Scored a Silkscreened Drexel 128K Mac!

[jsarchibald]

The original batch had the blue silkscreen, but a second batch had the branding. Yours would be the second batch. What are the serial numbers on yours?

 

[unity]

Second batch, third, etc. Drexel probably placed several orders over the year after the first large shipment. As for PC or Mac, they went both ways. There are also pics at Drexel of Mac Pluses coming in, many of them. The branding was done by the university itself as they did with any computer equipment. Many were done on the front to emulate what Apple did, but some are on the back. Yours looks well done, some are more aggressive. My High School did similar branding to electronic equipment.

The difference is most of the silkscreened ones went to students. But the branded ones were only used in house and branded that way as university property. A student would get an unmolested Mac. And many of the branded ones have asset tags, if not removed at some point after the Mac was retired.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

It will be interesting to find out the approximate date when mine was upgraded to a Plus. I'll have to check production dates of the ICs on the Killy Klipped MicroMac Performer 16MHz 68030 I found in it. That upgrade to a 4MB memory limited SE/30 rocks.

Mine may not be original state as shipped to Drexel, but it has a great story to tell. Not to take a single thing from your beauty, but given my penchant for all things Mac hacked and pushed to the max, I'll take the likes of my 3D cattle branded Logo and twice upgraded DrexelMac any day of the week.

 

[jsarchibald]

Fair enough, I love mine for it's originality, you love yours because it's been modded. Just shows our particular bent for Macs in our hands!

So I assume your machine now has two barcodes? We know your kit was made towards the later half of 1986, and it's entirely possible the upgrade was done in the same year. It's also possible that Drexel had this upgrade performed themselves to get better shelf life out of their investment, hard to see them offloading it 2 years after acquisition.

The other upgrade would have come later, but it adds to the story too. A fine Mac you have there my friend!

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Indeed my friend, just the right versions of Macs Drexel fell into exactly the right hands. I got mine many years ago, before any of us realized the import of the Drexel logo'd Macintosh 128K. The production and upgrade dates put mine in use in its original 128K state in 1985, the year my son was born, so it has gained much sentimental value as well.

 

[unity]

That would be a rouge upgrade if its a plus with another barcode. The official upgrade kits did not have barcoded on the bottom of the case. And the FCC rear label is different. I could see the University even doing it if the Plus had display issues or something.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Rouge upgrade? Codename or cannibalistic resource management? :?:

 

[unity]

LOL

"Cannibalistic resource management" would be it. And not the first time or last when it comes to a 128/512 to Plus marriage of hardware.

 

[jsarchibald]

Considering a few of us have Drexels, I think we need to compare notes on specifications, part numbers, etc.  There isn't a lot of info out there, so it would be good to have it all in one place.

 

[Carboy7]

High quality pics! 8-o

Next, go for one of these...

 

[jsarchibald]

Ha ha, if I had a spare $100K I might have bought it! Most I've spent on any one machine is $525, so I'm an opportunistic shopper.

Glad you like the pics!

 

[jsarchibald]

Thanks to Unity, I've now gotten the mouse!

This thing is close to new, no real wear and cleaned up beautifully.

 

[unity]

Glad the mouse made it just fine!!!

 

[jsarchibald]

Thanks again!