Apple IIGS Backwards Compatibility

[JamesD]

I posted that the Apple IIGS was very backwards compatible with the older Apples in the Atari vs Commodore thread.

The response there was that it wasn't, due to a difference in how the 65816 acts vs the 6502.

So I posted a question on the AppleFritter forum, an actual Apple oriented forum.

Here is the link and a copy of the thread as of today.

 

Me:

Just how backwards compatible is the IIGS with older software?

I've never had a problem but someone argues it wasn't very compatible.

Any list of stuff that doesn't work?

 

 

Twilight_Rodent:

You could almost count on your hand which did not work on the IIgs that would work on other Apple II systems.

 

Gorgon (Original) would not run on it. But the cracked version would.

 

Space Station Freedom

 

Ortho's plant disk

 

One basketball game, not sure of the name.

 

Their were a few others.

 

Now some of the 5.25 did require the disk controller card to work. So if you did not have the card installed and use the old style Disk][. The software did not run. It looked for roms on that card. Most IIgs did not use that card, since they used the port in the back.

 

Some of the software required you to load interger basic before they would run. You could not just boot the program straight up. If you loaded the Dos3.3 systems disk, it would load the interger basic.

 

Same goes for older Dos than 3.3, you would have to load an earlier version than everything would be fine. 13 sectors.

 

Their were few compatible problems between the Different versions of Roms on the IIgs itself. But these were even less the above mentioned.

 

If I made any mistakes with the above mentioned I sure some one will correct me.

 

Take Care

 

Me:

I guess that explains why I haven't had problems. Most of the games I play are cracked... including Gorgon. That was actually the first game I ran.

 

Sounds like the issue was copy protection more than anything.

I found a comment that some version of DOS didn't like the GS but it sounded like that might be Apple's own copy protection to keep from running their DOS on clones. There were patches for that in Apple assembly lines so that might have been one cure but I've never had issues so I don't know.

 

Twilight_Rodent:

No, even the others that I mentioned were cracked and they would not play. So about 10 programs or so out of thousands is not that many.

Copy protection caused all kinds of problems for some drives. If they on the edge of normal. It is good to have more than a few. Because if one can not read the disk maybe the others can.

 

 

 

So... "about 10 programs or so" didn't run on the IIGS.

Clearly, most software didn't care about differences between the 6502 and 65816 and it appears to be an even higher % compatibility than I gave in the other thread. I think I said 98%.

[+remowilliams]

Yes, the IIGS is extremely compatible. IMHO, its primary issue was lack of support for its enhanced capabilities, not backwards compatibility.

[Tempest]

I have several games that won't run on my IIgs. It's odd, sometimes it's the cracked version that won't run (like AE) and sometimes it's the original version (like Moon Patrol). I ended up keeping my IIe hooked up instead of the IIgs. Besides, you can count the number of IIgs exclusives (vs. the Amiga or ST) on one hand and still have a few fingers left. Most exclusives were from small companies and not all that good.

 

Tempest

[JamesD]

I have several games that won't run on my IIgs. It's odd, sometimes it's the cracked version that won't run (like AE) and sometimes it's the original version (like Moon Patrol). I ended up keeping my IIe hooked up instead of the IIgs. Besides, you can count the number of IIgs exclusives (vs. the Amiga or ST) on one hand and still have a few fingers left. Most exclusives were from small companies and not all that good.

 

Tempest

"you can count the number of IIGS exclusives... on one hand and still have a few fingers left"

Oh really? Just how many fingers do you have? I always thought some of the people on this board must be aliens.

But seriously... the IIGS titles aren't as abundant as ST or Amiga titles but there are a lot more than you can count on your fingers.

 

Check here for a few. That's just the ones the author of the website has been able to locate and is aware of.

<edit>

You were talking "exclusives"... my bad. Still probably more than 10.

Edited May 10, 2009 by JamesD

[Tempest]

You were talking "exclusives"... my bad. Still probably more than 10.

Yeah it's probably more like 25 or so, but they're mostly small 3rd party releases and many aren't that much more complex than your average IIe game. Most developers just didn't want to take a chance on the IIgs for games unless they could easily convert an existing title to it.

 

Tempest

[JamesD]

You were talking "exclusives"... my bad. Still probably more than 10.

Yeah it's probably more like 25 or so, but they're mostly small 3rd party releases and many aren't that much more complex than your average IIe game. Most developers just didn't want to take a chance on the IIgs for games unless they could easily convert an existing title to it.

 

Tempest

There are some programs that pushed the envelope and even played better with an accelerator, but more just seemed to use the easier to program graphics and better music. The Kings Quest games are a prime example of the latter.

Apple was supposed to release a faster version of the IIGS (probably talked to developers about it) but I think serious developer interest in the IIGS died when Apple failed to deliver it.