13.020 What advantages does the ROM 3 GS offer vs. the ROM-01 GS?
Description
This article is from the Apple II Csa2 FAQ, by Jeff Hurlburt with numerous contributions by others.
13.020 What advantages does the ROM 3 GS offer vs. the ROM-01 GS?
The ROM 3 Apple IIgs offers many minor enhancements vs. the ROM-01 which
make the machine more functional and pleasant to use:
- You get a machine that is about 5-10% faster for GUI, floppy disk loading
and RAM Disk operations (due to updated smartport firmware and System 5 tools
being in ROM).
- A machine that is more flexible when working with AppleTalk and slots (you
don't have to give up an extra slot and you can stick a card in slot 4 and
still use the mouse in GS/OS).
- A nicer text Control Panel that lets you resize RAM Disk with a warm-boot
and a cleaner way to size it too (no min/max size junk). Also a 'Mouse' menu
and other existing things cleaned up and made better.
- A just over 1 megabyte of RAM built-in to start off with; so, you can have 5
MB of DMA compatible memory in total.
- The MB0 signal provided in slots 1 through 6, so you can stick in a Video
Overlay Card and Second Sight in together, and not worry about having to
reserve slot 3.
- Hardware shadowing of text page 2 with Alternative Display Mode (no slowing
down your system to a crawl when you see a screen full of 2's running 8-bit
software).
- A newer ADB keyboard microcontroller with built-in sticky keys, keyboard
mouse and compatibility with the indicator LEDs on extended keyboards.
- A removable Lithum battery (in a snap case. Just pop the old one out when
your clock and Control Panel settings stop working).
- Less power consumption and electrical noise from the motherboard,
- A set of pins (location 'S1') on the motherboard to make the text Control
Panel disappear, making your GS settings tamper proof where young children are
around
There are even a couple of more goodies, like the Step/Trace commands in
Monitor or the improved disassembler. Even if you are not a programmer, they're
handy for peeking at SHR graphics still in memory (from Monitor hit 'S' and
then the return key).
Things like sticky keys and mouse keyboard come in handy too-- like if you
are eating or drinking with one hand, you can still reset the computer using
the other.
The down side is that some old GS games and demos won't run. However many
of the more worthwhile ones have been patched.
By: Mitchell Spector
Continue to:
My Books
