The Final Journey-ZipGSX
written by Paul T. Klenk

I'm the kind of person that gets excited during the holiday season.  This year I
was anxiously awaiting the arrival of a third ZipGSX board.  Tony from Zip
Technology had informed me that the most recent version, v1.02, had been shipped
to me on December 19, 1990.    I resigned myself to the fact that the board would
not be arriving prior to Christmas and realized that I'd have to remain patient.

The UPS truck appeared at my home on December 27th with the package from Zip
Technology.  "Well, here it is!" I thought aloud.  "Sure glad that I didn't
delete any of the Zip files from the hard drive."

Installing the board was a snap.  It should have been; this was my third
experience.  I made certain that the connector was fully seated in the slot that
held the original CPU.  In a few short minutes I was prepared to boot my IIGS. 
The telltale system beep sounded and the red thermometer appeared on the monitor
screen.  I could feel a few errant butterflys in my stomach as I paused for the
"Wings" launching screen to appear.

"Oh no," I sighed.  Those malignant blue and black rectangular shapes were
displayed on the screen.  I used the Zip software to alter the settings, but it
was to no avail.  I even went so far as to remove the InnerDrive and boot system
software v5.03 from the 3 1/2 inch drive, but I  just couldn't erase those nasty
"freckles."  I guess I needed to call either Tony or Steve at Zip.

I reached Steve almost immediately and described the symptoms.

"Well Paul, you've got our best product, "  Steve stated.

"Yes, I know, and you've been very helpful." I said.  "I suppose that I should
return the board to the dealer?"

"There's one more thing that you can try," said Steve.  He gave me some simple
directions for soldering a "jumper" in place at the T6 circuit.

I was willing to give this a try because I couldn't make matters any worse.  The
procedure was elementary, but it was not a remedy for my predicament. 
Ultimately, the ZipGSX was repackaged and shipped back to the dealer along with
an order for the Transwarp GS.

Parting Comments

News of the new ZipGSX board came to me during July of 1990.   At that time I was
using a Transwarp GS, but the thought of improvement was overpowering.  I sought
a buyer for the Transwarp and parted company with the device.  Unfortunately, 
the ZipGSX was not released until much later and I have not had a favorable
experience.  Is it Zip's fault?  No.  Is it my fault? No.

For some reason the ZipGSX boards just do not communicate properly with my
machine.  From what I've been told, this is probably an aberration.  Steve and
Tony from Zip Technology have been very helpful and coopertive, but they just
cannot deal with my situation without seeing my IIGS.  Living in Massachusetts
makes this virtually impossible.

If there are any other online members experiencing similar problems, then I'd
appreciate hearing from them via Email.  I sure that Tony and Steve would also
welcome such information.

Moral of the story: "If it ain't broken, don't fix it."

Paul Klenk... (Teacher pk)