Different Macintosh in Original User Guide?

[unity]

Well the prototype is just that so I doubt the badging was anything official and more or less a parts bin grab to dress it up, possible well after it was made.

All shipping Macs had the logo left/badge on the right. Even the ones made in December of 1983. The only thing that really changed in the cases that were "official", beyond very minor mold adjustments, were the signatures. But I think we all know how those changed over time.

By the way Trash, that pic you posted of the 128k is a good example of those reward top vents being revised but the molding work to clean it up being poor. You can see the outline of the longer original vents from cases with no top vents. If you look at later molds they were cleared up for two reasons. More molds were made to increase production yields and they simply got around to polishing the original molds up when they had more molds in production and could pull them from the line. Given the level of perfection, I am really surprised Jobs let that very visible cosmetic flaw through.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Not sure we're using the same terminology:

______________________     ____________

|  _____                  |    |    ____     |

|  |____|.   apple      |    |   |____|    |

|_____________________|    |___________|

  apple logotype    Rainbow Badge

____________    _______________________________________

|   _____    |    |.                                               |

|   |____|.   |    |       Macintosh.                         |

|_ _________|.   |______________________________________|

   Badge              Macintosh Vanity Plate

Question was which had what? Did any shipping units have the prototype configuration at the top or were all units shipped in the Vanity Plate configuration? Mix-n-match is not possible between logotype and vanity configurations.

If you look at later molds they were cleared up for two reasons. More molds were made to increase production yields and they simply got around to polishing the original molds up when they had more molds in production and could pull them from the line. Given the level of perfection, I am really surprised Jobs let that very visible cosmetic flaw through

SJ had lost much control over cost of parts and production decisions for the release version:

  -  Scully & Co. cheapened the Mac to a 128k memory ceiling - engineers retained provisions for 512k on the Logic Board

  -  Somebody spec'd the smaller, less expensive (marginal?) Flyback Transformer of the shipping versions - engineers retained (built in?) provisions for upgrade on A/B

Like @Gorgonops said, Commodore would have shipped just about anything to unsuspecting customers. Scully would have done much the same, but not for customers? My theory is that all buckets used in the prototyping process were shot in far less expensive soft tooling without texture. Texture prototyping would have been done to that soft tooling and frozen after after approval for the very large investment in hard tooling for production. For cost savings/maximization of capital expenditures and time on the presses, the textured soft tooling would then have been used to shoot anywhere from a few hundreds to low thousands of buckets for internal use and seed units for programming such as the two examples in question

 

[unity]

Logo is .

Badge is name = Macintosh

All shipping units looked the same from the start of shipping to the next revision. For example, look at the very earliest production Macs that had the employee plaques on the back. Same design as one made two month later. As for tooling, you are forgetting the time this was done. Its not really like today with set processes for development and Apple was incredibly wasteful back then, but only because they were also incredibly profitable. Yes, normally texturing is done as a last step in mold design. But just look at all the variations in the prototypes that have texturing. I think a runaway budget has something to do with this. Also we do not know ho many prototype cases where made of each revision. Its only a guess. But hundreds or thousands seems incredibly unlikely in the early stages.

 

[unity]

FYI the last revision done was the Apple logo square badges. You can see in some early press photos the front has a dark logo background just like the back Apple logo does. Shipping models have two different logo background colors, a light and dark version. Or its that the very earliest "finished" units were simply installed wrong off the line. You can see there was some back and forth on the background colors.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Interesting, but I prefer my more specific use of terms given that the Apple Computer Company "logo" changed over time, containing the name in text for the Apple/// and Twiggy Bucketet. It started out with Newton sitting under his tree and becoming merely Apple Inc. with monochromatic "logo." The Rainbow Apple would have originally be a symbol contained therein. When you receive a corporate identity spec sheet the terms can be intermixed. Granted Logo has come to mean a mere symbol, ofttimes meaningless without the remainder of the Logotype as in the case of myriad striated circles so prevalent in the Nineties giving little if no connection to corporate identity without accompanying text.

But I'll go along with your terms as I'm sure they reflect common use, degeneration of technical terminology over time, similar to the term Font, the designation for a typeface family having become synonymous with what is technically a Typeface in common usage.

Meanwhile, what was the final positioning or the Modem/Printer ports for shipping units?

