Documentation Firmware 1.14 Back to Get one

Firmware 1.14 · Manual revision 5

CoGS Documentation

Two books cover the card. The Owner's Manual is for everyone who puts a CoGS card in an Apple II. The Technical Reference is for people who want to program against it, read the firmware, or understand the board. Both are rebuilt from the same sources as each firmware release, so the version on the cover is the version they describe.

Cover of the CoGS Owner's Manual

Owner's Manual

Installing and using the CoGS card

Putting the card in a slot, joining Wi-Fi or plugging in Ethernet, and the CoGS menu that comes up at power-on. Browsing and booting 1000+ disk images by category, mounting up to eight drives, playing songs and internet radio and viewing box art on a IIGS, and the CoGS Config desk accessory under GS/OS. A chapter on the CoGS Image Manager, the Mac app that shares your own disk images, audio, and pictures over your LAN with folders that become categories on the Apple. Firmware updates, troubleshooting, and specifications.

For every CoGS owner. No programming.

44 pages · PDF 4.1 MB · rev 5 · fw 1.14

Download PDF Read online
Cover of the CoGS Technical Reference

Technical Reference

Registers, protocol, firmware, and hardware

How the card works and how to talk to it. The bus interface and the sixteen-register map, the frame protocol, and a reference entry for every command and event with its payload. How the network disk streams and caches blocks, how the desk accessory and tool sets are injected into a running IIGS, and the bus timing rules host code must follow. Worked examples in 65816 assembly, ORCA/C, and cc65. The board, pin by pin, and the MAME emulator used to develop without a card in a slot.

For programmers, hardware people, and anyone building on the card.

69 pages · PDF 1.4 MB · rev 5 · fw 1.14

Download PDF Read online

How the code fits together

One picture of the whole project: the Apple II hosts on the left (the desk accessory, the Control Panel device, the 8-bit console, the slot ROM), the card in the middle (bus service, frame parser, dispatcher, network and disk engines), and the network and desktop pieces on the right, with the headless-first development loop along the bottom. Sized by lines of code, September 2026 snapshot.

CoGS code map: Apple II hosts, the card firmware, network and desktop pieces, and the development workflow, sized by lines of code

Click the map for the full-size image (6000 by 4000 PNG). Chapter 1 of the Technical Reference walks the same blocks in prose.

What is in each book

Owner's Manual

  1. Read This First
  2. Quick Start
  3. Installing the Card
  4. The CoGS Menu
  5. Disks
  6. Audio (IIGS)
  7. Pictures (IIGS)
  8. Using the Card from GS/OS
  9. Sharing Your Own Disks
  10. Updating the Firmware
  11. Troubleshooting
  12. Specifications

Technical Reference

  1. Architecture
  2. The Bus Interface
  3. Framing and the Command Protocol
  4. Command Reference
  5. Event Reference
  6. The Network Disk
  7. Desk Accessory and Tool Injection
  8. Bus Timing Rules
  9. Programming the Card
  10. Hardware
  11. The Emulator

The PDFs are plain, unlocked files: print them, search them, keep them on the Apple. The online editions are the same text as single pages. This edition describes firmware 1.14 (9/20/2026) and was built 2026-09-20.

Corrections and questions to [email protected].