slomacuser
Well-known member
not mine, but somebody is very lucky
http://www.applefritter.com/content/macintosh-128k-prototype-twiggy-drive
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128k Mac with Twiggy drive
- Thread starter slomacuser
- Start date
not mine, but somebody is very lucky
http://www.applefritter.com/content/macintosh-128k-prototype-twiggy-drive
LCGuy
LC Doctor/Hot Rodder
Thats pretty awesome - short of the PR shots that Apple did back in the day, I've never seen photos of a Twiggy Mac in the wild that still had the original Twiggy drive (pics surfaced on 'Fritter of a TwiggyMac a few years back that still had the Twiggy sized slot in the front, but with a 3.5" drive :-/ )
Dennis Nedry
Well-known member
We may need to produce a few replicas of this amazing thing. I would never have imagined that one still existed. This should go to a museum for sure.
Dennis Nedry
Well-known member
I can't imagine this Mac being worth any less than a twiggy drive Lisa. It would certainly be interesting to get the ROM dump from that one and inside pictures.
Trash80toHP_Mini
NIGHT STALKER
It has to be worth a LOT more than a Twiggy Lisa, they can't have made very many at all. It never made it out of prototyping, Lisa's shipped.
Dennis Nedry
Well-known member
The thought crossed my mind also that it could be fake, it wouldn't take too much photoshopping of that 1 picture. Plus, he already had it open and didn't post more pics? That's weird.
I can understand if it has the same blinking question mark 3.5" disk icon as an ordinary Mac, as he mentioned, because it seems reasonable that the ROM was updated later, possibly many times during development.
edit
Well, check again, there are more pics now. I'm convinced.
I can understand if it has the same blinking question mark 3.5" disk icon as an ordinary Mac, as he mentioned, because it seems reasonable that the ROM was updated later, possibly many times during development.
edit
Well, check again, there are more pics now. I'm convinced.
BGoins12
Well-known member
Trash80toHP_Mini
NIGHT STALKER
On one forum, he said he hadn't seen any 400k FDs in a while and didn't know if an HD floppy would format to 400k.
ISTR a tool that punched a hole in a lower density FD to turn it into a (mostly flaky) "higher capacity" FD. I wonder if a piece of tape over the hole would reverse the procedure . . . sort of like taping over the removed write protect tab on micro-cassettes and VHS casettes?
If it'll work, somebody let him know!
ISTR a tool that punched a hole in a lower density FD to turn it into a (mostly flaky) "higher capacity" FD. I wonder if a piece of tape over the hole would reverse the procedure . . . sort of like taping over the removed write protect tab on micro-cassettes and VHS casettes?
If it'll work, somebody let him know!
Mk.558
Well-known member
A 400KB disk is just a single sided 800KB disk, which can be had easily from 720KB PC floppies...I wonder if he can just use a 400KB external to boot it and grab the ROMs.
More on this
I wonder why he's posting it to a number of different message boards -- it's really cool and all, but it's not earth shattering.
I wonder why he's posting it to a number of different message boards -- it's really cool and all, but it's not earth shattering.
Trash80toHP_Mini
NIGHT STALKER
He knew Tom Owad would want it posted on 'fritter, which gets the most traffic due to the content on the site. The forums are a bust, unless they've picked up lately. On a cursory read, it looks to me like he's at home on the the vintage computer board. Is he new there too?
It IS earth shattering in the MacWorld. I'll bet there were a LOT more Paladin Prototypes made than TwiggyMacs.
edit: back again!
I've got some notions about this newest TwiggMac based on hacking research materials I've glommed off the web over the years.
ClearTwiggyProtoHoaxMacHacks™
It IS earth shattering in the MacWorld. I'll bet there were a LOT more Paladin Prototypes made than TwiggyMacs.
edit: back again!
I've got some notions about this newest TwiggMac based on hacking research materials I've glommed off the web over the years.
ClearTwiggyProtoHoaxMacHacks™
redrouteone
Well-known member
Freakin' sweetGriffin>
Dennis Nedry
Well-known member
It would be cool to see what happens when a twiggy disk is inserted and if it can be formatted / read / write / ejected / etc. To see it work with an unmodified system software would be quite awesome.