I've never really been interested in the badly RoadAppled stock 128k, only in the prototypes and mods that were done out of necessity to morph them into usable computers.

 

[unity]

Well its is a logo. When people say Apple logo they mean . I dont get why this is even a debate or even coming up. The Macintosh is a product of Apple. The word "Macintosh" is not a logo.

I guess I will bow out of this thread that went off the rails.

 

[Gorgonops]

Interesting, but I prefer my more specific use of terms given that the Apple Computer Company "logo" changed over time...

Trash:

You are certainly free to use language however you see fit, but arguing about your personal definition of words when they vary significantly from what most people mean when they use them generally is not a useful sideline in a thread like this. When discussing the cases of a computer probably the most applicable terminology would be that used to describe the words and symbols you find on car bodies, and in that sphere a "Logo" is this:

or

IE, stylized text or a graphic that's associated with the company name, while a "Badge" can be either this:

IE, a picture unique to that specific model, or this:

Text, again usually specific to the model in question.

(And yes, some specific cars might ship with only their model badge on them, in that case I suppose you could call that model-specific thing the "Logo", but this is the general rule.)

Clearly the rainbow-color Apple on any variation here is not unique to the Macintosh so it seems to me very little point in arguing when someone calls it the "Logo". As to the "Badge" saying "Apple" on those prototypes my wild guess is that they stuck that redundant text there because they may well have still been arguing whether "Macintosh" was actually going to be the shipping name for the product when this revision of the bucket tooling was made. (Folklore.org says that debate was mostly settled by January 1983, but it also says that the initial hard tooling was completed in February 1982. They probably designed it so that section of it could be swapped out when they arrived at the final name, and given the churn with regard to vent placement, etc, it may well be that they were still churning out prototype cases with molds incorporating the "Apple" un-badged sections until pretty late in the process.)

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Churn is a good word choice for what was going on with the project in general. Initial hard tooling being done in 1982 doesn't make sense unless it was for the TwiggyMac. Which article was that in? When I went through them the Sony drive wasn't even available in 1982, being released in Spring 83. I wonder how early they had a pre-release drive for SJ to decide he needed to have Alps do a proprietary knockoff of it?

Quick, Hide In This Closet!

George Crow, the analog engineer who designed the Mac's analog board, had come from HP prior to working at Apple and was sold on the superiority of the Sony drives. He procured a drive from his friends at HP and proposed to Bob Belleville that we figure out how to interface it to the Mac as soon as possible, while we negotiate a deal with Sony.

So who knows how long they had to work out the final front bezel? Dunno, but it's interesting to try to piece together the prototype timeline.

Not arguing at all, Logotype and Logo have been confuzzled to the point that "Logotype Logo" is apparently now a thing! Why the fuss anyway? I'd already said I'd go along with unity's terms. []

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/logotype

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/logo

50-excellent-circular-logos note that many in this selection have absolutely nothing to do with corporate identity other than adding a splash of color to the letterhead, AT&T logo being the worst of the lot from that time period.

On Typeface vs. Font, never say surrender!
 

 

[Gorgonops]

Initial hard tooling being done in 1982 doesn't make sense unless it was for the TwiggyMac. 

Why would it not be for the Twiggy version? They had every intention of selling it that way and made quite a lot of them for developers to use. Also, you are aware that dimensionally the Twiggy equipped versions are identical to the Sony ones, right? Even most of the metal chassis is the same, it's obvious where they wedged an adapter into the 5 1/4" drive bay.

Yes, it is a little weird and wasteful that they continued evolving the case as much as they did after going to hard tooling, but remember how much money they were burning and how they were having to deal with balancing the whims of a perfectionist control freak against harsh reality in areas like ventilation. It was inevitable that they'd have an abnormal number of redos.

And, yes, obviously, changing the drive hole was a really late and major redo. But no other panel of the case needed to be changed at the same time, there is absolutely nothing stopping you from mixing a twiggy era bucket with a Sony front panel. I have little doubt that at any given time they had several different versions of every die lying around the shop they were using to turn out small batches of skins.

Which article was that in?

The same date appears in both "Signing Party" and "More like a Porsche".

Why the fuss anyway

Let's just say it wasn't particularly productive. I also can't help but be amused how that picture of Apple logos over the years is completely counter to your argument that the little Apple should be called the "badge". 

