This Apple Accelerator is INSANE
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- Опубликовано: 29 июл 2022
- Today we're checking out the AppleSqueezer, a brand-new accelerator made by a passionate member of the Apple IIGS community. It uses the power of FPGA, along with a newer version of the IIGS processor, to propel the IIGS to unbelievable speed.
Oh, and it also adds an unbelievable 14mb of RAM!
🍎 AppleSqueezer GS: www.applesqueezer.com
🍎 Applefritter Thread: www.applefritter.com/content/...
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#Apple #IIGS #AppleSqueezer 
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Fun fact, the original processor used on the 2gs was rated for up to 20mhz. Apple nerfed it to under 3mhz to make the macintosh line sound more powerful with its 68k Moto processor. However, cycle for cycle the 2gs was more powerful, more expandable, better audio, better graphics, and cost less. Apple was the king of shooting themselves in the foot and still surviving…
It’s amazing to me that people are still developing addons for such an old system. My first computer was an Apple clone Laser 128 EX, and had some speed selector function through keyboard commands (or holding a number at startup). This little accelerator reminded me of that. A simpler time.
It's more that designing these kinds of things are much more possible by hobbyists: individuals and small teams than ever before. If you can design a PCB, you can have a fabrication company create a board and even assemble it and have it at your door in a few weeks. At least presently depending if you can get the chips. FPGAs power a lot of these things and they are really hard to get right now.
I liked the cut away gag, I can see the improvements in production are paying off.
Same
Got a genuine laugh out of that. Was pretty good!
You still might want to re-socket the cpu, using round machine pins stretches out the contacts on wiper-style sockets and makes them lose connection on chips. 👍
Dude writing stupid jokes immediately knew he was in trouble. More please 😄
i loved that.
Awesome video! I got the AS early on (Order #006!)... And as it turns out I had that early motherboard too. To make the AS fit, I replaced the DIP socket (the original was too loose) and desoldered the number pad/keyboard connectors. So, had random sound interrupt errors and worked with Niek on it. He was extremely responsive and supportive (in fact offering a refund multiple times, of which I refused). Fast forward to yesterday - he sent me an updated core to try out and it WORKS!... Sounds are no issue and the system is very stable. Well done Niek!
Ah awesome!!
I had to replace the socket too, but am still getting the sound interrupts as well as distorted sounds. The new test core for me seems to disable all Ensoniq sounds
Niek has been pretty good with trying to work a solution. We just need to figure out the variables between the different variations on the ROM 01 boards
@@lemonherb1 Interesting... I played synthLAB for about an hour without issue - the sounds were perfect. Played Tetris, Arkanoid, and a few other games and the sound was great. I have the DarkSound card.
@@glonch I don't think the stereo card is the variable as the distorted sounds also come through on the stock speaker.
I've tested three other ROM 01 boards, two were behaving fine, and one booted to the desktop good, but crashed as soon as I ran SynthLab. Clearly there are some differences between them. They all are the B version of the board, but have different versions of the VGC and Sound GLU
@@lemonherb1 Makes sense
What you have there is the Apple II GS that Apple could have made, but never would have in a million years, because it would have competed well against the Mac.
Fast forward to 2022, and Mac is a small, minority platform. Only 8% market share.
Intel Alder Lake and AMD Ryzen, running Windows 10, rule the world now.
@@DerekDavis213 Since people tend to keep their Macs for longer than their Windows PCs, market share (of sales) is not an accurate indicator of installed base. Browser statistics are better: looking just at desktop OSes, macOS has about 19% share.
@@tookitogo 19% share ? So about 1-in-5 people on Planet Earth are using a Mac? LOL! Don't be ridiculous!
Windows has a *HUGE* software base, and is the world leader for gaming.
A Windows PC offers *FAR* better price vs performance, compared to any Mac.
Windows machines are easily upgraded with more RAM, larger and faster SSD, and the latest monster video cards from NVidia or AMD. Mac is locked-down, dead-end, a disposable computer. Mac has very little quality native software.
