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| Author | Topic: Next best thing to a real IIGS? | 3656 Views |
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Next best thing to a real IIGS?
4 August 2008 at 1:57pm
Hi,
Thought i would do another post:-). Over the years i have collected a couple of IIGS and emulators to relive my youth. The IIGS was my first ever computer and had a few good years with it till i went to the darkside of the PC, mainly due to my disgust the way Apple left it :-( and the cost of macs. Anyway...
I have also bought couple of Macs (PowerPC 7600 and 7100) to try and have a more modern way to play with the GS (PCs pretty suck on the IIGS emulator front), but have always found it lacks something due to the size of having a big box. I recently found what i feel is a really good setup for emulating a GS but having it portable, so i thought i would share this with you :-).
I didn't want to spend a lot as this is just a hobby, I was tempted with going the OS X route, but thought that the OS X emulators weren't as good as Bernie GS and also the cost of an OS X laptop supporting 10.3.9 (which sweet 16 needs) was a bit costly. I decided to go for a Powerbook G3 Wallstreet II, as it was cheap (like £50/$100) and more importantly supported a floppy drive that could read 800k and 1.4MB Prodos disks.
After some playing with OS versions etc. The best setup that works :-
- Powerbook G3 Wallstreet II (256MB)better than the first model and supports ADB, and Floppy)
- MAC OS 8.6 - I did start with OS 9, but dealing with Prodos disks just hung the system...i even ended up buying another Powerbook to test with and got same issue).
- Bernie GS (has a great list of features over other emulators, though it no longer gets updated)
- Compact Flash Adapter/Reader - so you can read Compact Flash Cards and boot from the cards used in a CFFA card for example.
-Gravis Mousestick II joystick
This basically as far as I can see gives me an almost perfect IIGS but without the real hardware being used. I can use the joystick on adb as a real IIGS joystick, i can boot off real IIGS floppies of the internal drive (as well as format etc - though the drive speed isn't the quickest). With the compact flash adapter you can even boot off a compact flash card that you use on a real GS with a CFFA card.
I know half the fun is using the real thing, but these things are getting old and its good to have alternatives :-), especially if you leave it packed away for most of the time, a laptop makes it convenient to just tinker with.
Drew
Last edited: 4 August 2008 at 2:01pm
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Re: Next best thing to a real IIGS?
5 August 2008 at 11:32am
You probably can't go much better than the Wallstreet PowerBook as a portable IIGS. Speed versus floppy drive is the best trade off you'll ever get.
I've got to admit, I didn't know you could use a Compact Flash that's been formatted on a IIGS (or CiderPress) with Bernie. Do you use Bernie's 'Share Volume' feature to get this working? Damn great idea, especially since I've so far been using CiderPress on a PC to copy files to and from the CF card.
- Alex -
Re: Next best thing to a real IIGS?
5 August 2008 at 11:47am
Hi,
Ciderpress is definatley a top tool. Will do some playing with the powerbook tonight and post some more detailed info. To be honest i haven't played with CF cards and Bernie that much, i just remeber plugging a card in it last week (after getting my GSs out after a couple of years of being dormant) and sure i just dragged it to Bernie GS disk module and then the GS just booted..
Drew -
Re: Next best thing to a real IIGS?
5 August 2008 at 3:06pm
It's a shame there's no really complete IIGS emulator for Mac OS X.
Kegs has the funky method of having to load floppies from a config text file. It also has lack of customisation on game input devices (though at least they can be activated) and I've found its graphics to be flickery in some programs. When the above points aren't issues though for a particular thing you want to do, it can be excellent.
Sweet16 is much more user friendly and I find its graphic emulation is tighter, but it has no game device input, not even a keypad joystick.
Either way, the main gulf I see is in decent joystick support. -
Re: Next best thing to a real IIGS?
5 August 2008 at 6:16pm
Hi,
Right just had a play with compact flash and my powerbook G3. I put in a 256MB Card which had been formatted already under a GS/OS with 4 partitions. The Mac only saw the first partition, but i was able to write stuff to it quite happily (and quickly) and under Bernie GS happily boot of the CF card as if it was a real GS (minus the other partitions).
Regards
Drew -
Re: Next best thing to a real IIGS?
6 August 2008 at 2:27pm
Actually, come to think of it, I did get as far as that when plugging my already set up compact flash into a card reader into my PowerBook running OS 9. For some reason, only the first partition would be available to mount to Bernie. Bit of a shame, but it could have its uses.
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