Re: What is the Apple ][x

[cturley2@aol.com (Cturley2)]

Here's another interesting IIx tidbit about how SSII and others obtained their
IIx (Mark Twain's) you might like to read.  It's an email from the fellow who
furnisah it to Joe Kohn.

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Date: Thu, 9 May 1996 12:41:44 -0700 (PDT) X-Sender: mac@mail.wco.com
Mime-Version: 1.0 To: gbmaidsf@wco.com From: mac@wco.com (Ray McAnally)
Subject:
Re: Mark Twain Cc: joko@crl.com

>Thanks for the reply Ray,

>I understand about lack of time, only to well. What type of job do you have?
What are your current machines that you use? How did you first see and or have
use of a Mark Twain?

I came into possession of 2.5 machines from a member of our group. In return
for
being able to keep one of them, I repaired multiple problems on the 2 complete
machines and provided a Fully functional ROM 01 in return. I later replaced the
ROM 01 for 40 bucks, so I guess you could say I got the mark twain for 40 bucks
and about 4 hours of work. There was no interesting software on the internal
drives except for a beta of AppleWorks GS that later became version 1.1. I
later
traded the Mark Twain for a Macintosh Centris 610 system. Joe got his by
trading
a 486 system that was given to him by a friend. So the original owner ended up
with a fully functional ROM 01 GS and a 486 IBM clone. Worked out well for all
concerned. I made sure that the machine that Joe got was the one that was
repaired the best. All features function and I had no crashes with it. I was
however unable to test the sound input function as I had no software at the
time.
According to the numbers on the machines, we've been able to determine that at
least 20 machines were produced. 10 of which were definitely crushed at Apple.
5
were with one researher at the time of her resignation from Apple, and our 2.5
machines came from her in a round about way. (She left them behind after a
divorce and the husband gave them away.) Our member got 2.5 and the SF trash
people got the other 3 complete ones.

Upon opening the case, I discovered that there were only 5 slots. Slots 5 and 7
being mapped to the internal drives. The machine had a Quantum LPS 40 meg drive
mounted under the floppy at the front of the case. The case was a hack job
rather
then any sort of production run. The back of the case was cut to acommidate a
new
type of power suppy that I found to be under powered for its job. Also, it
contained a fan, something that Apple never included in the // series. Even the
Macs never had one until the SE. The supports for the drives and the
motherboard
were fabricated from metal that had an unfinished look to them. It was a real
bitch to disassemble the whole thing. I needed to replace the composite output
jack on one machine, so removal of the motherboard was required. All three
boards
were slightly different. 2 had on board mini speakers that were worthless for
anything above a small beep. The third had a regular speaker header with no
speaker as no place to mount it was available due to the placement of the
drives.
The machine Joe has functioning is one with a mini speaker. However, the floppy
would not eject when the button was pushed. this was due to a problem on the
motherboard and not on the drive or switch. I by passed this by rewiring the
switch directly to the drive connector. It works, but it will eject the disk
anytime the button is pushed, including while being written to. The eject by
dragging to the trash was unaffected and works properly. You may be aware that
the only way to eject a disk in a Mac is by that means. (not including the
emergency method with a paper clip.) The other two motherboards would eject
with
the button, but had other problems that made one unstable and the other had no
place to mount the speaker. With the exception of the rewired switch, I left
the
two machines in original condition. Joe later had the external SCSI port added,
something that Apple neglected to do. I believe he may have also bumped it up
to
4 megs. In essense, what we have here is a ROM 03 with built in sound input
(mono), New sound output (stereo). Built in 40 meg Hard drive and 800K Floppy.
One machine had an 800K and the other had a 1.44 meg drive that only functioned
as an 800K. I believe that was due to the fact that Apple no longer sells 800K
drives. I would guess that the machine with the 800K was an earlier prototype
or
at least the group working on it had more parts in stock from previous designs.
The machines were standard speed, and the drives behaved like they were
attached
to a standard SCSI card although one did have the circuitry of a high speed
SCSI
card. That was the most unstable board though, and not suited for use.

In contrast, I have a perfectly stable ROM 01 GS with 8 megs of RAM, a 100 meg
SCSI drive in an old Vulcan case attached to a RAMFast SCSI card. A ZIP 8 mhz
card, a Hyper studio digitizer and a MDIdeas stereo card. This gives me the
same
abilities as the Mark Twain except for the internal floppy, plus a higher clock
speed. I found the Mark Twain to be largly a disappointment, and was quite
happy
to be able to trade it for the Centris. The Apple // is a dead platform. I keep
mine for my 3 year old daughter to play on. If she trashes it, who cares. I
figure it will get her through grammar school before I have to provide her with
either a Macintosh or a PC clone. Besides. I spent the last few years
collecting
childrens software for it, and would hate to have it all go to waste. Thats
about
all I remember off hand. That should give you a good start on your research. I
doubt you'll ever see any more of them floating around, so I suggest you check
out Joe's demo when he gives it at the next meeting.


MAC
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Some of this content may well be disputed by the end of this year, if Jobs does
some of the things rumored from Apple - now under serious consideration.  Or so
thinks the 'Spin Doctor'.  Maybe it's just wishful thinking on my prt - but
hey,  I often feel
wishful thinking can make dreams become reality.  It seems to work too in many
cases.

Cheers,
Tom