Mac now uses M1, a processor from a cell phone. Mac can *no* *longer* run Windows software with near 100% compatibility. That makes M1 Macs totally inferior to Intel-based Macs.
@@DerekDavis213 Are you illiterate? I said 19% desktop (i.e. windows and Mac and Linux) browser share, which is a good indicator of installed base. I didn’t say anything about the percentage of humans using a Mac.
As for the rest, blah blah blah… different people care about different aspects of a product. If everyone cared about the same things as you, 100% of computer owners would have Windows PCs. The fact that nearly 20% chose Macs instead means there’s a significant number of people who care about other things - like battery life or smooth integration - more than you do.
@@DerekDavis213 As for the other nonsense you spewed:
“Slower SSDs” - Nope, not correct.
“Price vs performance” - the cheaper M1 Macs wipe the floor with comparably priced PCs
“Little high quality native software” - you have ZERO idea what you’re talking about. Yes, there’s more programs for windows in absolute numbers, but the quality often sucks. The higher quality of Mac software is one of the reasons I prefer that platform.
The reason the internal keyboard doesn't work is probably because Wolf3D uses a special direct ADB-chip hack to allow simultaneous keypresses. Maybe the //e keyboard header doesn't contain the signals or has some other reduced functionality compared to ADB. If you have Out of This World, that uses the same hack (pioneered by Burger Becky). See if that also doesn't work. Sorry about your CFFA! You really need that to work :)
ah interesting, thanks!
It's not just that the keyboard can't do simultaneous presses, it can't do key-up events at all. It's basically the same keyboard interface as the original Apple II keyboard back in the late 1970s. On old Apple II games you'd see this all the time, you'd press a key once to start moving, and then again to stop - because the software had no way to detect when you released a key after holding it down.
The cutaway jokes are great, as is the tshirt! What a cool accelerator card.
I've really loved watching your videos evolve, the stupid jokes kill me and I'm kinda glad you're leaning into them! Keep up the great vids
Justice For Tuvix! Is there a petition somewhere I can sign??
I was a LONG time IIgs user. It was my main everyday home computer, not a museum piece. Used both the ZipGS and Transwarp accelerators, don’t remember speeds. I seem to recall Zip was a bit slower but less finicky. I should dig it out of the closet to see if it still works, although might be a problem because CRT display died (and it’s not a standard display). Cool that people are still creating (and buying) new products for it.
I've quite enjoyed watching your presentation evolve. More stupid jokes please
This!! Stupid jokes 4eva 😂
Thx for the demo, I also would like to thank Mr Wozniak, my father bought his first computer an Apple II+, then I purchased an Apple IIGS when available during the 80's. I miss this computer, was a great fun with all the french programmers in Bordeaux ( France ) and all the demos made to show Apple that the IIGS was truly an amazing machine. I still work in the IT industry and I can thank this machine which help me to get more than a foot in the market. IIGS for ever ! Steve Jobs made several mistake, clearly the IIGS was one of it, they should have merge the Apple II and the Macintosh line, and probably history could have been different !
Good to see! The Amiga retro scene has huge FPGA support and numerous cards. Been waiting for the Apple side of retro to get some lovings!
Great video today. I have an idea for a future video. Have you considered dropping a PiStorm in a 68K Mac as an accelerator? I've seen a lot of Amiga videos about it, but a quick search indicates that it will work in a Mac, just without some of the special features. Keep up the good work!
Wow, now that's an extreme upgrade!
That function is still very early in getting to work correctly. Memory Maps are mostly complete, and really the boot process is very touch and go still for Pistorm. I have a Mac SE with a newly socketed 68k socket to work on this with my PiStorm and Buffee replacements. BOTH are "sorta" working projects in the mac. PiStorm is great on the Amiga 500 however with some caveats due to DMA and interrupts still being an issue on the Amiga platform.
It's really cool to see people doing all this stuff with old computer tech. My mom used an Apple II for her masters degree, since it was easier to build/code custom peripherals for educational use. somewhere I think we still have the box of floppies that hold the programs and documents for that.
