Local estate find in San Diego

[ried]

Well, this was unexpected. This weekend I was put into contact with the local estate of a well known community member from San Diego County, California. After communicating with his family, I went by the house to check out the "thousands upon thousands" of vintage Apple items - along with other computing, video game and general consumer technology history. I wasn't able to spend more than a few hours but, yeah, it definitely lived up to expectations (and then some).

Realistically, the family could use help from someone who would be able to dispose of 100+ Apple II machines (all variants including prototypes), hundreds upon hundreds of expansion cards, components including CPUs and memory chips - you name it. This is a 3500 square foot house FULL of stuff. You could spend days upon days there.

If anyone here has an online store and wants to just take it all for inventory, that would be ideal. But people who would make large purchases are also welcome. Please message me for info.

Bring a semi truck, a U-Haul or a large SUV.

Here's what I brought home after a few hours there:

 

[ried]

There's plenty more where that came from...













Filing cabinets FULL of logic boards, fully populated to bare circuit boards. Unreal.

 

[3lectr1cPPC]

Holy cow!

 

[ried]

It's absolutely unreal. I didn't capture the half of it in photos, either. Filing cabinets just FULL of the most obscure components ever, including unreleased / prototype hardware.

 

[3lectr1cPPC]

And of course it's on the west coast too... you guys all get the best stuff

 

[ried]

Anyone know what these are, exactly?

Apple IIgs logic board prototype?



Apple "Super II" prototype Apple II (which?) logic board?



Some prototype with two SCSI ports? I have no idea.



Some sort of hand made expansion card with a Motorola 68010. Haven't a clue what this is. Anyone know? May not be Apple...

 

[ried]

And of course it's on the west coast too... you guys all get the best stuff

It would absolutely be worth flying here for.

 

[3lectr1cPPC]

Not possible for me unfortunately

 

[CC_333]

This reminds me too much of my storage unit....

c

 

[ried]

This reminds me too much of my storage unit....

c

I love this stuff, but am just a little worried about turning into the previous owner of all this!

This one's above my Apple II pay grade, so I'd love any insight that people may have. It's a prototype Apple IIgs with a SKA321-03 motherboard. Yes, I've seen the Christie's link about the auction from 2013. No, I do not know if this is worth that kind of money. But it does have something I've never seen before: A multi-ROM expansion card of sorts. Definitely an interesting prototype. Anyone seen another?

 

[ried]

Nifty old wood and leather custom case for the Apple II



I brought home several Apple II clones, too, which may have been a mistake. I know nothing about them or what might be special about them (if anything at all).

 

[Performa450]

I love this stuff, but am just a little worried about turning into the previous owner of all this!

This one's above my Apple II pay grade, so I'd love any insight that people may have. It's a prototype Apple IIgs with a SKA321-03 motherboard. Yes, I've seen the Christie's link about the auction from 2013. No, I do not know if this is worth that kind of money. But it does have something I've never seen before: A multi-ROM expansion card of sorts. Definitely an interesting prototype. Anyone seen another?

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I have seen that before, that's the prototype flash ROM for the IIgs. I've got a proto machine (SKA321-03) with final ROMs in it. Looks like you have a proper collection of history there! Well done, I'd get back there and get some more if I were you. I seriously doubt it's worth 5 figures, but maybe 4 on a good day? Not sure what a super II is - now that could be to the right person!

The state of that house does bring a certain amount of worry to any collector though! Mine is nothing like that (well, plenty of the kids' stuff everywhere instead), but definitely something to be mindful of whilst collecting!

 

[Paralel]

The only thing I can say with a fair amount of certainty is that the "Super II" is a IIe prototype.

My best guess on the IIgs rom chips is that given the release date of the IIgs is that the markings stand for 1.0 Beta Final or Beta Firmware. So, those would be the predecessor to ROM 00 of the IIgs. The only way to know if they are close to release or not would be to dump them and compare.

 

[Performa450]

The only thing I can say with a fair amount of certainty is that the "Super II" is a IIe prototype.

My best guess on the IIgs rom chips is that given the release date of the IIgs is that the markings stand for 1.0 Beta Final or Beta Firmware. So, those would be the predecessor to ROM 00 of the IIgs. The only way to know if they are close to release or not would be to dump them and compare.

Yep, thats it. Apparently models with this ROM display IIBF instead of IIGS

 

[joshc]

Thanks for sharing this. It's a reminder of what happens when collecting turns into hoarding. If you have piles of things that are falling over...maybe it's time to reevaluate what you are doing.

That said, there's some actually really rare stuff in there - not eBay r@re, actual rare. I hope those things find themselves in good hands. There can't be many examples of prototype Apple II boards.

Nifty old wood and leather custom case for the Apple II

View attachment 52698

I brought home several Apple II clones, too, which may have been a mistake. I know nothing about them or what might be special about them (if anything at all).

I love this. It's a glance into the world of computing before things got serious / more 'professional'. I haven't seen this particular case before, looks homemade, but why the Apple without the bite? It would be great to learn more about the background of some of this stuff, was this person an Apple employee, or a relative of one? An authorised reseller?

 

[Tarantulas]

That's a prototype LaserWriter IISC formatter board.

 

[Phipli]

Some sort of hand made expansion card with a Motorola 68010. Haven't a clue what this is. Anyone know? May not be Apple...

I believe there are photos of a backplane mac from the mid 80s, that was used for development/ R&D... perhaps this is a processor card from that? I'll see if I can re-find the photo I saw.

Edit - struggling to find the collection of mac prototype photos and words I saw before and self doubting what there was and wasn't photos of.

 

[ScutBoy]

Sweet $DEITY! If you want to sell some of those Lisa boards, let me know!

I would love to dig through this place!

 

[paulhagstrom]

This is (it's obvious from looking at it) a known collection from a prominent Apple II community member that passed away fairly recently, and was known to have had one of the most extensive collections of Apple historical stuff out there. He spent decades collecting it, learning about it, sharing it. Every year he went, he would bring a large subset of it to show/share with people at KansasFest, I've touched that exact Super II Board several times myself. It would be ideal to keep these things connected to the stories of their acquisition that we know from other forums, so I hope that whoever winds up with things from here does keep track of where they came from. Whether his house was a mess or not, he cared deeply about Apple history and about the vintage Apple community.

 

[herd]

Thanks for sharing this information. I hope the family will get some honest and knowledgeable assistance with the estate. Best wishes for them in a difficult time...