Trash80toHP_Mini
NIGHT STALKER
I wonder if Apple had a buttonless (self injecting/ejecting) Twiggy Drive Revision underway?
ISTR, that he production yield of the Twiggy Drive was never high enough to keep up with Lisa Production. So much time, money and effort was spent on the ill-fated attempt to get the Twiggy's problems ironed out that I really doubt even SJ would have complicated matters with by changing the injection/ejection hardware for the Mac.
Woz developed the SWIM in order to use the Sony 3.5" FDDs, AFAIK.
Was that early example of an ASIC backward compatible with the Twiggy Drive?
Is there a SWIM IC on board the TwiggyMac's MoBo?
Dunno, since the TwiggyMacs were a design dead-end, killed off before fit & finish trials were completed, I'll hazard a guess that the Twiggy Drives used in that line of development were production rejects.
If this TwiggyMac was put together out of random prototype parts at a later date with a production Bucket, the FDD may, or may not be operable depending on the answers to these questions.
Only time, and the appearance of more pics and info will tell. :?:
Did the production 128k Buckets have cooling vents on top?
ISTR, that he production yield of the Twiggy Drive was never high enough to keep up with Lisa Production. So much time, money and effort was spent on the ill-fated attempt to get the Twiggy's problems ironed out that I really doubt even SJ would have complicated matters with by changing the injection/ejection hardware for the Mac.
Woz developed the SWIM in order to use the Sony 3.5" FDDs, AFAIK.
Was that early example of an ASIC backward compatible with the Twiggy Drive?
Is there a SWIM IC on board the TwiggyMac's MoBo?
Dunno, since the TwiggyMacs were a design dead-end, killed off before fit & finish trials were completed, I'll hazard a guess that the Twiggy Drives used in that line of development were production rejects.
If this TwiggyMac was put together out of random prototype parts at a later date with a production Bucket, the FDD may, or may not be operable depending on the answers to these questions.
Only time, and the appearance of more pics and info will tell. :?:
Did the production 128k Buckets have cooling vents on top?
Trash80toHP_Mini
NIGHT STALKER
Info on Google Images lead me to believe that this TwiggyMac's Bucket probably represents the very last stage of bucket prototyping . . .
. . . no cooling vents on top! 8-o
credit: DigiBarn
He'd better not be running that beautiful thing for any great length of time with that ventless proto-bucket on it! :O
I'm thinking more and more like TwiggyMac is an External FDD ONLY curiosity piece cobbled together out of proto-goodies remaining on hand after the 128k was released, rather than an actual working prototype in its own right.
The prototyping timelines don't appear to mesh at all to me. Without even the relatively ineffective provision for convection cooling of the 128k, it's certainly not meant to be a usable Mac as shown in the pictures.
It's still waaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyy and I've been known to "ASSuuuME too much!" < /oblioque Star Wars reference >
It's in now way a "fake," it's probably just a conglomeration of really cool proto-part leftovers . . .
. . . that works so long as you don't leave it powered up for too long!)
That's my take and I'm sticking to it! :approve:
. . . no cooling vents on top! 8-o
credit: DigiBarn
He'd better not be running that beautiful thing for any great length of time with that ventless proto-bucket on it! :O
I'm thinking more and more like TwiggyMac is an External FDD ONLY curiosity piece cobbled together out of proto-goodies remaining on hand after the 128k was released, rather than an actual working prototype in its own right.
The prototyping timelines don't appear to mesh at all to me. Without even the relatively ineffective provision for convection cooling of the 128k, it's certainly not meant to be a usable Mac as shown in the pictures.
It's still waaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyy
and I've been known to "ASSuuuME too much!" < /oblioque Star Wars reference >It's in now way a "fake," it's probably just a conglomeration of really cool proto-part leftovers . . .
. . . that works so long as you don't leave it powered up for too long!
) That's my take and I'm sticking to it! :approve:
