IIGS, is it really considered an Apple II?

If you connect a 5 1/4 floppy and boot up DOS 3.3 or just about any piece of 64k or 128k apple software, you'd be hard-pressed to distinguish it from an Apple II. It can just do more.

It did look more like the start of something than the end of something though.

BillO,

The IIgs was supposed to be different.
It's entire existence was specifically for Graphics and Sound(IIgs).
No other II had an Integrated Woz Machine chip inside.
It wound up being the most forward looking II (and unfortunately the last) ever made.
There were several other prototypes being considered.
A IIgs with not only a built in 3.5 inch drive, but also a built in Hard Drive and more RAM.

But, as we all know, it is 1984 and "the Mac has come to town".
Steve Jobs would not let the Apple II side of the house interfere with Mac sales.
Although the IIe was the computer initially keeping the Mac line afloat.

Now we all know that the Mac is a great machine, but it received all the attention
and the Apple II line was literally shoved out of the way.

Lots of folks (myself included) dreaded hearing anything coming out of Apple between 1984 and 1988.
They were constantly saying one thing and actually doing the opposite.
When they finally dropped support for any of the Apple II line, it was like a stab to the heart for everyone.

Steven

You can consider the iigs to be the direct descendant of the 8 bit apple ii computers. It's capabilities were there to compete with the other computer systems available at the time. So, it needed to be an Apple ii computer that was capable to run most of the older Apple ii software out there.

Perhaps you are confusing COMPATIBILITY with IDENTITY.

If you connect a 5 1/4 floppy and boot up DOS 3.3 or just about any piece of 64k or 128k apple software, you'd be hard-pressed to distinguish it from an Apple II. It can just do more.

It did look more like the start of something than the end of something though.

Well said, especially that last sentence. x1000

Yes it is an Apple II. But as others have stated a very advanced one.
If it did have 4Mhz (all my IIgs had a 4Mhz capable CPU installed), 640x400 b/w graphics (SHR) and better support from Apple, it would have been a killer Machine rivaling the Macintosh (even the MacII) in its core market. The IIgs showed us what was possible if you think out of the box. I believe that the IIgs has jet to be completely taken advantage of ... like the Amiga and Atari ST type computers have for highly optimized demos. There were some truly amazing demos for this system, but the machine was never really driven to "its limits" i believe.

Yes it looks like it belongs more to the 90s than to the 80s... and does not behave like a typical Apple II. But i like it since its a step forward and was morke like a beginning of a new Apple II series than the end of the old. I love The IIgs for its introduction of advanced features without abandoning the grown user base (like the mac did). Its part of history now

-Jonas

After IIgs Apple dropped A2 compatibility and that ruined their business Very stupid management decision.

The IIgs is really 2 computers on one board, sharing several key components. There are two separate bus sets, one for each machine.

The IIgs is really 2 computers on one board, sharing several key components. There are two separate bus sets, one for each machine.

"...No other II had an Integrated Woz Machine chip inside."

Javster

Oh, and... the IIc+ came out after the IIgs.

Meh... splitting the computers peripherals into a fast and a slow part is not the same a 2 separate busses. The "Mega II" can be seen as a 'complete' //e in a chip but its still just management of i/o space and access. The Apple IIgs is a nice development und has so much to offer

From an engineering standpoint i see the Apple Video Overlay Card as a prime example of miniaturizing. It's more or less the complete IIgs graphics subsystem (including the Mega II) and is managed by some programmable logic. The VOC has a 640x400i mode that would have been easily possible for the IIgs as well.

Anyways, you can see that the IIgs was killed off because it would have been to powerful against the (early) Macintosh. A further evolution might have been possible if WDC would have been capable to offer advanced (32bit) 65XXX based CPUs. I know that WDC actually designed a rather unknown 32bit 6502 successor but Motorola and Intel were much bigger and offered advanced and cheap CPUs.

-Jonas

Compatibility is what kept it on top. Another Apple killer was the PC market with 3cheaper 386/486 at the time that were several times faster than comparable 65816 in //GS and the x86 instruction set & architecture were like a higher level language compared to these of 65xxx. But above all these one very important thing kept PCs on top - they were always compatible with first 4.77MHz IBM PCs.

The 386 became reasonably priced around 1988 (386DX 16) and the 486 about 1990/1991. The IIgs was very cheap like the Atari ST 520 in 1986. The PC was a clone of the methods used in the Apple II line. But IBM gave up the clone-fight and allowed the spread of IBM-compatibles. THAT is the story of the success of the x86 Plattform. The x86 Architecture is patchwork onto patchwork of bugfixes and features. The Software made the PC big the hardware followed the lead. The hardware hd to run the software. Apple had driven developers to the PC when they limited the Mac with software design rules and monoculture. Sure, the software was well designed and had no hardware incompatibilities. But the PC evolved with the power of fast spreading ideas and many dead ends. Working with the PC was ugly to use and quiet tiresome. The Apple II was like this, too and offered the same amount of evolutionary drive. As soon as the clone business took off for the PC, the Apple II was commercially dead. I remember that my Father was thinking to buy a new Computer in 1988. He decided to buy a Atari ST against a Compaq 386. The PC was much more expensive (3 times the ST) and offered little directly out of the box (you had to expand the RAM add a better graphics card ...). In 1993 he bought a Mac because he hated DOS

Anyways, Apple killed the II series because it was interfering with the new Mac line. The IBM-PC was the 'better' Apple II successor.

HAHA (Sorry, but I often disagree with you,Stynx, you know it) Now reading that PC was a successor to A2. Thankfully it was NOT. It was much better designed! And that architecture is so standard and well evolved that apple now makes its present macs with it A2 was built first and had that single advantage.

georgel,

A short story:

Before the advent of cheap Laser and Ink Jet Printers
I used the IIc, an ImageWriter II, and Appleworks.
Everyone around me used 8088 machines and whatever printer
and Word Processing software was available.
I told them that I could create, format, and print out a document
using my equipment that would equal in quality anything they could do.

They all looked at me like I was from another planet. They said
"A quality document using an Apple II and dot matrix printer...with APPLEWORKS??? You're Nuts!"

I proved to them that it was possible.

Apple II's can do anything a PC can do.

Steven