The Magic Voice was supported by only a handful of cartridges, so it’s not really worth trying to acquire as anything more than a novelty. Nevertheless, it’s a fairly interesting add-on and can operate both on its own by issuing BASIC programming language speech commands or by inserting a compatible cartridge (like Gorf). You need to send the audio output from your Commodore 64 to the audio input of the Magic Voice, then the audio output of the Magic Voice to your display. Unfortunately, it’s purely a mono transaction on the Magic Voice side, but the sound quality is still good enough. My particular chain went from a Commodore 64 stereo S-VIDEO cable to both the Magic Voice and the XRGB-mini Framemeister, which went to my capture device and monitor. Enjoy the video and be sure to check out the photos that follow (note that for the video, but not the photos, I plugged the other audio channel into the Framemeister, so you should hear stereo (or at least two channels of audio)):

The Gorf and Magic Voice boxes.

The unit from the side.

Running Gorf.

Running Gorf.

Running Gorf.

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After a quick monitor adjustment, success.

On a side note, I’m not sure where I placed my IIGS mouse, and wasn’t about to tear my basement apart looking for it (it’s torn up enough at the moment), so that’s why I have the two ADB trackballs plugged into the Apple ADB keyboard (daisy chaining multiple keyboards and mice/trackballs was always a nice IIGS feature).

One of the first tests I did was with Nishida Radio‘s (pity he’s retired due to illness) component video adapter board. It’s a small board that plugs directly into the IIGS’s RGB port and provides near RGB quality video on the relatively common component video standard (Apple IIGS sound is normally piped through its internal speaker unless you make use of the headphone jack). I’ll show you a video later, but for now, here’s a quick photo of Shanghai running:

Apple IIGS outputting component video.

Once I confirmed I had a working setup, it was time to take my IIGS apart so I could prepare for the upgrades:

The inside of a stock Apple IIGS.

Removing the case cover is relatively easy, with just two clips to push in on the side as you lift, though of course mine was still a bit difficult to get off. Since my ROM 01 IIGS is stock, inside was a RAM card that was only partially populated. While I did have a fully populated original Apple card ready to go, I had something even better waiting to go in:

Three Apple IIGS RAM cards. The top is the original Apple fully populated RAM card (1MB). To the left is the same type of card (partially populated) that was in my IIGS. To the right is the newly manufactured Briel option, with a full 4MB of RAM. The choice was obvious.

Since the IIGS has a dedicated RAM card slot, it was easy enough to replace what was in there with the Briel Computers 4MB card. It’s smaller and obviously far exceeds the 1MB limit of the original Apple card. While you can get cards that go all the way up to 8MB, it presents some challenges, and 4MB is really all you need for the vast majority of everything you’d ever want to do on a IIGS anyway.

The 4MB card was obviously easy to pop in.

It’s always nice for something to work on the first try and without any additional configuration:

4MB RAM confirmed.

Now, obviously what was missing here was a good flash-based solution. Luckily, I had two CFFA3000 cards on hand to try. I have a v2.0 unit that just has a compact flash slot, as well as a revision C unit with compact flash slot, USB slot, and a remote control option (which I also have). The choice again was obvious, particularly since the v2.0 unit takes a lot more work to get going.

I stuck a 1GB compact flash card in my computer, put in the latest firmware for the CFFA3000 on the card, as well as the IIGS hard drive image for KABOOM!, the game which I’m reviewing for the next issue of Juiced.GS, and whose 2MB RAM requirement “forced” me to upgrade now, and I was in business. I put that card in the CFFA3000 and then insert the CFFA3000 in slot 7 on my IIGS. Once the CFFA3000 menu appeared on boot, I let it do its firmware upgrade. Once that was done, I then told it to boot to the KABOOM! hard drive image:

KABOOM! title screen on the IIGS. This is a direct video capture over component.

Now, I’m not going to go into KABOOM! here since you’ll have to read the next issue of Juiced.GS for that, but, as you can see in the image above, everything worked just fine. I did, however, do some additional testing, and that was try to load arcade conversion Rastan, considered one of the IIGS’s best games, off a USB drive via the CFFA3000. I’ll have a video of that a bit further down, but as you can see here, that also worked fine:

Rastan running off a USB drive via the CFFA3000.

Note the tangle of joysticks in the photo above. Joysticks tend to be the bane of my existence on Apple II systems. The only joystick I’ve ever had a consistently good experience with on the Apple II side is the pictured Kraft joystick. Other joysticks I’ve tried have trouble with the analog adjustments or use of both buttons, or something else annoying. The Kraft on the other hand requires minimal fiddling, feels great, and both buttons always work. Of course the classic Kraft has the old style motherboard controller connector designed for older Apple II systems, so I did need a simple adapter:

Adapting to the 9 pin port on the IIGS.

As you can see in the photo, it looks like something of a mess, but since I already had been using it on my Apple IIe Platinum, I knew it would work. Luckily, it also allowed for the needed two buttons on Rastan and once again proved why the Kraft is the one to get.

