“Only 22 years after its last update, Apple IIgs System 6.0.1 is getting a new update,” Jeff Gamet reports for The Mac Observer.
“The version 6.0.2 update added support for Apple’s Ethernet for Appletalk card, fixed an HFS bug that could lead to file corruption, fixed PASCL.FST and DOS33.FST bugs, addressed bugs in TextEdit, Font Manager, and Window Manager, and the list goes on,” Gamet reports.
Gamet reports, “What makes this so cool is that it’s Apple IIgs fans who created the update.”
MacDailyNews Take: Finally!
Now, where did we put that Apple IIgs?
Gee, my old gs ran great!
Those were the days!
I think my Apple IIgs was the one computer that I owned and used (as my primary computer) for the longest duration. Back then, the fledging Internet and other online services (the dial-up type) were mostly text-based; Apple IIgs could do such things easily (if you added an accelerator and more RAM).
The Mac was just getting started, and there was no Windows. The Apple IIgs was a lot more “fun.”
I loved my IIgs, Its expandability kept it going for 8 years, far longer than any other computer I’ve owned since. The key was its ability to switch between text and graphics modes depending on the software that was running. The graphics modes could be sluggish at times but I used ProSel 16 instead of Finder, MouseTalk and TIC for most of my communication needs and my beloved AppleWriter II for most word processing. Text mode was *FAST*, especially on an accelerated machine. I even had a battery backed ramdisk for a few years that gave me a glimpse at the SSDs still 20+ years in the future.
Memories…
Time to pull the GS from out under the kids bed.
Now, how do I get that on to floppy?
That’s what I’m trying to figure out!
I love it. I still miss my 1992 Powerbook 170, the first Mac I ever owned. It had a REAL trackball that worked really well. Trackballs (of the wireless variety) are still my preference. Never liked flinging my arm around unnecessarily and running out of space using a conventional mouse. Trackpads are nice but to me second best. But that’s just my preference I could be wrong (but I’m not). 🙂
Ah, good times. Programming the IIgs was my first job out of college. (Like John Carmack.) The IDE, if I recall, was APW, and you could program in C, Pascal, and 65C816 assembly. What sheer hell. I’m sorry, yes, it’s nostalgic but that machine was sheer crap. All of the graphic beauty of a Mac with the performance of a slug. With ridiculously big pixels. I hated it. most of my time was spent trying to figure out why some system software was disabling interrupts for so long that MIDI notes got left on.
Every time the cursor would blink, the OS would check a battery RAM parameter to see how long the cursor blink time was. And that would disable ALL interrupts for a third of a second. Did they not even test their operating system? Hacks.
And I hate to say it, but the PC Jr was a better cheap knockoff of a real operating system than the Mac Jr (I mean Apple IIgs).
It’s still fun to remember being twenty-something.
🙂
You are reaching if you praise the PCjr.
Everybody is entitled to their twisted view on the world.
No doubt.
How about for the 1984 mac? I’ve got three of them just sitting around waiting for an OS update. Now I’ve got to find those 500k external floppy drives. I hope the update fits on a 500k floppy with room left over for my MacWrite application and files.
I have a 128k Mac from 1984 that is a dedicated Arkanoid system.
Had one- it was a great computer. Bought it at the (long gone) Robinson Barracks PX in Stuttgart, West Germany during a little thing called the Cold War.
The PX site is now a German neighborhood called Burgholzhof. Not a sign of the Mall sized PX remains. My old HQ -once VII Corps is now US Africa Command at Kelley Barracks.
The world has changed. But some of us have been with Apple a very long time.
That was my first Apple product. Parents used it for their business.for some reason I keep thinking of Bubble Ghost.
Crystal Quest; much better on IIgs compared to Mac. And there’s a game called “Tunnels of Armageddon” which is an example of using the IIgs capabilities to the fullest extent. Really fun and engrossing. Programmers had to be more clever back then, to work around limitations of the hardware.
lol I’ll have to go deep in the bat cave to find it. lol
Why?
huh…
I had one. It had everything, at that time, in it. That was a great computer. Even more better when it was running side by side with my Mac IIsi. Ahhhh, those were the days. mmmm.