Re: Rhyme and reason for ][ prices on eBay?

[Howard Poe <hojopo@gmail.com>]

On Thursday, January 24, 2013 10:44:08 AM UTC-8, Steven Nelson wrote:

> 
> 
> 
> Originally they were probably ]['s, but have been upgraded to 48K ]
> 
> [+'s.  Labels indicate they were originally 16K machines.
> 
> Motherboards range from 7903  to 8515(?).

The upgrade to a ][ plus could just consist of the updated ROMs (Applesoft instead of Integer BASIC on the motherboard, along with the autostart ROM), some ][ pluses shipped with 16k (mine was one of them).  Are you sure they don't just have the ROM card in slot 0?  That was a fairly popular upgrade for the early ][s, giving them the later ROMs without changing the motherboard.

My ][ plus is a 16k model originally, not all ][ pluses shipped with 48k.  They all did use banks of 16k RAM, only early Apple ][s will have the smaller RAM chips.

7903 is the third week of 1979 (mid-January), since the plus was introduced in June of 1979, that makes it an original Apple ][ motherboard.  ][ and ][ plus manufacturing overlapped, they produced both for a while in 1979 and early 1980.

8515 is possible (15th week of 1985), repair motherboards were manufactured/re-manufactured for quite a while after the ][ plus stopped being sold.  It should be a revision "D" RFI motherboard, having that late a date code.

Do the badges on the top covers say Apple ][ or Apple ][ plus on your A2S1 systems?