Re: verifying your vintage apple

[Michael J. Schülke <news0310@mjschuelke.de>]

John wrote:
> Hi!  How can you verify the vintage of your apple iie?  Is there any way you
> can trace the model numbers to make sure you have the right chips and stuff
> that came with your computer?

I'm not sure what you mean by "the right chips and stuff" -- IMO, a 
computer has "the right chips" if it works as it is supposed to. There's 
certainly nothing wrong with a machine that has had a couple of chips 
replaced when it was repaired. 

However, if you mean to check whether all chips are the original ones 
put there in the factory, the easiest method would be this: ICs usually 
have a date code -- the most common variant is a four digit number 
giving the year and the week of manufacture, such as 8813 for the 13th 
week of 1988. 

Under normal manufacturing conditions, all chips on one board should be 
from roughly the same time: a variation of half a year I'd consider 
normal, but everything above a year would be suspicious, especially if 
one IC sticks out, and even more so if it is much younger than the rest. 
Identical chips (such as two 4164 RAM chips or two 74LS00 logic chips) 
are usually from the same batch, and should have exactly the same print 
on them, manufacturer, datecode and all. 

Regards, 
Michael