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For Sale: The First Apple I
Foxman writes "It's got
no case and no hard drive. Still, a computer handmade by Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs
could fetch the most money ever paid for a personal computer.
The very first Apple computer is going on the auction
block. "
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Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
As I recall, noone ever designed a clone of the Apple II. [though there was one machine (Sorceror?) that had a 6502, z80, and 8088 (6?)) that could run apple, trs-80, and ms-dos software. It died when it could no longer run pc-dos software when programs starting using keyboard scan codes instead of ascii input].
Franklin and the others simply flat-out stole the apple design. Copied the ROM's, and usually the motherboard layout. Then, having saved on R&D costs, they undercut apple. In short, these weren't competitors, but thieves.
Also, this did *not* cause the Apple II to die. Apple finally pulled the plug because people wouldn't stop ordering them (and still, they made an emulation card for the LC). Each sale of a II put apple that much further behind the ms-dos machines. Yes, the II had a loyal following, but it was an anchor holding apple back from progress. They certainly could have sold more in the short term, at the expense of the long term prosepects for the mac.
As someone else pointed out, the II did not run at 2 but 1 mhz. The III ran at 2, and would drop to 1 for compatibility mode.
I'm not sure that all of the II's came with cases. The old purple manual was softbound, so I presume it came with the II. It was written with the assumption that the user would be supplying case and keyboard, and had instructions to connect these (and power supply, iirc). I believe that at least some of the boards shipped, and remained on the product list long after they could be ordered. I saw one once at Alltronics, in a blue wooden case--though I now wonder if it was an original and not a II.
He is probably the wealthiest grade school teacher in the area, then :)
:)
Sure, he's spent lots of his fortune. But the reported "loss" on the US concert included *buying* the land it was held on. Don't worry about him, he may be down to his last couple dozen million, but he'll be fine
Graphical [mumble] Machine
There was a mac prototype that used a 6809. They got quickdraw running at least somewhat, and had a bouncing ball on the screen. However, the bright idea of "a single bank of memory" meant that it would have 64kx8, or 64k of memory, and would lose a third to the video display. Thus the 68000 was brought in, for 64kx16 total memory [ I *wish* I was making this up!]
Could this have been the GLM?
I had a totally no-name pirate knock-off of the Apple II that I got in Singapore before Singapore had copyright laws. But it wasn't a cheap piece of crap, by any means -- it worked entirely too well and had these nifty-ass macro keys besides... you'd hit the macro key, and then another key on the keyboard, and the machine would spell out "RUN" or "PRINT" or "CALL-161" or whatever the macro key was bound to.
Crazy days. I loved that damn machine.
adr
Now there's something you don't find with computers anymore! When I had my Apple ][+, I had the joys of opening up the schematics and seeing the flow of hardware logic that the software controlled. It was beautiful and right down to each gate. Writing low level assembly was a breeze since I knew exactly what the computer was going to do when I exchanged bits on the ports. It was easy to write code without bugs, because all the information was there.
The schematics allowed some very inventive software to be written and helped cause an explosive growth of community. It was a hackers dream to toy with the internals and code.
I would gladly pay double for computer boards with schematics down to the programmable ports. Documentation makes hardware much more useful for me.
Quite the opposite! If I remember the first Apples were sold as a board. The Apple II had quite a durable case that allowed the computer to survive fire and any abuse. It was a solid computer from the enclosure to its core guts. It was simple and well designed. They still seem to fetch a high price tag. I hope to catch an Apple II surplus, because they do work well for what they do. The Apple II that I had only ran at 2MHz on its 6502 processor, but for simple things, one or two million instructions per second is fast. Screen updates were faster than a blink of an eye. I wrote some GUI environments that were mighty quick too. The only problem was that you could not write bloated code in less than 48K of memory. Which was a good thing.
I had the Apple ][+ (I never saw a plain ][) with a stock 2MHz crystal driving a Rockwell 6502 processor. I would later find out that processor was used in video games, such as Asteroids (my all time favorite!)
Some time ago, I relived my memories by finding an Apple ][e emulator for DOS and a stash of warez. I would be most happy if I stumbled upon an emulator for Linux!
The only problem I had with the emulator was that the games ran WAY TOO FAST! It was a joy to relive the experience of programming this simple, yet effective computer. I always wanted to see technology advance where the platform could get small enough where an Apple computer could fit in my pocket. Well, now I just got a Palm Pilot and hope they are easy to program just like the ][+...
$12,000 for the first 386 chip? Might not be a bad deal if you knew the price of transistors back in the early days cost $100 each.