One of my favorite channels. I only sub to a couple and you are one of them. I have purchased several vintage Macs because of your channel and how much fun you have. Thank you and continued success!
Mine is on pre-order... in particular I want to play Out of This World at max resolution. Oh, and use AppleWorks GS at a workable speed haha.
Brilliant video. I just had to put in a pre-order, can’t wait to supercharge my iigs!
You had the headroom, you should have increased the view size in wolf3d.
if i'm not mistaken, i don't think the iigs version has the full menu
Thanks for the video! I was curious about this!
now imagine if we got these machines running at 1 to 5ghz
If the IIgs CPU ran at 5GHz, its video memory would still be hobbled at a pathetic 1MHz on an 8-bit data bus.
your intro made me giggle your an awesome youtuber i found you during covid and what you do to these old apple machines are fascinating keep up the
good work!
Thanks that means a lot!
It's interesting that some of the keyboard keys are not working in Wolfenstein 3D with your IIGS motherboard and the Apple IIe keyboard, especially since that header on the early IIgs boards is a factory deal. Have you confirmed the keys work with other software? With your CFFA 3000, maybe you need to reflash the firmware to get it working properly? As for the rest of your video, pretty cool! I hope the chip shortages go away sooner verses later. There are a lot of cool pieces of hardware I want to get but can't at the moment. Boo!
Hah, someone elsewhere in the comments mentioned that Wolf3D uses some weird ADB chip hack for better simultaneous keypresses!
Oh man, another great shirt! Justice for Tuvix! I totally remember that Voyager episode, and it was very conflicting, as were many Star Trek episodes from the various series.
Just found your videos. Loving your content. It's awesome, the things that can be done with the power of FPGAs nowadays by talented enthusiasts! I hope you haven't been jumped on repeatedly for this, but I just wanted to politely point out that "Xilinx" is pronounced like "ZYE-links", the "zye" part rhyming with "rye" or "high" or "by". 😻
Very nice! Yes, keep up the shenanigans. We must have more shenanigans.
Always great videos!
This was epic! I've always had a fondness for retro computing, as I grew up on the IBM XT and later the 386 (which I upgraded to a 486 -- woohoo!), and while I wasn't fond of Macs when I was younger, I've developed an appreciation for them through your channel and the 8-Bit Guy. Seeing such a limited computer roided up like that was super awesome!
This is an Apple IIGS, not a Mac. Apple II's are cooler than Macs. Have you checked out the Amiga, Atari ST, Atari HCS 8-bits, and C64/128?
Your Chanel brings back so many memories of when I had a gaggle of Macintosh computers. I had just about every model. I threw them all away one day when I had to move. 🤦🏻♂️♥️
I like that computers are becoming more like cars in the sense that something from the 1980s is still getting performance parts.
Do I NEED to overclock a IIgs? No
Do I need to supe up a Chevette? No
But damn it's fun!
It may have been a dumb joke, but the cutaway gag was perfect.
my first computer when i was a kid was an old used apple IIe. Back then i had a blast with it.
That intro is one of your best!
Good to see the IIGS get some love.
I just watched this whole video and I just noticed what your shirt says. 😂 I love it!
Man I've seen a couple of your vids. In reality I never used a commodore or had any Atari but grew up with a apple ii at school and later got one for free from school in 7th grade when they were finally phased out( I went to a small Catholic school so this was 96-97) I've been watching all these guys with their commodores and everything, anyway to get to the point dude your awesome lol good show, making me want to go to my mom's and see if I can't find my aii I think it's called a c? Been a long time, was the streamline ii. I know that's not a iigs but growing up I thought the iigs was and would always be out of my price range. Such a underated computer, we also had a few of those too
I was hoping you'd cover this! I've been looking to get it for months. It gets sold out in minutes.
I got one of these, but the friend I loaned it to loves it so much on his IIGSthat I haven't even had a chance to see it in action yet! ;-)
The shirt made me smile. Thanks for leaving little Easter eggs in your videos! :-)
Wow! It's fantastic seeing what the IIgs could have been with a fast processor.
