Re: Yay! Finally got myself a IIgs!

[Mitchell Spector <mitch2gs@hotmail.com>]

"skylarking" <petsoundsnz@gmail.com> wrote:

>So anyone else got any Apple II bargains recently?

    Recently? Compared to what I used to find, not much lately. Two months
ago I came across a free Apple IIc from a used computer shop that had one
sitting in a pile of 286 notebooks to give away. Around the same time I found
a Sony 14" Trintron monitor for $3 that works on my GS (and presumable III 
and IIe) after I rewired a NEC video cable and adapter. Oh, I _did_ find a
Vectrex earlier this month (missing the controller, sigh) but then that's not
an Apple II find, is it. ;)

    Looking back, the best bargain I can remember off hand, would be when I
got a phone call from a local stranger 6 years ago. He claimed he looked me
up in the phone book and asked if I was the same "Mitchell Spector" who
frequented comp.sys.apple2 and an interest in Apple II computers. I figured
he was looking for technical support or advice when he just blurted out he
had some Apple IIGS computers for sale and if I wanted to buy them. When he
started describing what he had, and that he wanted to sell them that day, I
jumped on a bus and immediately ran over. When I got there he had a garage
filled with TONS of Apple II stuff. I unfortunately only got to grab a
fraction of what was there, but needless to say it was like a GS collector's
dream. I still have the list jotted down of things I picked up that day...

- (3) Apple IIGS computers--just bare cases (two ROM 01, one ROM 3)
- (2) Apple 3.5 drives
- (2) Apple 5.25 drives
- (2) Kensingston System Savers IIGS
- Apple MIDI interface
- Amiga 1000 video genlock
- Diamond Trackstar-E (IBM PC ISA card, Apple II emulator)

(And installed inside the GS's were...)
- Econ Pegasus internal SCSI hardisk (with 105 MB HD installed)
- (2) Apple High-Speed SCSI cards
- (2) Sequential RAM GS 4MB cards
- (2) Econ SoundMeister stereo cards
- AE PC Transporter
- RamFAST SCSI (Rev C)
- ZipGS 8 MHz/16K
- TransWarp GS 8 MHz/8K
- AE DataLink 2400
- MDIdeas Supersonic stereo card
- Q-Print II card
- ProGrappler card
- Apple II Mouse Card
- Apple IIgs 1MB  Memory Expansion card 

    Plus some original software and manuals, such as AppleWorks GS, System 6
AppleWorks 5, Hyperstudio, The Manager, HyperCard GS, the Applesoft Tutorial
and DOS manual came with the II Plus. The hardware was badly yellowed and
damaged but the cards inside were pure gold!

    How much did I pay for it all? A whopping $70 CDN, which in those days,
was a fair bit less when converted to US dollars. :) To this day I still
don't know who this guy was, why he wanted to sell all this, or where he
disappeared to (with all the rest of the stuff I wanted!) but in retrospect,
that's probably the coolest all-in-one-day Apple II bargain I've had to date.
And imagine, the deal found me through posting to this very newsgroup! :)

Mitchell Spector