• 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.

My mini Apple Store museum

haplain

Well-known member
I put it on some feet sliders; those thing you get from Home Depot that are really glossy plastic for protecting hard wood floors. It works well, not exactly flawlessly but gets it done. I rare get into that case which is also why it isn't a big deal. I turn on those machines monthly rather than weekly.

 

TheMacGuy

Well-known member
Can't wait to see that Cube. Imagine if the final production model did have a built in speaker, there wouldn't be anyone hunting down those pesky USB speakers.

And that prototype TAM. I remember hearing something about one. Any pictures or threads?

 

uniserver

Well-known member
you need some directional track lighting , illuminating each piece.

then take your pics.

do you shine the machines up with Pledge or something?

make em look nice.

I'd like to see the individual machines better. lighting is a little bad. :) the darn sun coming through the windows.

 

haplain

Well-known member
Can't wait to see that Cube. Imagine if the final production model did have a built in speaker, there wouldn't be anyone hunting down those pesky USB speakers.
And that prototype TAM. I remember hearing something about one. Any pictures or threads?
Need some of those USB speakers? I think I've got a few pair. I also have a bunch of GeForce 3's for the Cubes and spare parts. Numerous power supplies, etc.

I'll post more on the TAM once I've got it back from Charles. The proto board is being rude and doesn't want to seem to work. It's so different from a production model though. Besides the logic board, the internals have special markings on them/asset tags from Apple. The screen is glossy, which I've never seen. The back ports for the TAM are unlabeled, missing the FCC approval, doesn't have an Apple serial number. The keyboard has the correct leather but is missing the paint and is glossy black in color rather than matching TAM paint. The mouse is also the same way, shiny black. The Bose unit is missing any markings on it whatsoever, Apple, FCC anything. Again, I bought that as a regular TAM showed up and man saw I surprised. Pictures to come when I've got it up and running again.

Awesome collection.
Need/want any more silk banners? I have a few. iBook, QS G4, and Cube.
Thanks for the offer but I'm all full at this point.

I've been thinking about the lighting. I actually have a nice setup at night with the lights that are in there. It's just that during the day it's nearly impossible to snap a quality photo. Maybe tonight once my last bulb arrives I'll snap a photo and post it. I'll get more photos of each item and post. I know there's been a call for the radio, anything else anyone wants to see?

 

uniserver

Well-known member
that cube sounds awesome man.

its crazy they were going to install a speaker in there too…

i must admit it always was funny powering on a Cube… if no speakers installed then you get no Mac Bong.

 

TheMacGuy

Well-known member
i must admit it always was funny powering on a Cube… if no speakers installed then you get no Mac Bong.
I have to boot my Cube all the time like this thanks to cone rot. Hopfully I can get a cheap set of speakers from an iMac G4 and swap the actual speakers.

 

olePigeon

Well-known member
You should get those Philips Hue color lights that you can control with a computer. Since it's open source, you could actually control the lights with pretty much any internet connected device, including your vintage Macs.

So here's my idea: Take one of your B&W Macs and turn on the Text to Speech. Have it say something silly like, "See, I can do color, too!" and have it send a command to change the color of the light that's shining on it. :eek:)

 

haplain

Well-known member
That idea is so awesome it makes me sick. I should have hired you as a bada** next level cool consultant. Ron Johnson doesn't have anything on you.

Here are the photos of the cooler. It's so cool and works. I had to rebuild the battery compartment, which was not a simple task ironically.

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haplain

Well-known member
Normally I don't post stuff unless it's perfect/complete but everyone wanted to see how it looks at night so here ya go. The MacTV is undergoing surgery.

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Trash80toHP_Mini

NIGHT STALKER
If you find a small flat screen TV, you should have your PowerCD doing its standalone VCD player routine. SShowing (panning and zooming) clips of details or some of your collection that's not on display at any given time would rock, sort of a moving slide show. That feature was one of the reasons I bought my PowerCD back in the day, but I never did get around to setting it up.

 

haplain

Well-known member
Thanks for the pictures of the cooler.
Do you know the history behind ?
No idea of any history on that item. I picked it up for a song because when I purchased it the item wasn't working. It was listed as having a corroded battery pack that was also physically broken. Having done this enough now I knew it probably just need to be replaced. I purchased a few units of amazon for .99, spliced the wires on the first one that arrived to make sure it work, and it did. I then found the one that was the closest fit, took it to work, chucked it up in the vice, milled it down to the size I needed and was good to go. I've found one picture of another one online but never seen anything past that. I'd guess it was sold at the corporate store at some point.

On an aside, I had the first visitor to my mini Store yesterday. I was humbled and honored to have Al Kossow, the Curator for the entire Computer History Museum come by. He came over after I spoke with him about my prototype Lisa and seemed very curious. He come over with a profile drive loaded with BLU and dumped by hard drive. I showed him the machine, the differences between a stock Lisa and mine, the E87 as the ROM profile, F/B versus symbols on the back, smooth back vs. textured, and some other small things. He said it was absolutely 100% prototype and should never have left Apple. Al worked at Apple from 1980 to 2004 so now I know it’s legit (yay)! My prototype keyboard wasn’t working so he took it apart and showed me what I needed to purchase to fix the unit, which was so nice of him. Al is an amazing guy and extremely helpful. He's so intelligent I felt it was almost hard for him to talk to someone 1/100th as technical as him. I thought I was technical but after talking with him it showed me how noob I am. He told me about a 20MB prototype Widget Lisa drive that was frozen and I think we came up with a solution to attempt to break free the needle. I said if he broke the top open, the slightest amount of IPA and a bend hypodermic needle that he could probably break the oil down enough to spin the head free. I hope it works since it’s a 1 of none piece.

I then asked if he'd ever seen a G4 Cube prototype other than when he worked there, or if the Computer History Museum had one? He said to his knowledge none have ever surfaced. I smiled, tried to contain my enthusiasm and said "would you like to see one?" He raised an eyebrow and said huh? I said "that’s one right there." I pulled it out and started to show him everything. I nearly forgot to show him the speaker and he literally fell silent. He said he'd never seen one with a speaker, EVER. I told him about the chip and the very strange BootROM on the machine. He smiled and said that's sure a one of a kind piece you have there. I nearly peeded my pants.

Overall the Lisa dump was successful, not sure if there were any files under Lisa 3.0 but we’ll see.

 

TheMacGuy

Well-known member
I thought I had seen that colored pencil set before. Apple sells (or sold at least) them at the company store. I picked up a set when I went back in June of 2012.

 

TheMacGuy

Well-known member
I like that silver TAM prototype!

Also, talk about a collection of prototype iOS devices! In the 4th pictures, that silver looking iPod touch/iPhone front panel, what is that?

 

haplain

Well-known member
That TAM is SERIOUSLY cool. The inside is bronze and there's not one thing about the TAM that shipped and that prototype this is the same.

You've got quite an eye there. You always ask about the good stuff! That could be one of the rarest pieces I have. Those are iPod touch Instron (machine that measures pressure/pull strength) samples. Engineers would use the machines to push with a certain force to be able test the force required to break a screen. The lines were used to measure where it cracked, how large the crack was, etc. Those units passed the force required for the spec.

The other one that looks entirely black (iPhone 4 back w/no writing) is for swapping antennas which is pretty cool.

 
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