I wonder if a software keyboard translator program could fix the keyboard issue with wolf 3D. You've certainly got the memory for it now. 😂 I'm also curious if that fpga is powerful enough to emulate the cpu as well so you wouldn't need a real one alongside it. I know it goes against using the original hardware at that point but I'm still curious.
great video!!
My revision ROM 01 is the same as yours. I just had to populate they keyboard header for my own clear "Not So Stealth IIGS"
But from the get go I had issues with the AppleSqueezer, and I think it's primarily due to the stock CPU socket on my GS. I'm going to see if I can dig up a dual wipe 40 pin dip socket to use as a 'riser' like you have to see if that will work. But I suspect I'll have to replace the socket all together.
I did run the AppleSqueezer on a ROM 3 without issue, but that one already had the CPU socket replaced with a machine socket years ago.
Just a bit of a followup on my AppleSqueezer problems. It ends up that it has problems with two of my ROM 01 boards. And interestingly enough both were assembled in January 1987. The date stamp is near the PSU that has a four digit code. The first two indicate the year, and the last two indicate the month. I've sent both these boards to Niek to test and develop a solution for, so I suspect that full compatibility with ROM 01's will be forth coming.
Mario 1 with Thing on a Spring music is something.
Your use of Wolfenstein 3D to test the processor performance in your Apple II reminds me of how I'd use Half-Life 2 to test graphics cards in my 2008 Mac Pro.
The cl_showfps command is actually a great tool for benchmarking graphics cards.
When I take apart two components that are stuck together, I usually put a sharpie mark on one corner to make sure they get back together correctly.
Also, have you thought of replacing the socket on the board by a ZIF socket? They are perfect for switching stuff around without breaking anything.
Good suggestion ! I did change the socket on my side, but simply because the original one could not retain the Squeezer...
That is some impressive hardware. The performance gains reminds me of the computer I built right after high school that started life as a Walmart special. I managed to take an old Celeron CPU clocked at 700 MHz and push it and the front side bus up to 1.0 GHz before it became unstable. The front side bus was clocked 100 MHz and managed to get it up to 133. Used a 8000 RPM fan and copper heatsink to keep that overclocked CPU nice and cool. This is during when Windows XP was king and vista development had yet to reset. My graphics card was some NVidia card with 128 MB of ram with dual VGA and used a matching set of 17 inch CRT monitors to round the project off. Some time later upgraded to 5.1 surround sound and used not only Creative for my sound card but speakers as well as they were on clearance at the time. That machine would quickly become irrelevant years later as the Pentium 4 got faster, better, and actual dual cores. Oddly enough my next computer would end up being a Toshiba laptop from 2009 built with gaming and vista requirements in mind. I'm one of the lucky people who got to experience vista for how it should have worked in the eyes of Microsoft.
The IIgs will outlive it's demisor for years to come until the electronic will fade away. Impressive Wozniak !
I just LOOOOVE this guy!
Where did you get that clear shelf being used as a monitor stand? That is exactly what I need!
I wish such a thing was possible for the C64. Yes, I know about the SuperCPU but they're as rare as hen's teeth and cost thousands of dollars when they show up for sale.
Such an awesome machine!😊
I came for the Apple Shenanigans and stayed for the IIgs tech talk.
Make the screen size bigger on Wolfenstein…. The key combo to do this are in the readme.
Thats pretty increditbale Sean Like the fact that is small but powerful
It’s nice to see new things made for the gs. I notice you didn’t have or try the transwarp. A transwarp will do the same or better tho.
This man is a treasure and we must protect him.
Is it for windows only? How Can I use it on my mac?
where did you get the transparent monitor stand?
What would be for you the best accelerator for apple iic? Thank you!
0:21, I literally lost it, well played😂
Its a QMTech FPGA board! I've got loads of those, it was the cheapest Spartan 6 board with DDR RAM that I could find.
Papilio Duo is another.
I love your shirt! Justice for Tuvix indeed!
