Re: More 'TRUE FACTS' on Mark Twain!

["Charles T. Turley" <cturley@wco.com>]

Comments per Richard Bennett in:
news:52uv3t$cf4@rock101.genie.net

Stated: "I always though repentance must be self induced  before it 
meant anything. Simply repenting because someone else asked you to means 
jack"

cturley@wco.com replies:
What does this have to do with the original subject - in any way, shape 
or form?  Absolutely nothing - that's what.  

I Guess it's time to report the information concerning the original 
subject - for those of you that don't care to keep the threads related 
to the intended subject.

This is the subject matter under discusion: 'TRUE FACTS' on MARK TWAIN'
as per post:news:52eu1t$4oi@news.wco.com
Date: Thu, 9 May 1996 12:41:44 -0700 (PDT) X-Sender: mac@mail.wco.com
Mime-Version: 1.0 To: gbmaidsf@wco.com From: mac@wco.com (Ray
McAnally) Subject: Re: Mark Twain Cc: joko@crl.com

>Thanks for the reply Ray,

>I understand about lack of time, only to well. What type of job do
you have? What are your current machines that you use? How did you
first see and or have use of a Mark Twain?

I came into possession of 2.5 machines from a member of our group. In
return for being able to keep one of them, I repaired multiple
problems on the 2 complete machines and provided a Fully functional
ROM 01 in return. I later replaced the ROM 01 for 40 bucks, so I
guess you could say I got the mark twain for 40 bucks and about 4
hours of work. There was no interesting software on the internal
drives except for a beta of AppleWorks GS that later became version
1.1. I later traded the Mark Twain for a Macintosh Centris 610
system. Joe got his by trading a 486 system that was given to him by
a friend. So the original owner ended up with a fully functional ROM
01 GS and a 486 IBM clone. Worked out well for all concerned. I made
sure that the machine that Joe got was the one that was repaired the
best. All features function and I had no crashes with it. I was
however unable to test the sound input function as I had no software
at the time. According to the numbers on the machines, we've been
able to determine that at least 20 machines were produced. 10 of
which were definitely crushed at Apple. 5 were with one researher at
the time of her resignation from Apple, and our 2.5 machines came
from her in a round about way. (She left them behind after a divorce
and the husband gave them away.) Our member got 2.5 and the SF trash
people got the other 3 complete ones.

Upon opening the case, I discovered that there were only 5 slots.
Slots 5 and 7 being mapped to the internal drives. The machine had a
Quantum LPS 40 meg drive mounted under the floppy at the front of the
case. The case was a hack job rather then any sort of production run.
The back of the case was cut to acommidate a new type of power suppy
that I found to be under powered for its job. Also, it contained a
fan, something that Apple never included in the // series. Even the
Macs never had one until the SE. The supports for the drives and the
motherboard were fabricated from metal that had an unfinished look to
them. It was a real bitch to disassemble the whole thing. I needed to
replace the composite output jack on one machine, so removal of the
motherboard was required. All three boards were slightly different. 2
had on board mini speakers that were worthless for anything above a
small beep. The third had a regular speaker header with no speaker as
no place to mount it was available due to the placement of the
drives. The machine Joe has functioning is one with a mini speaker.
However, the floppy would not eject when the button was pushed. this
was due to a problem on the motherboard and not on the drive or
switch. I by passed this by rewiring the switch directly to the drive
connector. It works, but it will eject the disk anytime the button is
pushed, including while being written to. The eject by dragging to
the trash was unaffected and works properly. You may be aware that
the only way to eject a disk in a Mac is by that means. (not
including the emergency method with a paper clip.) The other two
motherboards would eject with the button, but had other problems that
made one unstable and the other had no place to mount the speaker.
With the exception of the rewired switch, I left the two machines in
original condition. Joe later had the external SCSI port added,
something that Apple neglected to do. I believe he may have also
bumped it up to 4 megs. In essense, what we have here is a ROM 03
with built in sound input (mono), New sound output (stereo). Built in
40 meg Hard drive and 800K Floppy. One machine had an 800K and the
other had a 1.44 meg drive that only functioned as an 800K. I believe
that was due to the fact that Apple no longer sells 800K drives. I
would guess that the machine with the 800K was an earlier prototype
or at least the group working on it had more parts in stock from
previous designs. The machines were standard speed, and the drives
behaved like they were attached to a standard SCSI card although one
did have the circuitry of a high speed SCSI card. That was the most
unstable board though, and not suited for use.

In contrast, I have a perfectly stable ROM 01 GS with 8 megs of RAM,
a 100 meg SCSI drive in an old Vulcan case attached to a RAMFast SCSI
card. A ZIP 8 mhz card, a Hyper studio digitizer and a MDIdeas stereo
card. This gives me the same abilities as the Mark Twain except for
the internal floppy, plus a higher clock speed. I found the Mark
Twain to be largly a disappointment, and was quite happy to be able
to trade it for the Centris. The Apple // is a dead platform. I keep
mine for my 3 year old daughter to play on. If she trashes it, who
cares. I figure it will get her through grammar school before I have
to provide her with either a Macintosh or a PC clone. Besides. I
spent the last few years collecting childrens software for it, and
would hate to have it all go to waste. Thats about all I remember off
hand. That should give you a good start on your research. I doubt
you'll ever see any more of them floating around, so I suggest you
check out Joe's demo when he gives it at the next meeting.


MAC

(REPOSTED IN AN ATTEMPT TO KEEP THE SUBJECT UNDER DISCUSSION WITHIN THE 
CORRECT SUBJECTS ORIGINAL INTENT AND CONTENTS - from:cturley@wco.com)