Is this anything “special” Mac OS 8 ARPLE Not For Resale?

[jajan547]

Hello everyone I’m trying to determine whether or not this is special or rare in any way? I can’t find much anoint it.

 

[joshc]

Apple Reference, Performance & Learning Expert (ARPLE) was a performance support system by Apple. ARPLE CD packages were issued regularly in the ’90s and contained software, user-guides, art libraries, and marketing materials. ARPLE was renamed to the "Apple Sales and Marketing Resource Library" in 1998 and later moved from a CD-based system to the Web.

My guess is that this disc contains some marketing stuff not included in the retail version, but the OS itself is probably the same as the GM release.

 

[jajan547]

So probably not worth getting?

 

[joshc]

Not unless you want OS 8 reference/marketing related material or you want to get it for the sake of archiving it

 

[jajan547]

Well here’s the link I think I’ll pass but it’s $30ish dollars.

 

[MrFahrenheit]

Well here’s the link I think I’ll pass but it’s $30ish dollars.

At one point I was buying up all of the ARPLE and Apple Reference and Presentations Library CDs I could find, but budget and space ran out.

Not sure what would be unique on this CD vs. the regular Mac OS 8 CD, but I always found the items on an ARPL/ARPLE CD to be interesting. It's where I found some training tools for A/UX, and some unique and 'behind the scenes' Apple software that wasn't made public. One of those was a SCSI disk cloner, that could image one SCSI drive over to another, bit-for-bit, which I don't think exists in the commercial space (it's a System 6/System 7 app).

 

[jajan547]

So it could have some neat things on it? Hmmm now I’m intrigued again.

 

[MrFahrenheit]

So it could have some neat things on it? Hmmm now I’m intrigued again.

I'd say its maybe a 10% chance. It's possible it was just bundled in a monthly shipment of ARPLE CDs for a dealer, and marked as "ARPLE" so that it could not be resold. To me, it's more likely to be that. However, there are some Apple OS CDs that contain special internal software, usually denoted as 'Internal Edition'. I have a few of those. This could be one of those, too. It's a gamble at $30 without knowing what's on it.

 

[MrFahrenheit]

I can tell you, contrary to the thread on TinkerDifferent, there is no special sauce Mac OS 8 that Apple shipped out that runs on unsupported Macs. I see the thread there talking about Apple possibly supporting the SE/30 with a special release. This won't be that, if such even exists. I was a registered Apple developer in the 90's and I never saw an alpha, beta, RC, or GM that was for unsupported hardware. And I have them all.

 

[MrFahrenheit]

If you want to know the kinds of things usually on an ARPL/ARPLE CD, you can download this ISO of the version 1.0 that I own:

Apple Reference and Presentations Library (ARPL) Reseller Editions v1.0 - 8.0 (1989-1991) - Macintosh Garden

This compilation of software, artwork, presentations, spec sheets, pdf files, and system software and applications, was provided to internal Apple employees and resellers on a frequent basis. It covers all of the Apple products (both software and hardware) released during the period.

macintoshgarden.org

Edit: More here: https://archive.org/details/@mrfahrenheit451

 

[jajan547]

Hey that’s wonderful thank you for the link, and I appreciate all of the information it was very helpful and based on what you said I think I’ll hold off on that’s disc.

 

[olePigeon]

I assumed it was the disk the reseller put into the floor model that ran all the videos and slideshows.