The most interesting thing about the IIGS was its weird unique graphics modes - high resolution with alternating palettes, and a mode that had color 0 "hold" the color to the left (very good for fast filled polygon graphics). It also used a semi-chunky bit layout rather than bitplanes, which made some things more efficient. But we'd never find out the real potential of the IIGS because Western Design Center simply couldn't provide the 65C816 in the quality and quantity required. In retrospect, choosing WDC as CPU supplier crippled the IIGS, and it ironically would have done better with a mere 2MHz chip supplied by Commodore. The C128 lacked impressive hardware, but it still sold well and brought in good profits. A hypothetical IIGS with a lowly 2MHz CPU would have been a little bit more sluggish, but it could have been sold in large numbers thanks to a reliable supplier, as well as brought to market sooner.
With cheaper/more capable 16 bits already on the market (Amiga 1000,Atari St ,early Macintoshs) who would splurge a thousand on a "dead" 8 bit platform
@@jeremygregorio7472 I was thinking that too. I always thought Rastan was an ugly clunker on home ports. Also the port of Immortal looks absolutely great, better than the lowly Genesis/MD version.
Intersting details about the technical aspects. I only got my hands on it about 1 time per month in my Computer lab class in Junior High ( there was only one iiGS so we rotated seats each class, one kid got the IiGS and everyone else had 8 bit IiEs, being that they were fully compatable for the stuff we were working on, you could use the 51/4 inch drive to open your work from previous sessions on the iiE. The IIGS was priced as a premium device, I recall when my parents and I went shopping and bought an Apple IIC setup, I kind of did a " hey mom what about this new IIGS over here?" The salesmans eyes lit up momentarily and my mom, who is often long winded ( in a good way) knew the pricetag on the IIGS and shot it down succincting with some variation of a 2 word answer...( Not now, uh uh, no way, No chance, umm No, Sorry, no). So it was justifiable that it had superior specs. Didn't Steve Jobs have a part in the lack of Success in the IIGS? My memory on this is apocryphal at best. But I recall that Wosniak was the champion of evolving the Apple II line further where as Jobs successfully pushed the vast majority of Apple's resources into Macintosh, eventually Wosniak got pushed aside. Could finding the proper chipset supply solution have happened if Jobs wasn't constantly throwning a wrench in Apple II operations?
The IIGS graphics are better than I was expecting. Near Amiga quality it seems, on some of the games anyway (the adventure ones in particular) The music on a few of them is so 80s too. Also didn’t realize quite so many games were available on the platform. As from what I understood, the IIGS was a bit of a flop. It was really a great looking micro though, as was the IIC.
It was pretty amazing, as was the sound for the time. I remember seeing my first one at a local computer store near campus. Just as I went it, it started up with its sales loop of "Hello, and welcome to the Apple IIGS" and was amazing. Unfortunately, I couldn't afford one or I would have gotten one. Some friends of mine had them and they were really nice for the non-Macintosh Apple computer lineup. I had the original //c and it served me very well my last year of high school and a couple years of college. I had an Apple ][+ before that and an MC-10 before that. Macintoshes were one of the "cool" machines but no way to afford them and Engineering in college needed x86 machines for a bunch of the software we had to run (PSPICE, various programming language compilers, etc.) So after my //c, I got an Atari ST (several friends had them) and I had friends with Amigas. I eventually had to get my first PC... 80386-40 because my projects were getting to be too much work to keep borrowing a friend's computer or spend time in the lab.
The most commonly used graphics mode was 16 color 320x200, so similar to Atari ST or DOS EGA. The most commonly used graphics mode on the Amiga at that time, in the USA, was 32 color 320x200. So, for example, CinemaWare games would usually by in 32 color on the Amiga but the 16 color ports would actually look pretty close to the originals. Things were different in PAL-land, where it was far more common for Amiga games to use fancy raster effects, dual layer graphics modes, and sprites for far more colors and flashy effects. Either way, few Amiga games took advantage of the 4096 color HAM mode, and the 64 color EHB mode wasn't used all that much. Commercial games also tended to not use high resolution or interlaced modes (thankfully a lot of PD games used them to great effect).
