Local estate find in San Diego

[Tarantulas]

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.

It's a formatter board for a LaserWriter IISC.

 

[ppuskari]

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:

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Please please please see if you can find the rare Apple /// UniFile DuoFile controller and maybe the zipgs that may be in a box there. Before his death he did have the controller in a Apple /// though as we were trying to get it working with one of his twiggy drives. I would hate for this card to be lost forever and the family has been very negative in returning my property to me.

I’ll even send some kind of reward your way to you or anyone that finds that rare prototype card that we were working on at the time of his passing.

Petar Puskarich
ppuskari@hotmail.com

 

[Phipli]

It's a formatter board for a LaserWriter IISC.

To confirm, are you saying that about both photos in the post, because I wasn't talking about the picture you already replied about?

 

[ried]

Please please please see if you can find the rare Apple /// UniFile DuoFile controller and maybe the zipgs that may be in a box there. Before his death he did have the controller in a Apple /// though as we were trying to get it working with one of his twiggy drives. I would hate for this card to be lost forever and the family has been very negative in returning my property to me.

I’ll even send some kind of reward your way to you or anyone that finds that rare prototype card that we were working on at the time of his passing.

Petar Puskarich
ppuskari@hotmail.com

I'm sorry but I did not see what you're looking for. I did pick up multiple Apple /// units, but they do not have any cards in their expansion slots. Hmmm...

 

[Tarantulas]

To confirm, are you saying that about both photos in the post, because I wasn't talking about the picture you already replied about?

Sorry.

 

[MrFahrenheit]

What an amazing lot!

If there was anything A/UX-related, it would be awesome to have it preserved in some way.

There is an eBay reseller in that area that I know takes large collections. If you want the contact details, let me know by DM. They are somewhat of a Polkadots from the West coast, though, and will price everything to maximum profit.

 

[ried]

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?

Looks like these were a commercial product of some kind. Here's one (in much better condition) on Pinterest.

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/294774738084289363/

 

[bibilit]

This is (it's obvious from looking at it) a known collection from a prominent Apple II community member that passed away fairly recently

Tony Diaz ?

 

[paulhlee]

So how do I get to head over there an check it out?

Nevermind... i figured out how to message the OP. lol

 

[digitalrampage]

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:

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View attachment 52663

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Hey Reid,

I was a friend of that individual and this is very saddening to see.

I have offered countless offers of help because not only did I have items there from my personal collection delivered to him, others did to he was working on.

Please reach out if you can, as I was earlier speaking with his family on socials but it’s almost impossible and people do want their items back, and that’s only fair.

 

[TristinAEvans]

Sent a DM to OP. hopefully we can work something out.

 

[LaPorta]

To quote Indiana Jones: "That belongs in a museum!!!"

 

[a2fan]

I was hoping that KansasFest would have had a chance to acquire this collection so we could proceed with our Tony Diaz memorial display, and responsibly document and archive it for the Apple II Community, since KFest was a big part of Tony's life.

Tony had immense collections of documentation, source code, etc. Too much. He never got around to properly archiving it because his good intentions were dwarfed by the number and sheer size of the projects. He was unable to share the load.

There is also the issue that Tony owed, borrowed many things from well known programmers, leaders and contributors in the community to study for cloning, or to document -- but now the original owners are even less likely to get their items back. We wanted to help amend that.

 

[MOS8_030]

Good God! Hopefully the family will have the time, resources, and willingness to properly sort through all that and get some of it sold off properly.
I'm sure ~90% will be sold by the pound but hopefully they can see some profit from the remaining 10%.

 

[ried]

The family just called me. I don't know how, but some forum members here have apparently tracked down the deceased's surviving family members and started calling them; it is not welcome. Please do not continue reaching out to the family, they do not appreciate it.

I feel bad even sharing this thread now.

 

[Daniël]

There is also the issue that Tony owed, borrowed many things from well known programmers, leaders and contributors in the community to study for cloning, or to document -- but now the original owners are even less likely to get their items back. We wanted to help amend that.

Here's hoping all the borrowed items end up back at their owners, it would make the situation that much more tragic if it just ends up being sold off.

 

[Cory5412]

Just by way of vouching - @ried if you're running this, please coordinate with a2fan and @paulhagstrom on returning anything lent to it's rightful owner. Does anyone have an inventory on hand? This is one of those things that's tough to coordinate and I don't want to get in the middle of it, other than to say that if anyone has a good idea, it's likely a2fan and Paul - part of the team at https://www.kansasfest.org/committee/

We have a dedicated memorial thread at https://68kmla.org/bb/index.php?threads/in-memory-of-tony-diaz.39365/ because wthww and I were both friends with Tony. In general, I attended Kansasfest in 2014 and 15 with some friends and the Kansasfest scene is really great, and Tony was such a huge part of it. Tony joined in on that friend group afterward and having him hop in on voice and IRC chats was always a joy.

 

[ried]

Just by way of vouching - @ried if you're running this, please coordinate with a2fan and @paulhagstrom on returning anything lent to it's rightful owner. Does anyone have an inventory on hand?

I am not involved the estate's liquidation. The family is managing it themselves, and I was put into contact with the executor (a family member) by another local vintage Apple enthusiast. I do not know how many people have visited the property, before or after me. You can tell that it's been rifled through, based on the photos I took yesterday.

There is no proper inventory and, indeed, such an undertaking should be handled by professionals. But that is entirely up to the family.

All I ask is that people please stop bothering the surviving family members.

 

[NJRoadfan]

The Apple IIgs machines likely have some rare boards in them. The BOXED (!) Applied Visions FutureSound GS card is extremely rare. I have the card, but getting the docs and software archived would be great.

Apple II software mirrors

A collection of past and current Apple II FTP sites. ftp.apple.asimov.net is synced daily.

mirrors.apple2.org.za

 

[a2fan]

Hey Reid,

I was a friend of that individual and this is very saddening to see.

I have offered countless offers of help because not only did I have items there from my personal collection delivered to him, others did to he was working on.

Please reach out if you can, as I was earlier speaking with his family on socials but it’s almost impossible and people do want their items back, and that’s only fair.

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

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

I see you picked up the ISAAC cards I gave him. Is the box to the side by chance 68K processor boards with german documentation? He borrowed those from me along with the FutureSound card in box any many more things.