Re: Update

[mjmahon@aol.com (Michael J. Mahon)]

Charles Forbin wrote:

>So, from all the very helpful posts here, I've solidly settled on the
>conclusion that the 1978-copyright board is a Rev 4, made in January
>of 1980, and is therefore definitely not an original ][ board--at
>least in the sense that it is not the board first included with the
>rest of the machine.

Much depends on what you mean by an "original Apple ][".  Apple]['s
were made for at least a year _after_ the ][+ was introduced--I remember
having a chioce of ][ or ][+ when I bought my first machine in 12/80.

Another source says that the Rev. 4 motherboard was produced as
early as 1979, as an Apple ][ motherboard.

So it sounds like you _do_ have an Apple ][ which has always had
an Apple ][ motherboard, though not the earliest Apple][ revision.

>Now, I've looked at the serial number on the bottom of the case, and
>it's #2067; would this mean the rest of the unit (the case and
>probably the keyboard) were from '77 or '78?  Then would that mean the
>original board might have been a Rev 0?  Because in that case I'd bet
>the owner simply ordered a new board in '80 to get the additional
>colors that were available on Rev 1 and newer boards (although wasn't
>this also possible to get on a Rev 0 with some sort of simple
>modification?  Correct me if I'm wrong).  Or possibly there was a deal
>where one could get a new board for less than simply the Applesoft ROM
>chips alone.

The Apple dealers I know of were hardly adept at soldering!  ;-)  The
usual way to "upgrade" a motherboard was to replace it.  An exception
was the later //e upgrade, which was the replacement of four socketed
chips (two firmware ROMs, one video ROM, and the processor).

With the premium prices on eBay for "original" Apple ]['s, I can
understand why you might want to be careful, but I would not be
so paranoid about what is, on the face of it, and Apple ][ case with
and Apple ][ motherboard.

If you really want to determine (with very good reliability) the date
of manufacture of the keyboard encoder board and the motherboard,
look at the date codes on the individual ICs--usually in the form YYWW,
where YY is the year and WW is the week.  They will usually fall into
a range of a year or less, with the newest ones being quite close to
the date of manufacture.  If the newest are slightly older than the
board date code, then you can have very good confidence that the
date is authentic.  Since the keyboard encoder usually (not always)
stays with the case, if it's original it should have a date of manufacture
consistent with the case/machine.

Just out of curiosity, does anyone have any evidence of people
"creating" Apple ]['s out of pieces of other machines because of the
eBay price premium?  And if it has official Apple ][ ROMs and a
version of the motherboard consistent with an Apple ][, why should
anyone care?  (I know, I know, collectors are a peculiar lot...  ;-)
For example, Apple dealers were wont to swap motherboards freely,
so wouldn't it have some cachet to have a machine that had been
"serviced by a real Apple dealer"!?

-michael

 Email:  mjmahon@aol.com
 Home page:  http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/