The 386 had 250,000 transistors. So this would mean you are getting a damn good deal. Go for it!
Not a bad project, really. A cluster of Apples these days would make an excellent lab experiment. They are simple enough to trace what happens when they talk to eachother and compute a larger problem. It may be slow, but it would be a learning experience!
A mouse peeing on the power supply back in those days was a valid excuse for a computer failure. In my experience, it took some act of nature, like a squirrel jumping into the substation transformer to cause a computer to die.
Nowadays, people accept a computer not working for no reason at all. Its a damn shame. What used to be external causes or hardware failure can now be blamed on what was once solid, reliable logic. Now we have bloat running the majority of consumer's computers. So much for innovation and the billions people pay for the newer crap!
A few months ago, I read in the Wall Street Journal about a software developer's forum about making a profit was held in Silicon Valley. The main point was driven into the crowd that don't wait for perfection, but to release it and worry about bugfixes later. I was appauled that this seems to be common business practice. No pride.
It may sound crazy, but if you knew anything about graphics, you were a hit. In 1984, I was at La Jolla Jr. High in southern California. Apple ][+ computers filled a classroom. They were a great learning tools and those who knew how to do anything graphical, eye catching candy, were the first to be asked for help. Our teacher enjoyed the opportunity and encouraged us to learn. Computer classes were electives attended by both sexes and I have quite a notes and colorful kisses in my yearbook from helping those of the opposite sex.
No software?
A good starting point for Apple III software.
A good archive for Apple II software.
Eat your heart out this link.
Zaxxon? Castle Wolfenstien? I remember those! Email a copy to me, I will host them for you!
Old gems like those should never be allowed to die.
About making music on the Apple just by toggling a flip-flop for the speaker: it was incredible! I forgot exactly how to write those little programs, but it was about 22 lines of assembly (I knew all the hex codes and did it by hand!) involving a shift, xor, and a compare in a couple of loops. If I still had that Apple, I would be doing work writing sound effects. Unfortunately, I have not seen any pages on the art of making noise.
Using computers as matchmakers was the rave back in the 80's. The cool uses one could dream of... *sigh*
I'm not sure how you did it, but the only way I can think of distributing the load on simple computers, is to batch out parts of the job to others, and fetch the results and finish the job.
I once worked at one of the first computer stores in the Bay Area, what was originally the Byte Shop of Walnut Creek, but by the time I worked there had become Microsun computers. (Sort of an ironic name nowadays..) Anyway, I worked there in 1979, and the owner of the shop told me about the time that Jobs and Wozniak asked him for investment money for starting Apple. My boss was involved in the Homebrew Computing Club, and thats how he met the guys back then. He and his father went down to the famous garage to look at the machine, to see what their money (something like $10,000 to $30,000, I forget exact the amount) was going to buy. Jobs and Wozniak had the first Apple I prototype, but they could not get it to work at all - it crashed every time they tried to do anything at all with it. They spent the whole vening trying things, without any success. As a result, my boss and his father decided not to invest any money in it, because they thought it was never going to work. In 1979, my boss told me this story, kicking himself because even then he knew that he would have been a multi-millionaire. I can't imagine how much money he would have ended up with, but he certainly would have done quite well.
why are they selling it? :)
if i had one of those i'd still be using it
Actually, I think what when wrong with the "manufacturing process" is that Steve Jobs insisted that the machine wouldn't have a fan.
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Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
Actually the black Bell+Howell Apple ][ (while cool) were actually pretty common. I doubt that it's worth a lot more than a standard Apple ][
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Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
Ahhh, that brings back memories.
The GLM was a research prototype of a modular, slotted mac. There was a movement inside of Apple to create a slightly more open mac, a little bit cheaper, and to merge the best of the ][ line with the mac. The GLM was a small box which became the ][GS, a machine aimed at the K-12 market. The ][GS was an amazing machine, carefully crafted by the hardware hackers of 87-88. Unfortunately it didn't fit in with the philosophy of the time, and the development of GS tools and support was underfunded until the project died.
The best bits of the GLM became a project known as Reno, the mac with slots (the MacII).
And I've still got my Kim-1 and Syn-1 boards, but I haven't powered them up in years
the AntiCypher
Hemos is like...sci-fi fans;he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on
If I remember correctly, one of the early Apple boxes--might be the Apple I, maybe a little bit later--wanted you, as one of the inital installation steps, to actually:
"Lift the box to a height of 18-24 inches and then proceed to drop it to the ground. This will ensure proper setting of some internal components.
Ah, the good old days.
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