-
Updated 2023-07-12: Hello, Guest! Welcome back, and be sure to check out this follow-up post about our outage a week or so ago.
Let us mourn the loss of an original 128k
- Thread starter Quadraman
- Start date
MultiFinder
Well-known member
Meh, sounds like it probably was upgraded back when upgrading one of those little buggers made sense. I think we may be mourning 20 years too late 
Kallikak
Well-known member
So what? Upgrading (then or now) is a perfectly reasonable thing to do with that computer. You can't really do anything with 128K, and the only reason I keep my 128K in that state is I have a 512K as well. If I just had one, I'd be upgrading for sure.
For some perspective, look at what some people here do to their SE/30's! Or G3 upgrades in powermacs and powerbooks. Or overclocking etc. It's just a way to make the most out of a particular machine.
The asking price is somewhat absurd though - by at least a factor of 10!
For some perspective, look at what some people here do to their SE/30's! Or G3 upgrades in powermacs and powerbooks. Or overclocking etc. It's just a way to make the most out of a particular machine.
The asking price is somewhat absurd though - by at least a factor of 10!
Unknown_K
Well-known member
The only reason stock 128k Macs are collectable is because it was the 1st one made, they didn't sell that well so they are a little rare, and anybody who purchased one would have upgraded it just to make it usefull.
Its like people who spend tons of cash for the rare Atari 2600 carts, you know the ones that sucked so bad you could not give them away. Rarity might command some cash to fanatic collectors, but it does not mean the machine is so great from a users standpoint.
Its like people who spend tons of cash for the rare Atari 2600 carts, you know the ones that sucked so bad you could not give them away. Rarity might command some cash to fanatic collectors, but it does not mean the machine is so great from a users standpoint.
Mac128
Well-known member
Uh, what!? Apple sold over 50,000 Mac 128Ks in the first 100 days, 72,000 units by April 1984 and 60,000 units alone in June, followed by steady 20,000 units/month through the end of the year. The 128K was sold for over 21 months all told.
There's nothing "rare" about them. The Macintosh TV, now that's rare, along with the Lisa only selling about 10,000 units each before being discontinued and even they turn up on eBay all the time.
As for upgrading to be useful, I would say it's odd that for 9 months the 128K had record sales despite the fact it was useless. I use my 128K several times a week and I assure you it is quite useful, just as it was then. Could it be more useful? You betcha, but the mere fact Apple could continue to sell the 128K for a year after the 512K was released demonstrates just how useful it was. I would agree even today that upgrading a 128K to a 512K solves certain problems, mostly created by Apple by intentionally leaving it behind, but for what it was marketed to do, it was amazing then and a fine computer still. You want the computer to do more? Buy a more powerful computer just like you do today.
As for upgrading it to a 512Ke, the 128K in it is certainly NOT dead. The beauty of that upgrade is all one needs to do is replace the drive and logicboard and voila, it's a 128K again. It would be a much more difficult proposition if it had been upgraded all the way to a Plus. I swap my 512K board into my 128K case all the time when I need to test things. Does that mean I kill it every time I swap it? The time to mourn a 128K is when its been mutilated, turned into a Macquarium instead of restored.
As for expecting $240, the guy is either an idiot, greedy or both. I've seen entire stock systems in their original boxes with literature sell for less. He's clearly trying to get as much milage out of it being a 128K as possible, when nothing could be farther from the truth. These eBay guys make me nuts with their branding common items "rare" all the time, because some poor fool will fall for it.
Unknown_K
Well-known member
Well as you can read here:
http://folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=The_End_Of_An_Era.txt&characters=Jean-Louis%20Gassee&sortOrder=Sort%20by%20Date
The less then 20K units sold a month was much less then expected and lead to Jobs being fired down the road.
Granted I should have said uncommon (not rare), since quite a few of those that were sold ended up modified, broken, or recycled by now.
In my opinion they sold because of it being a ground breaking product (and the 1984 commercial probably helped the hype), but by the time usefull apps by 3rd parties were showing up more RAM was needed to make the machine still usable.
http://folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=The_End_Of_An_Era.txt&characters=Jean-Louis%20Gassee&sortOrder=Sort%20by%20Date
The less then 20K units sold a month was much less then expected and lead to Jobs being fired down the road.
Granted I should have said uncommon (not rare), since quite a few of those that were sold ended up modified, broken, or recycled by now.
In my opinion they sold because of it being a ground breaking product (and the 1984 commercial probably helped the hype), but by the time usefull apps by 3rd parties were showing up more RAM was needed to make the machine still usable.
JDW
Well-known member
While it upsets me Jobs wanted the Mac a closed system, that is not why Jobs was fired. While some may argue there were a number of things that led to his axing, it all boiled down to Jobs having pissed off Sculley and Job's attempt to usurp the throne while Sculley was away on business. Had he remained loyal to Sculley, Sculley would have likely continued to look past Job's faults and would not have axed him.
Sculley was your typical big company CEO. So long as a machine sells and the company bottom line is boosted, that's all they really care about. It doesn't matter if it's open or closed to such top executives.
