Re: APPLE IIgs

[spec@vax2.concordia.ca (Mitchell Spector)]

In article Rubywand <rubywand@swbell.net> writes...

>Austin Barton writes ...
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> I have an Apple IIgs. On it it says Limited Edition with some signiture.
>> Can anyone fill me in on this?
>>
>     You are the lucky owner of a "Woz GS", or, at the least, a Woz GS case.
>
>     The first 10,000 or so GS's had the "Limited Edition" case. According to
>legend, Steve Wozniak (Woz) signed each. Dr. Tom, who has spoken with Woz
>about the Limited Edition, reports that, actually, the signature was printed.

    Actually that number is probably closer to 50,000, or roughly 5% of
the total number of Apple IIgs's in existence. Anyone who bought a IIgs
in 1986 and early to mid 1987 would have gotten one.

    No legend or mystery here. Steve's hand-written signature was copied
and then silk-screened the on to the front lid by machine process (just
the same way the words "Apple IIGS" and "Limited Edition" were). No one
is going to hand-sign *fifty thousand* computer lids, and even if they
had the time and patience, would never get them all 100% identical. :)
It would have been neat if he personally autographed the first 10 cases
off the assembly line though, that would make a real collector's piece. :)

>     Estimates of the value of a Limited Edition case vary widely.
>It is, certainly, a status symbol and very nice to have.

    There is a _zero_ dollar value on a Limited Edition signature case,
they are by no means rare or that difficult to find (remember, that is
5% of 1,000,000+ computers out there). They do hold nostaligic value,
and admittely, are kind of attractive. I swapped the plain cover lid
on my ROM 3 with a signature one just last week in fact. :)

    Perhaps a few decades from now they'll be worth something, but as
of the present, they are worth nothing more than a plain cover.

>     Other interesting GS items which original purchasers received include
>the "Apple IIgs Certificate of Authenticity" and a letter from Woz. The
>letter ends with the words: "I hope you enjoy your new machine, and help
>pioneer new solutions with it for years to come!"

    I've heard of these several times in the past, but never saw one.
If anyone out there has one of these certificates, could you perhaps
scan it and upload it to a web page or FTP site? I'm kind of curious
what it looks like. :) (Someone also mentioned Apple IIgs pins and
t-shirts that Apple dealers were handing out during the GS's intro,
yet another thing I wouldn't mind seeing).

>     The first GS's were "ROM-00" machines. In 1987, Apple offered a free
>upgrade which consisted of a new ROM-- "ROM-01"-- and a new Video Controller
>IC.

    Only really early production Apple IIgs's required the VGC chip 
swap, which was to fix a glitch when displaying older IIe/IIc video 
modes. I've seen plently of ROM 00 machines with perfectly fine VGC 
chips.

    Here's some bits of trivia: There were plain cover Apple IIgs's 
that shipped with the original ROM 00 (it is a myth that only "Woz" 
GSes had the older ROM firmware). The free ROM upgrade expired on
March 31, 1995.

Mitchell Spector
spec@vax2.concordia.ca