More on "MarkTwain"

[casa@unm.edu (Jim Pittman)]

Re:

> Subject: Re: Mark Twain Video Now Available
> Date: Fri, 04 Oct 96 03:40:41 GMT
> From: gtolar@ghgcorp.com (Glynne Tolar)
> Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple2
> Organization: GHG Internet Services
> 
> Everytime I see info on this "Mark Twain" GS I ask myself, how did
> they get ahold of this GS and isn't someone breaking Apple's coveted
> Non-Disclosure Agreement.....

[ snip ]

> Glynne Tolar                  | A government that is big enough
> mailto:gtolar@ghgcorp.com     | to do anything for you is big
> http://www.ghgcorp.com/gtolar | enough to do anything to you.

I don't know about anyone else's "Mark Twain" but the one I saw was
in the possession of a former Apple employee. This person saw my
Apple II Plus being used as a terminal and said that it was nice to
see the "old Apple IIs" still being appreciated, and by the way, I
have a prototype Apple IIgs that was never released by Apple.

We (members of AppleQuerque Computer Club) asked the employee if it
would be possible to get a talk or demonstration of the machine for
our club meeting, and to our intense delight it was offered to us for
an indefinite no-strings-attached loan! We took it to a general meeting
(we also brought in a REAL prototype Apple IIgs in an Apple IIe case,
the "Courtland", as well as an old Apple II Plus and a new ROM 3 Apple
IIgs) and used it as the centerpiece in a sort of history lesson on
how companies "seed" developers with prototype computers to help get
some software out by the time the machine is introduced. The Mac
owners in the group were suitably impressed.

We also played with the machine at our Apple II Library meetings,
making a lot of photos, trying out up-to-date software and generally
meddling with its innards. Some of the add-on wring was really
complex and colorful!

For example, we concluded that the ROM was the same as the ROM 3's,
the clock speed was the same as the ROM 01 and the ROM 3, the built-
in 3.5" drive would NOT behave as a "Superdrive" nor would it eject
disks, it was equipped with a small and very slow hard drive and
GS/OS 6.0.1, it had 2 Megs on-board memory and a slot to accept
SIMMs, and it would cheerfully boot 6.0.1 from a FOCUS drive in
slot 7. I don't remember now if we tried out a Second Sight card.

The bottom of the machine said "Mark Twain" with a single-digit serial
number and there was NO reference whatever to the "ROM 4" nomenclature.

The former Apple employee asked for the machine back in a few months,
took it away, and I haven't heard from it since.

When we first got this machine we were intensely excited about it,
but after examining it most of us cooled down our enthusiasm. After
all, most of us Apple IIgs owners in the club at the time had ROM 01
or ROM 3 machines with far more speed, memory and other capabilities
than this prototype had. As for me, I regarded it as a historically
important but technically limited curiosity.

How the former Apple employee obtained the machine and kept it all
these years I don't know.

- Jim Pittman - AppleQuerque Computer Club - casa@unm.edu