Apple IIGS emulators
| |
| An Apple IIGS PC. | |
| Developer | Apple Computer, Inc. |
|---|---|
| Type | Computers |
| Release date | September 1986 |
| Discontinued | December 1992 |
| Predecessor | Apple II |
| Emulated | ✓ |
The Apple IIGS is a 16-bit PC produced by Apple Computer Inc. It was created to compete with the Amiga and the Atari ST lines of PCs.
Despite the Apple IIGS name, it is a completely different architecture. The system has a chip called the “Mega II” which is an Apple //e on a chip, making it fully backwards compatible with Apple ][ software.
It was the first machine from Apple to use the Apple Desktop Bus and the first to provide a colour version of QuickDraw since the first colour Macintosh was not available until 1987. However it does not provide a high-resolution square pixel mode.
Graphics Capabilities
In addition to RGB emulations of the existing Apple II artefact composite video modes, the IIgs adds 320x200 and 640x200 RGB colour modes; the former in various combinations of 16 colours per line and the latter at 4 colours per line (including a hardware dithering mode that acts a little like 16 colours per line). Hardware support is provided for changing palettes between lines.
There is also some support for 'fill mode', in which colour 0 means "repeat the last non-zero colour", designed to aid in fast single-colour fills.
Audio Capabilities
The IIGS comes with a 32-channel wavetable Ensoniq sound chip, which uses 64kb for samples.
Emulators
| Name | Operating system(s) | Latest version | Active | Recommended |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| KEGS | Multi-platform | 0.91 | ✗ | ✓ |
| GSplus | Multi-platform | 0.14 | ✓ | ~ |
| GSport | Multi-platform | 0.31 | ✗ | ✗ |
| MAME | Multi-platform | 0.289 | ✓ | ✗ |