I was always fascinated about this machine as an ST user. It had so much potential, but the relatively low clock speed seemed to hamper it (so it wouldn't steal share from the Mac).
Shanghai is the only game I got to properly play on the iiGS ( computer lab teacher probably used educational as an excuse) The game based on Majuang ( but different maybe) at the 42 or 43 minute game. I remember the thing that was so impressive about the game was how crisp and precise the mouse controls were . I probably played Oregon Trail too on it, if i recall it was just slightly improved over the regular Apple II version. Like comparing a 2600 missile command or centipede with the 5200 version. You probably weren't missing much.
What's weird about the IIGS is the huge gulf in quality between games that were Just Apple II ports and the games that were clearly built from the ground up for the IIGS. Rastan is almost arcade perfect.
While the IIGS struggles with scrolling, it usually does fine when there's not too much stuff moving on screen. The Last Ninja, Lemmings, Warlock's Quest, and Arkanoid have fine frame rate. Also, Another World (Out of this World) had a fine frame rate, and also took advantage of the IIGS's excellent sound chip. The reason Another World (Out of this World) has excellent extra music and sound is because the far more popular SNES had the same CPU. Thus, they could afford to enhance the SNES version, and then that was ported to the IIGS.
How about no? Your comment is a waste of time because if you had expanded the description rather than complain you would have found the full games list 🙄
The most interesting thing about the IIGS was its weird unique graphics modes - high resolution with alternating palettes, and a mode that had color 0 "hold" the color to the left (very good for fast filled polygon graphics). It also used a semi-chunky bit layout rather than bitplanes, which made some things more efficient.
But we'd never find out the real potential of the IIGS because Western Design Center simply couldn't provide the 65C816 in the quality and quantity required.
In retrospect, choosing WDC as CPU supplier crippled the IIGS, and it ironically would have done better with a mere 2MHz chip supplied by Commodore. The C128 lacked impressive hardware, but it still sold well and brought in good profits. A hypothetical IIGS with a lowly 2MHz CPU would have been a little bit more sluggish, but it could have been sold in large numbers thanks to a reliable supplier, as well as brought to market sooner.
Really interesting info! I know very little about the Apple IIGS but I'm sure I'll do a deep dive on it some time in the future.
Rastan really shows what the computer can do. It's an almost arcade perfect port and absolutely amazing to see
With cheaper/more capable 16 bits already on the market (Amiga 1000,Atari St ,early Macintoshs) who would splurge a thousand on a "dead" 8 bit platform
@@jeremygregorio7472 I was thinking that too. I always thought Rastan was an ugly clunker on home ports. Also the port of Immortal looks absolutely great, better than the lowly Genesis/MD version.
Intersting details about the technical aspects. I only got my hands on it about 1 time per month in my Computer lab class in Junior High ( there was only one iiGS so we rotated seats each class, one kid got the IiGS and everyone else had 8 bit IiEs, being that they were fully compatable for the stuff we were working on, you could use the 51/4 inch drive to open your work from previous sessions on the iiE.
The IIGS was priced as a premium device, I recall when my parents and I went shopping and bought an Apple IIC setup, I kind of did a " hey mom what about this new IIGS over here?" The salesmans eyes lit up momentarily and my mom, who is often long winded ( in a good way) knew the pricetag on the IIGS and shot it down succincting with some variation of a 2 word answer...( Not now, uh uh, no way, No chance, umm No, Sorry, no). So it was justifiable that it had superior specs.
Didn't Steve Jobs have a part in the lack of Success in the IIGS? My memory on this is apocryphal at best. But I recall that Wosniak was the champion of evolving the Apple II line further where as Jobs successfully pushed the vast majority of Apple's resources into Macintosh, eventually Wosniak got pushed aside. Could finding the proper chipset supply solution have happened if Jobs wasn't constantly throwning a wrench in Apple II operations?
Would be nice if you put the names of the games in the video.
Yes, I have mentioned this before; some of the titles are hard to read or non existent l. I don't think it be too much hassle to add them.
A list pinned to the top of the comments with time stamps would do the job.
