About Mark Twain (was Re: August 1988 Issue of inCider magazine....)

[rubywand@swbell.net]

Joe Kohn wrote:
> 
> rubywand@swbell.net wrote:
> 
> :      Maybe. "Mark Twain" was, after all, a turkey at the time of its
> : construction. It is difficult to believe that the machine was a genuine Apple
> : effort.
> 
> :      Some day, the company may officially admit that MT was a serious Apple,
> : Inc. GS development attempt. For now, we have plenty of interesting rumors,
> : all sorts of claims, and a computer which looks more like a club project
> : which turned into a hoax.
> 
> What are you talking about?
> 
> If a picture is worth a thousand words, a videotape will speak volumes.
> Or, do you think that the video of the Mark Twain is a hoax, too?
>

     A video tape, pics published in various A2 magazines, pics on web sites, 
reports from Kansas Fest, etc. all indicate that one or more machines called "Mark 
Twain" exist. Such evidence falls short of establishing that MT was a genuine, 
serious project of Apple Computer.

     There are lots of odd things about the "Mark Twain Project". For starters, as 
noted earlier, it was born a turkey. Had MT been polished and released, even as 
early as 1990, it would have flopped.

     If MT was a serious Apple attempt to upgrade the GS, why doesn't Apple 
officially acknowledge the project? It would, seemingly, cost them nothing to do 
so. On the contrary, Apple would garner a bit of good will via this demonstration 
of interest in/ commitment to its ][ series.

     At the time MT was supposed to be the focus of an Apple GS upgrade effort, 
the chief weaknesses of the GS were well established. That is, everyone knew that 
1. the video display needed more colors at higher resolution and that VGA monitors 
were the standard, resonably priced display medium;  2. the memory available for 
Sound was inadequate;  3. the 4-5MB memory limit was certain to block expansion of 
machine capabilities;  4. base machine speed was too low.

     Correcting the above deficits would have been relatively easy for Apple. 
Indeed, improvements in at least a few of the above areas would be expected and 
demanded by anyone considering purchase of the "new GS".  Yet, MT developers 
ignored genuine GS weaknesses. They were cutting holes in cases, stuffing mini 
power supplies into corners, closing off Slots, and fiddling with frills like an 
internal hard disk and 1.44MB diskette drive.

     There are other problems with the MT project. Supposedly, there were twenty 
MT prototypes. Why so many? Normally, via breadboarding, development modules, etc. 
such simple changes as exist on MT might require cutting and slicing just a few 
actual GS cases. Then, too, why are some MT's so different from others? Are we 
supposed to believe Apple would begin a serious upgrade without clearly defined 
objectives or that the only way to discern design objective feasibility was to 
hack up twenty GS cases?

    (Actually, if MT was a for-real Apple project, maybe the company is too 
embarrassed to admit it. That's one point for the no-hoax side!)

     All in all, MT does not make sense as a serious upgrade attempt by a major 
computer maker. It does make sense as an Apple ][ club project which ended as a 
hoax.

     There is, however, a kind of 'middle' scenario. Apple is a big company; but, 
it is made up of individuals. Suppose some mid/upper level manager with an 
interest in ][ computing decided to hand over twenty GS's to a local club for 
experimental development: "If you come up with something neat, we may be 
interested." 

     The club members took their shots and, in the end, most of the machines were 
crushed at Apple. Some escaped and, with a little help from a few participants, 
the legend of Apple Computer's secret "Mark Twain Project" was born.

     At the least, a "Mark Twain" is an artifact of an interesting, fun piece of 
][ history. Owning one is kind of like having the Maltese Falcon sitting on your 
mantel. If you, Dr. Tom, and others want to believe the machines came from a 
genuine Apple effort to upgrade the GS, fine.


Rubywand