Kallikak
Well-known member
Even upgraded it remains an original Mac, just not original configuration. The traces for the 512K Ram were on the original board, and all that was needed was a RAM chip swap plus a bit of hardware for the addressing logic. Upgrading to use 800K disks is merely a ROM swap and drive swap - that's just software and a peripheral, and was always an intended part of the design. I may feel differently about destructive upgrades, but these are all non-destructive and 100% inline with the design of the machine.
The whole "collectibility" thing I find nuts. My oldest computer is a TRS-80 Model 1. It has the original Level 1 ROMs, and no numeric keypad etc. It is probably very "collectible" in that state. But it is also useless! The ROM has nothing but a 4K BASIC that won't even allow POKEs and PEEKs! There's just no way to get at the machine. So I am very definitely upgrading. I am writing a new ROM to give me a Z80 monitor and assembler as the OS. I have already upgraded from 4K to 16K of RAM. I am replacing some of the internal parts because of known failure modes etc. And even though this computer is sitting in a room full of other, generally much more powerful machines, I strongly maintain that even today my upgrade does make sense.
Ken
JDW
Well-known member
That was one of the things which "upset Sculley" -- he wasn't blind, you know. But had Jobs remained loyal to Sculley, Sculley would have looked past Jobs treatment of employees and kept Jobs on for the sake of retaining "insanely great" innovations at the company. While Jobs did evil things to "underlings" beneath him, none of those people had the power to fire him. His firing was linked to Sculley and the board of directors.
Interestingly, most all of the board members quit when Jobs came back to Apple in the late 90's. And a couple of those board members were board members at the time when Jobs was axed in the 80's.
As to the comment about 512k RAM used in Jobs demo. I must again agree with Kallikak. And I must add that comment has nothing at all to do with an OPEN or CLOSED system. It only had to do with RAM.
But going back to the exact title of this thread, I still don't get it. Sure, I hate to see Macs sold as fish tanks on EBAY -- which is the epitome of "mourning the loss" of an original Mac. But are we to police the world of used Macs? What can we do about it other than keep this site lively to show people classic Macs can be useful and fun. The fact is that upgraded and utterly mutilated Macs appear for sale on the net all the time. This is nothing new. I don't advocate fish tanks or gutting of old Macs, but I don't see any need to "mourn the loss" of such machines. It's not like this is happened "to every single classic Mac out there in the world today." It's only a few here and there. The vast bulk of machines out there are either sitting in closets of their original owners, or have been already dropped off at the city dump, or are still in use by the good people who post on 68kMLA!
So move past the "mourning" for a Mac you don't own, and get on with using (and posting about) a Mac you do own and love!
aftermac
Well-known member
I a lot of cases I agree with you. This, however, is not one of those cases. I'm not saying you are wrong and you can certainly do as you please with your own machines. It would be interesting to see what you can do with an upgraded TRS-80.
I generally tend to keep my computers stock, especially if I only have one of them. The 128k Mac, to me, gets it's value from being 100% stock. I have a 512ke. I don't need another one. Typically I don't consider RAM upgrades to be a "stock" modification, but I do in the case of the 128k. To me it even decreases it's value if it says "128k" on the back of the case. Those 128k's, of course, were the ones sold after the 512k was released. The 128k's that only say "Macintosh" are truly the first Mac's.
Again, these are just my own personal opinions. Collecting Mac's just happens to be a hobby of mine.
aftermac
Well-known member
:?:
I don't quite follow you. All I did was comment on how UNUSABLE the 128k Mac was and how this upgrade was done years ago by someone who needed more functionality. Steve Jobs could not have done his demo with the machine he was selling to consumers.
I still maintain that upgrading it TODAY to 512k doesn't make much sense... if you want a 512k, get a 512k. They are more readily available than the 128k's. People can do whatever they like with the systems they own. This is just my personal opinion.
JDW
Well-known member
aftermac, you clearly misinterpreted what I was saying. I said nothing of hacking my own Macs! Indeed, if you've read my posts elsewhere on this site (and on other sites -- where I am also known as "JDW"), you will find that I am rather a purist when it comes to classic Macs. I cringe at the sight of hack jobs, gutting of classic Macs, etc. Heck, that's why I still use a Mac 512k machine, in its stock condition, with the original 400k floppy drive and 64 ROMs! I spent hours fixing up the 400k drive when other people would have either trashed the machine or put in an 800k drive with 128k ROMs. I am as purist as they come, folks! But that's me. And I am in no way able to police the world. If someone screws up a machine and puts it on EBAY, what can I do about it. And so, with this in mind, if you re-read my post above, perhaps my original meaning will become more clear.
I absolutely agree 100% with your opinion! That's precisely why I bought my own Mac512! I even received a Mac 128k motherboard with it, which I never use because the Mac512 is what the Mac128 should have been! The Mac512 is exactly the same as the 128, but with 4 times the RAM, making the 512 a really usable machine whereas the 128 is hobbled in comparison. And yes, I used to use a 128k Mac for day to day work in 1984, so I know first hand how hobbled it was when running some software or copying disks. Disk swaps galore!
But folks, my the main argument in my previous post above did not center on the topics I speak of in the two paragraphs above. My main argument was against the theme of this thread and its title, for reasons I explain in the last paragraph of that post. We cannot police the world, so there's no need to "mourn" about what we see on EBAY. (And no, aftermac, I wasn't saying you are a part of the "mourning crowd." I am referring to some other posts in this thread when I talk about "mourning.")
