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Gene Roddenberry's Mac Plus Is Coming Up For Auction
Harry writes "In 1986, Apple unveiled one of the most popular Macintoshes ever, the Mac Plus. The company gave the first one (serial number #F4200NUM0001) to Star Trek's creator, Gene Roddenberry. And now this very Mac Plus will go up for auction at a Hollywood collectibles event on October 8th and 9th, complete with a letter of authenticity from Roddenberry's son. The estimated value is only $800-$1200, which seems reasonable enough, given its double historical significance." Any bets on how high the bidding will go?
Erm, no. Almost 18, not over 20.
The CB App. What's your 20?
I had a Mac Plus. It didn't have a drive. Just one floppy drive.
determined to be not as advertised
We've gotten several inquires about this by the fantastically loyal and knowledgeable Mac community. After further investigating the item, here's the information:
Firstly, this Macintosh was, indeed, presented to Gene Roddenberry by Apple. There is no doubt about this.
The conflict between the photo and the serial number is as follows. This computer, given by Apple to Mr. Roddenberry, is an early production Macintosh 128 (#776), which was then upgraded by Apple for Gene to a Macintosh Plus-thus the model number / serial number / panel that "belongs to" a Macintosh Plus. The 0001 led us to mistakenly believe that it was the first one off the line.
Again, the provenance of the item is perfect and it did belong to Mr. Roddenberry. I apologize for any confusion.
What are you guys talking about? Mac Pluses don't have hard disks.
Yeah maybe so but some of his stories like the The God Thing and other stories he couldn't finish or sell would be found. You will find that many authors get writer's block and if they have less than 50,000 words written on a book, they usually scrap it and start on a new different book. Writer's block is quite common, which I guess is why Roddenberry couldn't finish the God Thing story, but I guess he had enough of it written to keep it and try to pass it on to other writers to finish for him. So any deleted data would be books and movie scripts that got aborted due to writer's block and he had to quit them and give up and work on something different.
Oh yeah IIRC the Mac Plus didn't come with a hard drive, it used 3.5" floppy disks. It has a SCSI1 port to use an external hard drive and if it is not included with the auction you won't be recovering any data. The Mac Plus had no support for an internal hard drive like the Mac SE replacement had. I know as I have both a Mac Plus and Mac SE that I have worked on.
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Been out for a few years...
http://science.howstuffworks.com/transparent-aluminum-armor.htm
The data might still be there
Nope. The Mac Plus had no internal hard drive.
3 bars of gold pressed latinum.
Seriously, I don't see it as much other than a museum piece. Odds are if it still works, it won't for very much longer, leaving it a glorified vase, with toxic metals in it.
It does indeed. Did you know that the 128k Macintosh was the very first Macintosh model ever produced? The very first, I tell you!
Plugging the serial number into the Early Macintosh Serial decoder yields:
Your Macintosh 128 (M0001), with serial number F4200NUM0001, was the 776th manufactured during the 20th week of 1984 in Fremont, CA.
There's a few ways to restore or prevent the yellowing. I can't find the original page I saw before, but this has more information.
Of course nobody reads the FAQ! If people read the FAQ, the Questions wouldn't be so Frequently Asked.
The serial number and the pictures are of an original mac, not a plus. However, see what the auction house said:
We've gotten several inquires about this by the fantastically loyal and knowledgeable Mac community. After further investigating the item, here's the information:
Firstly, this Macintosh was, indeed, presented to Gene Roddenberry by Apple. There is no doubt about this.
The conflict between the photo and the serial number is as follows. This computer, given by Apple to Mr. Roddenberry, is an early production Macintosh 128 (#776), which was then upgraded by Apple for Gene to a Macintosh Plus-thus the model number / serial number / panel that "belongs to" a Macintosh Plus. The 0001 led us to mistakenly believe that it was the first one off the line.
Again, the provenance of the item is perfect and it did belong to Mr. Roddenberry. I apologize for any confusion.
take a look at the updated info:
http://www.tuaw.com/2009/09/17/heres-your-chance-to-own-the-first-mac-plus-off-the-production/
Not only did the Mac Plus not have a hard drive, the 800k floppy drive it did have was notoriously fickle and unreliable, often killing more than a few disks on its way to the hardware graveyard. When I had the chance to clean out (and keep whatever I wanted from) a storage container full of discarded educational hardware (mostly Macs from the Plus era up to the IIsi era), I learned very quickly that Pluses were pretty much a waste of time to haul home, especially when the modular-plug keyboard (this was pre-ADB) was dead as well.
I wonder if this is the same Mac that was used in the famous transparent aluminum scene in Star Trek 4 that Scotty was speaking with. I'm pretty sure that was a Mac Plus as well.
If you try any other similar serial numbers (ie F4200NUM0482) it says exactly the same thing as for 0001.
Me thinks the decoder is broken.