Those risers alone can be enough to cause some serious issues. The round machine pins also tend to stretch out the regular cpu socket
Semi related, have you done any looking into Pistorm and compatibility with 68k macs? I’ve seen a couple videos of people working on it.
The "bad joke writer" is like Jeff Gerling's "Red Shirt Jeff".
The main issue here is the same as for SUperCPU C64 accelerator. It still has to keep the video ram in the old slow memory of 2.8Mhz, because video chip can access it only there. So every time the new cpu has to write to video ram, it slows down to 2.8. With applications that do a massive transfer to vram, such as Wolfenstein, it seriously impedes performance.
Lol, really enjoyed those dad jokes!
Lol at the shirt. Not a big lover of Voyager compared to the other shows, however that particular episode raised some really interesting ethical and moral questions.
Remember, four dots, back notch
The Control Panel needed can be downloaded, but how do I get it to a floppy so I can add it to GS/OS?
You really *NEED* that clear keyboard and a clear monitor case...
7:00 - "It's not... *too* bad..."
The Apple IIgs experience in a nutshell
This is crazy cool !!! :D
Now you need a transparent Monitor Casing and also one for the Trackball, too.
Does this work on an Apple IIe or this is running on a GS-modded Apple II?
I really wanted one of those, but the DMA issues were too much for me. I already have a TransWarpGS (the Reactive Micro rebuild), a VidHD and a MicroDrive Turbo, and while the TransWarp isn't the most stable solution, I don't think I could do without the VidHD or the MicroDrive at this point.
It's funny that one of the boards is a "Spartan" considering there was once a Apple 2+ device for the Commodore 64 that was called the "Mimic Systems Spartan"! ;-)
This is the platform apple should've go with instead of the macintosh! Apple would be where they are today for sure, but their journey would've been so much better! The macintosh was a bad investment if you look at the 2GS!
Have you tried refreshing the CFFA3K's firmware? My CFFA3K died last fall, but a refresh restored it's functionality.
Very cool
17:33 - "I usually give up by this point because it's so slow. But look at how fast it is on this machine."
Yup, you accelerate a IIgs fast enough, and it'll be more or less adequate for playing games designed for the Famicom.
I love the cutaway's, 🤣
If I were to compare the apple squeezer looks to automotive parts, I'd compare it to the horribly restrictive lunchbox airfilter.
I once thought you were going to perform a PPAP at the beginning 😆
What trackball is that
Thanks for a peak into a world where the 6502 was king.
🤔...gs is gallagher shenanigans for all your shameless apple juice needs
Don't worry about making dad jokes, many of us follow Perifractic too.
What would be cool is a daughterboard for the keyboard that turned it into an ADB device … it'd require mods to the motherboard to install such a beastie, but it'd make the IIe keyboard properly ADB on one hand and make the stealth IIgs idea work on a ROM3 IIgs board. I have considered this before but … I only have one ROM3 board (and actually, only the ROM3 board at this point) so … I'm not going to be the one to experiment.
Can you run a screensaver on that Mac?
I would love to see a 68060@100mhz or like a vampire card running in a 68k mac. I think it could work with a lot of effort, but it would definitely be cool.
Yes!
YES
took me about 8 months of getting one too, sucks lol but finally got one
Could you do a post how to configure a browser with uternet2 card?
i almost laugh choked with the bad jokes editor
also if you could maybe make a video of attempting to fix that cfa3000
Wait, the apple squeezer plugs into the standard slot that the original processor chip slotted into correct? Couldn't it be slotted (ishh as you'd have to run a set of wires to the card) into the zip 2gs card? What would happen I wonder?
I think the big socket on the Zip2GS card is only for safekeeping your original CPU. It's not connected to anything.
@@owaing that’s kinda an oddity…
@@mizinoinovermyhead.7523 I guess they thought that without that, people would just leave their original CPU loose somewhere and it would get lost, or damaged by static. The ZipGS manual just calls it a 'storage area' for the original CPU.
I don't have the Apple II version of Wolf 3d, but every other version allows the choice of resolutions. I was hoping the Apple Squeezer was going to allow it to be played at a normal size.