So I now own a IIgs.

[simbalion]

I finally went today and ended up making a deal for the IIgs I had offered to me a while back. The gentleman I bought it from is a retired school teacher and he had bought this unit brand new, so I am the second owner of it. It's a very bare bones Woz edition that appears to have never had any expansions plugged into the slots ever. He bought this, the RGB monitor, and the single 5.25 inch drive back in the day for over $2000! I just brought it home for $50.. Sadly, it is missing the keyboard, mouse, and power cord and now I know why. His wife has been getting mad at him for keeping this old stuff and has been going through what he called 'cleaning fits'. She was sending him on errands on garbage day, then quickly grabbing whatever she could easily jam into the trash can and pitching it. Sadly, his folder full of software, including a nearly full collection of MECC titles, also got thrown out only a few days before he first contacted me. She also tossed out two small game systems he had for the grand kids. No wonder he went silent for a while! Sounds like the relationship isn't on the best of terms right now! Anyways, I haven't tested the unit yet, though it did clean up fairly nice. I will have to clean up the keyboard and mouse I found and try it. The battery looks good inside yet and at the very least I have a fairly unmolested Woz edition.

 

[simbalion]

An update, the IIgs works! Even the disk drive works ok. Now, if I can find where you can switch it over to the slower mode as any game I put in right now is trying to play three times as fast! Colors on the RGB monitor look very nice.

[R.Cade]

I'd grab a PDF of the manual, but you need to go into the control panel to change to 1MHz.

[simbalion]

Hmm, how does one get into the control panel? I don't have any IIgs software with it.

[spacecadet]

Hit, uh, shift-control-reset to get into the control panel, I believe. (Hope that's right; saying that from muscle memory.) Then you can change the speed to 1mhz.

[simbalion]

I figured it out. It's actually control, option, reset. After setting the speed, I was able to play a little Stargate on the IIgs and it worked just fine. The whole system seems in good shape overall, in spite of it being filthy and missing the keyboard and mouse when I got it. The only flaw I have found is the monitor seems to have some miles on it. I have to have the brightness and contrast up a bit high to get them looking good. Now, there is a possibility the CRT will recover a bit as they can sometimes be a bit dim from dis-use and then brighten back up again with use. I've seen that with rebuilt sets with new CRTs that have set. Of course, I will have to deal with that battery on the board sometime and of course find some upgrade cards and software.

[Bloodnose]

Control Option Esc actually.

[Zap!]

How did you wind up making out? Is the system still running properly? Is the monitor any better? Any upgrades? Battery replacement?