Today, even though I'm trying to downsize my collection, I ended up picking up an apple IIgs that is a ROM 01 machine and looked to have a box full of accessories. The main reason I got it was because it had the original Apple desktop bus keyboard, which I've always wanted to add to my keyboard collection.

When I arrived to pick it up, the man who is selling, it had it in a box, and I thought I was just gonna take the computer out of the box, but he said the box was actually designed specifically to transport a IIgs that he had had since he had the machine original, and worked in the telecom industry. It fit the IIgs, the Apple color monitor, the 5.25 inch and 3.5 inch floppy drives, and the keyboard. Looks to be made by a company in Columbus, Ohio, but he said he was living in California at the time.




The other good news is that it had some very cool cars and accessories. Inside was a 4MB GS Juice memory expansion card. It also has a ZipGS GSX accelerator card. Looks like it plugs into an expansion slot and then a ribbon cable plugs into the cpu socket.
In the box of accessories there was a ZipDrive hard drive card and anSonicBlaster sound card. As well as a cool handheld scanner and interface card called a Vitesse Quickie.
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Now the bad news. While the seller showed a picture of it booting to a IIgs blue boot screen, I have not had any luck getting it to show anything but a weird black and white pattern on the screen.

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It doesn't seem like doing a reset does anything helpful. Any ideas on where I need to start? I verified the dip switches were correct on the accelerator card. And I tried with and without the memory expansion card. I haven't tested the PSU voltages yet but will do so. I also can't test without the accelerator because I don't have the original CPU.
Appreciate any advice y'all can give. I'll try to take some better pictures of the case when I get the chance.

I'm guessing it won't go into the self-test mode, by holding down the option and command keys while turning it on? If you can get it to do that, we might be able to see what's going on. I'm assuming that you don't get the usual *Dernk* startup chime when the power switch is flipped on?

Sorry, I forgot to mention that. Yes, not startup sound at all. And won't go into self test mode.

I cleaned the board and replaced 4 caps that I had replacements for on hand. No change.

I pulled out my known working IIgs and decided to confirm the ROM and CPU accelerator were working, and they do. When I put the known good stock CPU and ROM, I get the checkerboard pattern still. Also swapped out the other socketed chip - 343-0051. I also swapped in a recapped PSU, even though the voltages looked good, just to be safe. No change. So it's definitely something else on the main board. I'm going to take a closer look at the sockets - maybe the ROM or CPU sockets are bad, but that seems unlikely.

It seems as thought the reset pin (pin 40 on the CPU is being held high, which I believe it wrong. I see it briefly drop when I hit reset on the keyboard.

Ah, well, at least we know that it's not the processor, so there's that.

If this machine is in better cosmetic condition, I'd be tempted to transfer your other IIgs' guts over to it, and swap all the goodies onto that board. Set aside the "new" board for a cabin fever project later this winter.

>> Volvo242GT said:

Ah, well, at least we know that it's not the processor, so there's that. If this machine is in better cosmetic condition, I'd be tempted to transfer your other IIgs' guts over to it, and swap all the goodies onto that board. Set aside the "new" board for a cabin fever project later this winter. Click to expand...

Yeah, this one has a very nice case that I will likely use a s my keeper machine. I put the accelerator into my existing machine and it seems to speed things up, although I can't remember if the IIgs already ran Apple II games too fast. It definitely was too fast to be playable when I ran defender. I'm going to keep troubleshooting the machine because the seller definitely showed recent pictures of it working.

Well, the main reason I got it was the keyboard, and while the machine itself is not working at the moment, I finally got a beautiful Apple Desktop Bus Keyboard. It cleaned up very nice. :

>> wottle said:

Yeah, this one has a very nice case that I will likely use a s my keeper machine. I put the accelerator into my existing machine and it seems to speed things up, although I can't remember if the IIgs already ran Apple II games too fast. It definitely was too fast to be playable when I ran defender. I'm going to keep troubleshooting the machine because the seller definitely showed recent pictures of it working. Click to expand...

Yeah, for gaming, most of the time, you're going to want it at normal 1 MHz speed. A lot of games become somewhat unplayable on the fast 2.8 MHz setting. A couple aren't bad, like Rampage, etc. But something like Night Mission Pinball or the old DOS 3.3 Brick Out game will be nearly impossible to win.

Is your existing IIgs a ROM 00 or ROM 01 machine, or is it a ROM 3? If it's the former, I'd go ahead and swap boards. Keep the one that's not working right as a spare to come back to - maybe even add the connectors for use with a //e case, that way you can turn an extra //e into a Stealth GS. Find a ROM 3 board for the existing IIgs and drop that in.

BTW: nice score on the ADB keyboard. Is it one of the original A9M0330 boards, or the later keyboard with the 658-xxxx part number? Got an A9M0330 with salmon ALPS keyswitches for my gs.

Both at ROM 01 machines, so no real advantage there.

I need to read more up on the accelerator - I suspect it will benefit running GSOS more than games. I believe this accelerator was either 8MHz or 10MHz, so any game relying on clock speed will be unplayable unless it's a turn-by-turn based game. Hopefully there's a way to reset it to the stock speed by booting into a "game mode" of some type.

I ordered a recap kit but will likely wait to install it because it seems unlikely that the reset line stuck high has to do with caps - so I might as well try to track down the main problem first. Thanks for the help and advice!

The keyboard doesn't have a 658-xxxx part number. It also sadly doesn't have the salmon ALPS switches. It has the white switches, which I believe means it is the SMK version. Feels nice, but not sure how it compares to the ALPS. I love my AEK switches.

Woah. Haven't been on the forums in 3 months and find my favorite computer in a portable form factor! Yes, please. I'll get to reading!

EDIT: First time I've seen another one of my sound card (Sonic blaster). Lmk if u need any info about it, I need an excuse to get back into Apple II. Also the ZIP GSX i have a ton of documents and info on if I can find it. That model is extremely valuable and I have a feeling its the hand-upgraded model from back in the day.

The ZipGSX requires a utility to turn the accelerator on or off. Unlike the TranswarpGS which has that fancy built-in CDA. The cables and CPU socket used on these cards are very fussy. You need to try and carefully re-seat the cable. Also the pins on the cable aren't the same profile as a CPU's legs and tend to bend the contacts in the CPU socket causing poor contact.

>> NJRoadfan said:

The ZipGSX requires a utility to turn the accelerator on or off. Unlike the TranswarpGS which has that fancy built-in CDA. The cables and CPU socket used on these cards are very fussy. You need to try and carefully re-seat the cable. Also the pins on the cable aren't the same profile as a CPU's legs and tend to bend the contacts in the CPU socket causing poor contact. Click to expand...

Very. Be incredibly careful. You have been warned. Definitely no experience with that sob