Apple IIGS discontinued December 1992

Last Updated on February 16, 2026 by Dave Farquhar

The Apple IIGS, released September 15, 1986 and discontinued December 4, 1992, was the last computer in the Apple II line. It’s machine that retro computer enthusiasts love to argue about. That’s appropriate, because the critics disagreed about the machine even when it was new.

What the Apple IIGS was

The Apple IIGS was a 16-bit Apple II that was mostly backwards compatible with the older models. It had a WDC 65C816 microprocessor, a 16-bit version of the 6502, running at 2.8 MHz. It also had 256 KB or 1 MB of RAM expandable to 8 MB, resolution and color similar to the Amiga and Atari ST, and a 32-channel Ensoniq wavetable synthesis chip designed by Bob Yannes, designer of Commodore’s SID chip. Bundled with a mouse, it is the first computer from Apple with a color graphical user interface and the Apple Desktop Bus interface for keyboards, mice, and other input devices. It cost $999 without a monitor at launch, equivalent to $2,940 in 2025 dollars.

The IIGS blurred the lines between the Apple II and Macintosh. Rumors of faster models persisted throughout the machine’s lifetime but never happened. After releasing the IIGS, Apple chose to focus its efforts on improving and promoting the Mac. A few smaller enhancements happened over the course of the machine’s lifetime. Apple doubled the RAM to 512 KB in 1988 and again to 1 MB in 1989. The IIGS also received two firmware updates during its lifetime. Apple ceased IIGS production on December 4, 1992. It sold about 1.25 million units total.

The Macintosh II, released about six months later, adopted the color GUI, Apple Desktop Bus, and expandability of the IIGS. In some ways, the IIGS acted as a proving ground for the Mac.

The dream machine

One thing that’s interesting about the IIGS is the mix of engineers who contributed to it. Steve Wozniak contributed, essentially creating what he would have created in 1977 if better technology had existed then. The CPU was the brainchild of Bill Mensch, one of the designers of the 6502 CPU used in the Apple II. The Ensoniq 5503 sound chip was designed by Commodore alumni Robert Yannes and Al Charpentier. It had 32 voices and was the same chip Ensoniq used in its Mirage and ESQ-1 pro audio synthesizers. It was so good, in 1989 Apple Records sued Apple Computer for violating its 1981 agreement to stay out of the music business.

The graphics capabilities were interesting too. It could display up to 3,200 colors at once in one of its modes, with limitations on where various colors could appear, similar to the Amiga’s 4,096-color Hold and Modify mode. It didn’t have sprites, so it was like an Atari ST with more color capability.

This was an Apple II with graphics in the same league as an ST at least, better sound than an ST or Amiga or anything else on the market at the time, and expansion capabilities. It was the CPU downclocked to a pokey 2.8 MHz that really held it back.

What the critics said

In October 1986, Nibble magazine published a gushing review of the IIGS. Author David Szetela called it “an incredibly fine computer, arguably the finest assemblage of chips and resistors ever soldered together.” While praising the price, backward compatibility, and calling it Steve Wozniak’s dream machine, it did concede the computer was significantly slower than a Mac.

The next month, Compute! said the IIGS “may be serious competition for the Commodore Amiga and the Atari ST series.” It described the IIGS’s graphics “as different as night and day” from the earlier Apple IIs and the Ensoniq 5503 digital synthezizer audio as “in a class by themselves.”

Writing in Byte’s January 1987 issue, Bruce Webster said the IIGS should have been released “a few years ago” and called it trailing-edge rather than leading-edge. The Amiga and Atari ST were faster, had larger software libraries, and cost less.

Gregg Keizer, writing in the November 1988 issue of Compute!, said, “no matter which way you cut it, the IIGS is slow” and that IIGS-specific programs could not keep up with user actions.

Apple’s decisions regarding the IIGS

The speed was a deliberate choice on Apple’s part. The 65816 used in the Apple II was rated for 4 MHz, but Apple clocked it at 2.8 MHz. During the development of the IIx, the machine that became the IIGS, Wozniak said a 65816 running at 8 MHz would outperform a 68000 running at 8 MHz. Clocking it at 2.8 MHz ensured it would be no faster than half the speed of a Mac. Faster variants of the CPU existed and third-party accelerators based on those existed to speed the IIGS up to 14 MHz and beyond. But those accelerators increased the price of an already expensive machine.

It didn’t help that Apple raised the price in September 1988. After the price increase, a IIGS with a color monitor, two disk drives, and a printer cost more than $3,000. By then, an Amiga 500 with a color monitor, two disk drives, 1 MB of RAM, and a printer cost around $1,700. The only improvement consumers received in exchange for the price increase was a bump in system memory to 512KB. Yet the Amiga, ST, and the typical PC clone had all decreased in price, added capability, or both during the same timeframe. Apple was never known for low prices, but at least the Mac line had also added capability at each price point during the same timeframe.

The Apple IIGS’ fate

Ultimately the IIGS suffered a similar fate as the Commodore 128, with a small selection of software using the machine’s enhanced capabilities, but most software treating it as a faster Apple IIe or IIc. Apple was slow to release a version of Appleworks designed to take advantage of the IIGS, releasing one in 1988 rather than at launch. And then when they did release one, it was buggy.

Most third parties took a cautious approach toward the IIGS. And without software to take full advantage of the new machine, there was less incentive to buy it.

The Apple IIGS would run existing Apple II software about twice as fast as an earlier model. But if you just wanted to run your existing software faster, you could get an accelerator card for one of the earlier models. All it did was speed up the processor, but it was cheaper. It’s understandable why at least some people wouldn’t want to pay extra for graphics and sound capability that sat idle most of the time.

Should Apple have promoted the IIgs instead of the Mac?

The Apple IIGS is an interesting machine, but everyone agrees it would have been and even more interesting machine if Apple hadn’t deliberately limited its capabilities. The point of disagreement is whether Apple made the right decision to limit its capabilities while putting most of its effort into further development of the Mac, or if they should have focused on making the Apple IIGS as good as possible, promoted it instead of the Mac, and migrated to another architecture at a later date.

I rarely turn down an opportunity to criticize Apple, but given the availability of 68020 and 68030 CPUs in the mid to late 1980s that could run at speeds up to 33 MHz, Apple had to build products using them to compete. Apple also needed low-end 68000 machines to support that line. So I understand why Apple didn’t make the IIGS too competitive with its lower-end 68000-based Macs. The comparatively cheap 68000-based Macs running Aldus Pagemaker helped Apple sell $10,000 Mac IIs and $3,500 Laserwriter printers.

What I don’t understand is why Apple didn’t at least use the Ensoniq 5503 sound chip in a Mac.

Dave Farquhar

David Farquhar is a computer security professional, entrepreneur, and author. He has written professionally about computers since 1991, so he was writing about retro computers when they were still new. He has been working in IT professionally since 1994 and has specialized in vulnerability management since 2013. He holds Security+ and CISSP certifications. Today he blogs five times a week, mostly about retro computers and retro gaming covering the time period from 1975 to 2000.