What follows is that quick video I took. Once again this is with component video out on the RGB port, going into an XRGB-mini Framemeister and then an AverMedia Live Gamer Portable capture device. The IIGS audio, which normally plays on the internal speaker is being routed through the IIGS headphone jack and straight into the AverMedia Live Gamer Portable:

So that about wraps it up for now. The only notable upgrade I’m missing for my IIGS is an accelerator, but that’s easier said than done, much like the nice-to-have stereo sound card.

The post A quick look at utilizing Apple IIGS upgrades (photos and video) appeared first on Armchair Arcade.

This was actually the first time I took the Sord M5 out of the box. As you can see from the photos, it’s quite diminutive. While this was primarily a Japanese computer and was never released in the US, I have the European version with English instructions, which I got off of an Italian gentleman. You can look at the photos for this blog post here:

As a first-time user, one thing I noted right away about the machine was that despite being a vintage-style chiclet keyboard, meaning “it’s almost certainly awful,” it’s actually fairly responsive as such things go. What does qualify as “awful” though was the decision to put the spacebar (or space button in this case) where you usually find a Return or Enter key. The other quirk of the machine is that there’s no built-in BASIC interpreter. You need some type of cartridge plugged into the machine to make it do something. It comes with BASIC-I, which is a simplified integer BASIC (also in the box was a baseball and shooting game on cassette, which I didn’t bother to load up). I also purchased from a UK seller a separate BASIC-G (which had no cartridge shell from the factory), which is a game-centric BASIC.

In any case, the voltage is 220v, so I used my usual step-up/down power converter to take care of that. As for audio/video output, the Sord M5 has both RF out and discrete composite video and mono audio outputs. Naturally, I used the composite outputs and ran those straight to the back of the 1084S and then to the front of the Framemeister.

While the 1084S displayed a sharp picture (again, as you can see in the photos), it did so in black and white. I had a similar problem with my Australian Dick Smith Wizzard (a rebadged CreatiVision) on various displays, which was only solved by using my 13″ Sharp world TV (CRT). I didn’t bother to try that here, though.

The Framemeister looked pretty good using the same settings I used on the Adam (NATURAL picture, STANDARD aspect ratio, 1080p/60 output), save for one thing. Here’s some video  (again, captured at only 720p from the 1080p/60 output) of me entering in (poorly) a simple BASIC-G program:

As you’ll note from the video, there were odd colored lines on the extreme left of the picture that weren’t present on the 1084S. Clearly, it’s some type of overscan/underscan-type thing. It’s by no means a deal breaker, as it showed color where the 10804S didn’t, but it is frustrating I couldn’t get that out of the output. In any case, although the Sharp world TV may prove the best option, using the Framemeister for this system is a viable alternative.

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There are actually two ways to get composite output from the Coleco Adam. One is the Adam’s MONITOR port, which does composite video using a single composite cable, and the other is the Adam’s AUX VIDEO port (DIN), which is using a fairly standard monitor cable to output composite video and mono audio. The nice thing about these options is that both can be used at the same time, which is how I was able to get the side-by-side photos. In the future, I’ll be doing direct video captures, but for these initial tests I’ll just be doing quick iPhone photos. While this is not an ideal way of showing output on a CRT thanks to the way that technology displays images (accounting for darkness and/or lines in photos that are not present when viewing it live), it should still give a general sense of the comparative quality.

Coleco Adam SmartWriter. XRGB-mini Framemeister on a Sony PlayStation 3D display on the left, and a Commodore 1084S-P on the right.

The monitor cable I’m using with the Adam is a fairly low quality five pin model, with composite video and audio. The latter is “stereo” in that the mono audio signal is split/mirrored on both connectors. I plugged that into the front of the XRGB-mini. The output from the XRGB-mini was sent via HDMI to the PlayStation 3D display on its first input.

Coleco Adam BurgerTime. XRGB-mini Framemeister on a Sony PlayStation 3D display on the left, and a Commodore 1084S-P on the right.

In this case, after trying nearly every possible configuration option, I found the most pleasing settings on the XRGB-mini to be NATURAL for the Processing Mode with STANDARD aspect ratio. BRIGHTNESS was set to 19, which allowed the black levels to match that of the PlayStation 3D display. The PlayStation 3D display was set to STANDARD mode with all default settings. Both the XRGB-mini and PlayStation 3D display were set to output and receive 1920x1080p/60 resolution/frame rate, respectively.

Coleco Adam EOS menu. XRGB-mini Framemeister on a Sony PlayStation 3D display on the left, and a Commodore 1084S-P on the right.

A single composite video cable went from the Adam’s MONITOR port to the rear of the 1084S-P. In theory, the XRGB-mini is taking the raw video output and only doing minimal color processing, so I used the PlayStation 3D display to help calibrate the colors on the 1084S-P, which is more susceptible to the vagaries of the classic NTSC standard.

Coleco Adam SmartBASIC. XRGB-mini Framemeister on a Sony PlayStation 3D display on the left, and a Commodore 1084S-P on the right.

As you can tell from the photos, with those settings, the XRGB-mini is a close match to the 1084S-P. While the color saturation (though not necessarily the actual colors) and black levels were naturally better on the 1084S-P, unless you’re doing a direct comparison, the XRGB-mini paired with the PlayStation 3D display proves a worthy modern day alternative.

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