Nice Early 1984 Mac 128K w/Detailed Pictures

[Mac128]

Saw this incredibly detailed auction on eBay for a 128K manufactured the week of the SuperBowl. Nice detailed pictures of the early differences from later units. But don't worry Anonymous Freak, yours is still the earliest known production Macintosh manufactured! :beige:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=290513465566

Detailed pictures here:

http://jpegbay.com/gallery/000761651-.html

http://jpegbay.com/gallery/000761659-.html#1

http://jpegbay.com/gallery/000761661-.html#1

http://jpegbay.com/gallery/000761663-.html#1

 

[tmtomh]

Very cool!

 

[Peter.Howard]

although the seller doesn't give the serial number this one looks pretty nice as well

http://cgi.ebay.com/1984-Original-Macintosh-128K-Model-M0001-System-NICE-/120661680324?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item1c17ff20c4

 

[Mac128]

Peter, no offense, but this is just standard fare from danapplemacman. He sells nice clean Mac 128Ks for high end clientele and posts lots of pretty pictures of them. This is nothing new, much less out of the ordinary.

I did not post this thread to encourage posting nice Mac 128K eBay auctions, thus driving traffic to a seller's auction - in fact I have no connection with the one I posted - and I genrally discourage doing so unless there is something of note you wish to point out. The one I posted, is a bit more revealing than Dan's (read: a lot more interesting).

I would suggest to all that this forum is no place to post eBay listings unless there is something specific about the auction worthy of discussion. There is absolutely nothing unique about Dan's auction, and you are probably a little too new here to know this, but could send the discussion down the wrong path and get it locked.

While I realize 128Ks are somewhat rare down under ... as I pointed out before from data I've collected over several years, they are hardly rare on the US eBay site. There are probably a dozen such offerings per year from Dan alone, not counting other sellers, and less than 1% of them are worth bringing up here, Dan's latest offering not being one of them.

 

[mactjaap]

Thanks for the posting. In the Netherlands also not much 128K´s in the wild..

I downloaded all the pictures to compare with my own one.

 

[Mac128]

I suggest anyone interested in following the Mac 128Ks in the wild, should register with eBay (if not already), whether you intend to buy anything or not, then set up automatic searches for "128k" in every country in which you might be curious. They are easy to turn on and off should you get sick of them, and your eBay user-name and password works in every country (you have to log into the forign site directly to search and save the search). The results all turn up in your default nation account. could not be easier.

In fact I suggest everyone following these threads do this. Before you will know it, you will have more pictures of 128Ks than you could have ever dreamed, and more than enough proof of just how innapopriate the term "rare" is applied to this Macintosh model worldwide, if not in your own country.

 

[Anonymous Freak]

Maybe next weekend (long weekend, but not actually celebrating Christmas until Monday,) I'll tear down my 128K again and get better pictures than when I first got it. The only non-launch-stock component is the logic board; which was replaced with a 512K model at some point. I have since acquired an original launch-stock 128K board, but it's dead. I also have an original launch-time 400K external floppy drive (completely jammed mechanism, unfortunately,) and mouse (broken vertical interrupter-wheel, so I use a newer Mac Plus-era mouse,) and serial cable; along with an HD20. I can have either a very nice launch-time LOOKING system (broken drive and mouse,) or a usable system (newer 800K external drive, newer Plus-era mouse, HD20.)

I also have a dead HD20 that I'll probably convert to an HDxxSC one of these days by swapping the guts of a no-name SCSI drive case in. (The controller on it appears to work, as it attempts to mount, and is identified by the test utility; it just doesn't pass the test, nor can it be formatted, so I'm assuming it's the drive itself that's bad.)

 

[Scott Baret]

The saved search feature is handy for anything. If you're looking for something that doesn't show up every day, say, a copy of Spelunx, you'll get an alert when one does show up.

128Ks aren't rare by any means. They only appear so because the Plus, SE, and Classic are pretty much everywhere. In a pallet of old Macs at a warehouse I observed a few years ago, there were two 128Ks in a group of about 30. There were also three 512Ks. The rest was entirely Pluses, SEs, Classics, Classic IIs, and a lone SE/30. (There were more SEs than anything). If the 128K was a rare model, you wouldn't find any in a small pallet. In fact, it's harder to find a II or IIx than a 128K these days. There were at least two or three other 128Ks in the area where this pallet was delivered to (as well as a boatload of Classics, SEs, and Pluses...all of which are newer, were produced longer, and sold in larger volumes to educational institutions, which were the best source for compact Macs for years and were probably where most of these came from).

Speaking of eBay listings, there's a Lisa 1 with several bids on eBay right now. It was $25K last I checked. (I have a boxed Lisa 2 with brochures, office system disks, and the developer's kit...if mine sells for that price, I may as well get myself a new Honda Accord).