Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!cmcl2!rutgers!ucla-cs!zen!ucbvax!YALEVM.BITNET!EWING From: EWING@YALEVM.BITNET (Rick Ewing) Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple Subject: Re: New IIgs ROMs Message-ID: <8708100158.aa12169@SMOKE.BRL.ARPA> Date: Mon, 10-Aug-87 02:31:51 EDT Article-I.D.: SMOKE.8708100158.aa12169 Posted: Mon Aug 10 02:31:51 1987 Date-Received: Tue, 11-Aug-87 06:31:12 EDT References: Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Distribution: world Organization: The ARPA Internet Lines: 42 In reply to Larry Virden's inquiry of whyjust why the patches for the IIgs ROMS and ProDOS-16 2.0 won't fit together, maybe I can shed a little light on the subject. When the IIgs' ROMS were first designed and shipped, there were admittedly several problems, some major, some minor. The the last 9 months that Apple has gotten a chance to improve them, as well as write ProDOS-16 2.0, many of the key routines got to be massaged over. It was Apple's original intent with upgrades to the IIgs was to quietly introduce the new motherboards, and provide RAM patches for all older owners, thus saving tons of bucks in the entire motherboard exchange plan (remember the //c?). But a few factors got in the way of this plan. First, the video chip bug, and this chip was soldered to the main board. Apple had already advertised that there would be upgrades for this chip, and was now locked into this promise. Second, Apple software enginners eventually went back over and modified most routines in the 128K ROM space. As any IIgs owner knows, the current ROMS have serious problems including speed, bugs in the Toolbox calls (several!!!), speed, SCSI bugs, speed, Appletalk not powerful enough, speed, well, you get the idea. Imagine booting up your old IIgs with 128K ROMs and having to dedicate somewhere between 50-100K ofmemory for ROM fixes! Combined with the already bigger than life size of ProDOS-16 2.0, the fact that all of this must run in a space of 256K minimun, that leaves about diddly-squat for any application running. Now I know that any IIgs needs at least 1 meg of memory to even run anything, but it was just too much space for the OS to take up. The new motherboard upgrade will allow Apple engineers to address many design flaws that surfaced in the original machine. In addition to the new faster toolbox, users will definetely get a new video chip. Simple speculation also would point to fixes for the DMA problem, an expanded Control panel with better virtual-real slot management, a new disk controller that will allow use of the new 1.6Meg 3.5" drives when they are introduced, SCSI fixes, and other enhancements. Of course, this is pure speculation, but resonable fixes, and a golden opportunity to include them in the design. Consider it similar to the upgrade from the Revision A to Revision B motherboards of the Apple //e, and then throw in the "enhancement ROM upgrades" for an added bonus. You can see why that all this couldn't just be done with simple RAM patches. Anyway, we will know soon enough on the proposed changes, definetely sometime between now and the Appleworld convention in September. By then, we''ll be getting the IIgs that we should have gotten in the first place. Be thankful that Apple has big bucks into R&D so that we may benefit from these upgrades. --Rick Ewing EWING@YALEVM.Bitnet