Macintosh 128 Proto (as far as i can tell)

[Macdrone]

So I figured even tho I have had it for months that I would put it here. It just never dawned on me it may be special. From what I can tell both my 128's (that are actually 512's) have last revision C motherboards.

According to http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Macintosh_Prototypes.txt

I will link all the photos I have taken of it here.

















Couple of questions tho,

1) Are all the 128's and 512's have a hole big enought to put the twiggy in? I ask because I have not seen inside close enough of others than the ones I have.

2) Think the shielding was not addd to see the heat build up on plastic? I compared the 2 and they have residue in th same places but you cannot see it, only feel it on the shielded version.

3) The inside is as yellow as the outside, should I retrobrite or leave it alone?

4) The front off the other Mac analog board says 1986 so I am sure it was a 512 to begin with but its asset tag is M0001 serial F4423MSM001, so maybe just pieced together to keep it working?

I am pretty stoked now. Guess I got my Grail wether its real or not I will hit my "I believe" button anyway.

I hope you all enjoy me sharing it. If your ever up the Portland way let me know and we can get together. I love trading stories and parts.

 

[krye]

Wow, what is that? Never seen a Mac with the Apple logo like that. Looks like you have some sort of obscure undocumented prototype. How these things show up decades after the fact is a mystery.

 

[Macdrone]

Ya I menitioned it months ago here but just put it in its apple bag and forgot to photo it. When I mentioned I might give up 1 for someone to have a 128 they said hey that doesnt look quite right. Then all the internet news starts pouring in. I got the Mac from a lady whos husband past away, same woman who gave (I gave her 200 for a truckload of stuff and I do mean truckload) me 3 color classics and the mac portable. I wish I had more documentation, but as prototypes go I guess there wouldnt be much, thats where final product would come in.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

:O The FDD "doesn't look quite right" either, you may have a prototype in that as well.

Very interesting differences in the boards as well. What's the legend say on the IC that was added between the two large ICs next to the IWM?

That score is the stuff MacDreams are made of! :approve:

 

[Macdrone]

The Eproms were supposedly removable to facilitate changes. On both boards they look like they slide right up, but I am not even gonna try. Both Boards work, caps and all. Just gonna try and test the first OS on it as the real 512's cannot run it, I may be mistaken but I think I read that somewhere.

 

[Macdrone]

TRW

8428

810-1-222G

writing on the board between the two IC's, connected to 4 pins on the IC closest to the edge of the board.

 

[Macdrone]

Apparently the 3.5 sony drive was a last minute D Day addition to the non twiggy Macs. After reading that it makes alot of sense why the hole is wide enough in the case for a twiggy but the drive mount has an apple part number with a crazy looking Sony drive in there.

I like the back story on the Mac. Pretty interesting reading.

 

[Cosmo]

That is very interesting one. It really must have been an early 128k development unit that have been later upgraded for 512k development, with just board swapped. Can't be that many around anymore, atleast there's no information around about those at all, except the famous twiggy-unit.

 

[gobabushka]

I had done some reading on folklore.org and it said somewhere that the "apple feet" were changed at the last minute. So it does look like you have a late model prototype!

 

[Cosmo]

the FEET gave her up!

 

[Macdrone]

The Fokelore web site says the late model prototype has 512, that its not a different board.

 

[olePigeon]

Wow, very cool.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Yep! CheapFeets, weak@$$ flyback and RAMreaming substitutions were all bean-counter inspired degradation desecrations of the original design spec.

Higher price point or lower margins might have killed the Mac outright, however.

Fabulous score! :approve:

 

[TheMacGuy]

Floppy Drive Bracket different aluminum from frame.

The 3.5" drive in the twiggy slot is cracking me up! It's looks funny! :lol:

 

[Brooklyn]

Very cool. :O

I wonder if the Macintosh branded system is actually a release sample? Maybe a sample of the final product but not a production run. The CPU looks different than the production run of boards I've seen.

 

[Macdrone]

Anyone else have a 128 or 512 they have opened up can tell me if the wide hole in the frame that can fit twiggy but has a 3.5 is in all of them? Its also interesting as they updated the mac they removed names no longer in the project.

 

[Brooklyn]

Check out this site, they have several pics of a 128k teardown:

http://www.tcocd.de/Pictures/Micro/Apple/mac128.shtml

 

[Macdrone]

Ok floppy cage and metal inards look pretty standard then looking at those pictures. One motherboard is close but the changeable eprom makes it defferent to final. They had to change the floppy holder but the frame for logic board stayed regardless of the twiggy. Good thinking.

 

[uniserver]

Yep! CheapFeets, weak@$$ flyback and RAMreaming substitutions were all bean-counter inspired degradation desecrations of the original design spec.

So the original Release mac had

- Cheaper feets

- Weaker Flyback - Worse quality?

- 128K Ram instead of 512K ram

Differences from the Release Candidates, Such as the one macdrone has?

http://folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Wet_dreams_and_little_rubber_feet.1.txt&topic=Industrial%20Design&sortOrder=Sort%20by%20Date&detail=high&showcomments=1

I saw this in regards to the feets folklore-