if it's really worthwhile trying to redesign the platform, or add so many things like Ethernet, especially in the first version of the box.

For what it's worth, I've always been interested in whether or not anyone would try to do a 68k Mac clone. I'm sure it's been talked about, but I'm also sure the legal issues prevent it from making any progress.

 

[II2II]

My take: this sounds more like a personal project for somebody who wants to learn about a modern technology (e.g. FPGA) by recreating a computer that they love (i.e. the Apple IIgs). It is not really a marketable product.

If someone wants a fast IIgs, all they really need to do is track down a TWGS or Zip GS. Overclock the critter to 8 MHz, and the software will run plenty fast since the software was designed for a CPU 1/3rd the speed. Some people have claimed that they have overclocked these beasts to 18 MHz.

Sure you have the old Apple bus and the old RAM and the old floppy drives and the old serial controller and the old audio synths slowing things down, but if you get rid of all of that you may as well just run a software emulator. It will be faster and cheaper anyway.

If you want to create it, go ahead. Tell us about it too, since I'm sure a lot of us will be excited to hear the details. But at the end of the day, the exciting bit will be that someone did it. Yet the vast majority of us will continue using our real IIgs or an emulator.