Re: another ebay "what the!?!"

[Silicon Sam <SiliconSam@gmail.com>]

On Sep 7, 11:34 pm, a2avia...@gmail.com wrote:
> ..and mentioning paint vs. injection mold coloring.
>
> The original cases were indeed painted. They came out of the injection
> mold as blackish/dark gray and got painted. The question is if they
> primered first or not, I've got the inkling they did because it's been
> a while but I seem to recall seeing light gray around the edges of
> chipped spots.
>
> http://apple2.info/gallery/main.php?g2_itemId=25
>
> The serial number mentioned is most certainly the finished product
> serial number. The motherboards appear to have sequential numbers on
> them and at one point they switched to the more typical week number
> and year written on there. There's never been more than 4 digits
> written on them on the white rectangle area behind slot 0.
>
> The seller did not mention the motherboard number at all so it's hard
> to base on that.
>
> But.. I don't see the '16K' jumper blocks. I'm pretty damn sure that
> they are not hidden by that cable that is slumped over the row right
> to the left of the RAM rows, especially since I can see the last row
> to the bottom and that is definitely an IC there. The board also looks
> too green to me, the silkscreen color is too rich of a green, like a
> much later production.
>
> I smell deception on this auction, combined with all the other stuff
> which could be there to distract the bidder, the seller appears to
> know how to sell 'rare' A2 hardware, but does not list the number
> printed on the board or even provide a closer up picture. A picture
> from the other angle would debunk this whole thing too, as you would
> not see the breadboard section. With the one piece keyboard that is in
> there - you could easily see the breadboard area.
>
> Oh, and as I mentioned, that power supply is a mid to late 80's Taiwan
> special.
>
> The slots are black, not light green- and do not have the tooling/bolt
> down holes in the ends. Look at that one exposed slot.
>
> Also, yeah- it's got ceramic RAM. Remember.. RAM is socketed.. ;-)
>
> What do I think it is? Someone had an original with a dead or missing
> power supply and dead motherboard and swapped the motherboard, put in
> that power supply and transfered the ceramic RAM.
>
> Chutzpah!

  The motherboard does appear to have the capacitors of an RFI model,
which would be a Rev 7 or later.  And a clone power supply (certainly
no upgrade there.)  Appears the case and possibly the keyboard are the
only old parts there...

  The black or gray you saw under the paint was possibly the RFI
shielding conductive coating you saw inside the first Mac computers.
Don't think they used the coating until the ][+.  You could tell if
the lid had the metal spongy thing across the front of it, and a metal
plate across the back inside .  I have seen a couple of the painted
cases wore down to the plastic, on the right and left front corners,
and it was an off white plastic.  These machine were under some
serious use by programmers.