It would be nice if you expanded the description . . . . .
Or a list in the expanded description, that would be good too wouldn't it?
The IIGS graphics are better than I was expecting. Near Amiga quality it seems, on some of the games anyway (the adventure ones in particular) The music on a few of them is so 80s too. Also didn’t realize quite so many games were available on the platform. As from what I understood, the IIGS was a bit of a flop. It was really a great looking micro though, as was the IIC.
It was pretty amazing, as was the sound for the time. I remember seeing my first one at a local computer store near campus. Just as I went it, it started up with its sales loop of "Hello, and welcome to the Apple IIGS" and was amazing. Unfortunately, I couldn't afford one or I would have gotten one. Some friends of mine had them and they were really nice for the non-Macintosh Apple computer lineup.
I had the original //c and it served me very well my last year of high school and a couple years of college. I had an Apple ][+ before that and an MC-10 before that. Macintoshes were one of the "cool" machines but no way to afford them and Engineering in college needed x86 machines for a bunch of the software we had to run (PSPICE, various programming language compilers, etc.) So after my //c, I got an Atari ST (several friends had them) and I had friends with Amigas. I eventually had to get my first PC... 80386-40 because my projects were getting to be too much work to keep borrowing a friend's computer or spend time in the lab.
The most commonly used graphics mode was 16 color 320x200, so similar to Atari ST or DOS EGA. The most commonly used graphics mode on the Amiga at that time, in the USA, was 32 color 320x200. So, for example, CinemaWare games would usually by in 32 color on the Amiga but the 16 color ports would actually look pretty close to the originals.
Things were different in PAL-land, where it was far more common for Amiga games to use fancy raster effects, dual layer graphics modes, and sprites for far more colors and flashy effects.
Either way, few Amiga games took advantage of the 4096 color HAM mode, and the 64 color EHB mode wasn't used all that much.
Commercial games also tended to not use high resolution or interlaced modes (thankfully a lot of PD games used them to great effect).
IMO, the Apple IIGS is one of the most beautiful-looking home computer systems ever made.
I was always fascinated about this machine as an ST user. It had so much potential, but the relatively low clock speed seemed to hamper it (so it wouldn't steal share from the Mac).
Didn’t know the IIGS got a port of Dungeon Master. Neat.
@@MiriOhki yeah, neither did I. It really was a legit 16bit gaming computer and it could also take the whole AppleIi back catalog. Pretty cool.
Shanghai is the only game I got to properly play on the iiGS ( computer lab teacher probably used educational as an excuse) The game based on Majuang ( but different maybe) at the 42 or 43 minute game. I remember the thing that was so impressive about the game was how crisp and precise the mouse controls were . I probably played Oregon Trail too on it, if i recall it was just slightly improved over the regular Apple II version. Like comparing a 2600 missile command or centipede with the 5200 version. You probably weren't missing much.
What's weird about the IIGS is the huge gulf in quality between games that were Just Apple II ports and the games that were clearly built from the ground up for the IIGS. Rastan is almost arcade perfect.
If I didn't know better I would think I was looking at Amiga games .. some of these take advantage of the Ensoniq chip nicely.
Good Morning from teh Motor City!
4:50 - The only one with acceptable framerate.
While the IIGS struggles with scrolling, it usually does fine when there's not too much stuff moving on screen. The Last Ninja, Lemmings, Warlock's Quest, and Arkanoid have fine frame rate. Also, Another World (Out of this World) had a fine frame rate, and also took advantage of the IIGS's excellent sound chip.
The reason Another World (Out of this World) has excellent extra music and sound is because the far more popular SNES had the same CPU. Thus, they could afford to enhance the SNES version, and then that was ported to the IIGS.
Republish with the names of the games in the video (or at least in the comments). This is a waste of time otherwise.
How about no? Your comment is a waste of time because if you had expanded the description rather than complain you would have found the full games list 🙄
How are you this bad at every single game
I'm not playing them, they are Hyperspin clips
@TheLairdsLair a likely story
Not really, literally anyone can go to the Hyperspin Video Clips library and see for themselves.