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There has been an interesting discussion of how to convert Classic Macintosh Color to sRGB, which begs a second question. How does color on the IIgs compare to that of Classic Macintosh? I'm asking about actual hardware, the AppleColor RGB Monitor (IIgs) versus the AppleColor High-Resolution RGB (Macintosh) and it's successors. The IIgs is the question here as it has a number of additional display modes that makes it more compatible to the Macintosh than the other Apple IIs.

To clarify this is not a question about resolution or color modes on the IIgs versus the Macintosh. I'm well aware of the details of the 16 colors per line and pallet rules of the IIgs. I wrote a significant amount of software for Classic Macs that included intimate knowledge of how Quickdraw handled 4/8/16/32 bit color. This is a question about how the colors are displayed on the IIgs monitor versus on the Classic Macintosh monitor. Gamma, white-point, and color calibration play a huge role in colors you see on a CRT screen, as well as the actual phosphorus and the scan gun.

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  • Pedantically, as always: the IIgs was sold without a monitor, including optionally as a board upgrade for the IIe. So I dare imagine a decent proportion of Apple II upgraders, by any route, just brought their composite monitors along for the ride. So I think the title of this question isn’t entirely descriptive of the real question which seems to be specific monitor versus specific monitor.
    – Tommy
    Aug 3 at 3:39
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    @Tommy - the new colour modes on the IIgs were almost unusable on composite, and the AppleColor RGB monitor likely essential to get useful graphics output at all.
    – scruss
    Aug 3 at 14:23
  • @scruss if the new colour modes were unusable on composite then clearly Apple screwed something up hugely. Composite should be able to encode the entire panoply of colours, and is just about sufficient to make 320px-type modes workable — even in NTSC where bandwidth is lower. Especially for games, of which the IIgs has an appropriate number compared to its market penetration; Rastan, Lemmings, Wolfenstein 3d, Zany Golf, etc. Probably there's more in terms of entertainment software than productivity. That's off the point though: the question is about colour.
    – Tommy
    Aug 3 at 14:44
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    (as an aside: I can find no objective source re: number of users with different kinds of monitor though, so "one can see foresee endless reasons why someone might use a IIgs with a different monitor" is a comment only, and a suggestion for a potential tighter heading. Though it is interesting if the IIgs has some sort of terrible composite output for whatever reason, that would obviously be quite a detour versus the question)
    – Tommy
    Aug 3 at 14:49
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    Every IIgs I've ever seen has the AppleColor RGB Monitor, that's why its in the question. Macs used various monitors but the gamma and RGB settings were usual matched to the Apple ones.
    – Michael Shopsin
    Aug 3 at 17:59

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