Re: Apple][ History Question

[shack@deimos.frii.com (Randy Shackelford)]

In article <19DEC199621491845@vax2.concordia.ca>,
Mitchell Spector <spec@vax2.concordia.ca> wrote:

>    Actually, the Apple III was designed to keep the average person out.
>When you removed the plastic lid cover (two screws on springs had to be 
>loosened first) you only had access to the four internal expansion slots.
>
>    To access the complete motherboard, required removing several screws
>on the metal base-pan underneath. This sounds easy enough, but there were
>_very_ short wire connectors which held the motherboard still in place. 
>To make matters worse, nothing was labeled or even color-coded, so you 
>had to be take note of what cables plugged back in where (I think some 
>of the connectors, like floppy drive and keyboard, were even the same 
>number of pins!). This wasn't at all accessible like an Apple II! :-)

I think Apple wanted to make all III cards the same size, so made it where
they had to fit into the well around the slots. Since II cards can be 
different lengths, this wasn't practical. I don't figure that IIs are so
empty and hollow just to let users pluck chips 'n stuff.

>    Apple also designed it so when the keyboard "Power" LED burned out,
>the system would start-up with a RAM diagnostic test and get stuck in
>a loop (until you pushed the Reset button). Normally it would beep and
>search the internal 5.25 drive for a disk. Rumour has it this, and 
>the above, were all done to discourage people from doing self-repairs; 
>and thus more trips to the local dealer for costly repairs. The extra
>hardware on the board to _prevent_ Apple II emulation mode from using 
>the advanced features of the III, made it even less appealing.

That kinda makes sense. After all, how can you call it emulation if it can
do more than what it's emulating? That would cause software writers to have
to take into account whether a ][ or a III is running the app, etc. Aside from
not being able to run ][ apps at 2 mHz of course, this is reasonable.

As far as the repair thing goes, keep in mind that in the III days, it was 
possible to get dealer service people to diagnose problems and replace
components, rather than the mindless module swapping repairs you see today.
So it wasn't necessarily expensive to take a box to the shop. Unlike now, when
I got quoted $650+ to replace the logic board in the Q840AV I'm in the process
of buying for $1000.
-- 
Randy Shackelford                                 
shack@frii.com