 

[Dog Cow]

Meanwhile, what was the final positioning or the Modem/Printer ports for shipping units?

Final layout had the modem port next to the sound out port.

The same date appears in both "Signing Party" and "More like a Porsche".

Andy Hertzfeld's recollection of dates, as with most people, isn't always spot-on and I've found a couple of instances while doing research for the Mac 512K Blog where he had some wrong dates in his Folklore blog.

 

[Dog Cow]

When I went through them the Sony drive wasn't even available in 1982, being released in Spring 83. I wonder how early they had a pre-release drive for SJ to decide he needed to have Alps do a proprietary knockoff of it?

Quick, Hide In This Closet!

My research on MFS and the Sony drive uncovered the following dates:

- May 1983: Larry Kenyon adapts Twiggy driver for Sony

- June 1983: conditional assembly switch added to assemble driver for either Twiggy or Sony

- August 1983: Larry Kenyon added support for double-sided Sony drives

 

[Gorgonops]

Andy Hertzfeld's recollection of dates, as with most people, isn't always spot-on and I've found a couple of instances while doing research for the Mac 512K Blog where he had some wrong dates in his Folklore blog.

Nonetheless, it's the date we have, and the date makes sense if the initial target to launch was January 1983 instead of the almost a year later that it slipped to.

 

[North Hedge Ned]

OK - The torx arrived and - JACKPOT!  Both units have Mr. Macintosh inside on the video board, on the EPROM board, and on the Main Logic.  Here are the pix of both units.  Interestingly, the unit with the video issue has a different manufacturer of tube.  Bot units have non functioning floppies.  Maybe a quick fix?  None the less - prototypes for sure - new ones after the Twiggy system!

 

[North Hedge Ned]

Both units have the same markings so I will spare you and myself the frustration.  Seems to be weird errors when uploading files

 

[North Hedge Ned]

So, anyone want to assist in the value on the collector market of these beasties?

 

[Gorgonops]

So, if the dates here are correct the "MacMan" motherboard you have is the May 1983 revision. Per the dates quoted by Dog Cow that puts your motherboard right on the switchover between Twiggy and Sony drives, so whether your particular unit started out as a Twiggy or was built up with a Sony drive initially is probably something you can't really know without knowing more about the provenance of the machines. But in any case there's certainly absolutely no doubt now that these are prerelease developer units in every respect, not just release machines bearing old skins.

As to what they're worth, search me. That's for the market to decide I guess. I am curious if the EPROMS on that board have been updated to a shipping release of the 64K ROM code or if they're still pre-release. (IE, will these units run the shipped versions of System 0.97-4.whatever? that a regular 128k will run or not.) They might be "worth" more if they have a prerelease ROM version, even if that makes them worthless from a practical standpoint.

 

[North Hedge Ned]

SO Gorgonops, I wonder how we can tell the EPROMS?  I can't boot from the floppy.  I have a few external floppies around but no system disks to try.  Would like to know the ROM version too.....

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

The pic of the TwiggyMac ROMs on 'fritter aren't as detailed as yours, but he listed the markings.

The ROM's all have "7T" written in faded blueish felt tip marker on the label, along with the following writing on each of the 4 ROMS:

0 HI - H0 B6ED
1 HI - H1 A04A
0 LOW - LO0F332
1 LOW - LO 1 6CBC

View attachment 28128

Between reading Five Different Macintoshes and Macintosh Prototypes I got all mixed up.

We've got some info on the Twiggy Version on 'fritter and now two Sony versions of the same board?

Both have Printer/Modem port icons flip-flopped as compared to the shipping version. Do icons match the board's connectors or had they become mislabels?

Is the screen resolution 384x256 or 512x342 at this fork on the timeline?

 

[PB145B]

Wow, that is incredible!

As for the floppy drives, they likely need to be lubricated. The Sony 400k drives are notorious for getting gummed up.

 

[Gorgonops]

Is the screen resolution 384x256 or 512x342 at this fork on the timeline?

All versions with 16 bit memory have the higher resolution. This board is *almost* the final product and there's a fair chance it would work with the final shipping ROMs, although of course I can't say that definitively.

The only sure fire way to know what the ROM version is would be to either boot it and use a program to dump it to disk for analysis, or to read the ROMs with an EPROM programmer or something. They are standard 27128 parts so finding compatible equipment would not be hard.