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The Mac Geek's Journal - Archives Archived March 15, 2003
2003_11_10 |
 01/16/2003 - The Apple Lisa is
20 Years Old And filling up a huge ditch in Utah with Apple
Lisa's seemed only like yesterday. Apple announced the Apple Lisa (later dubbed
the "Apple Lisa 1") in January 1983. The unit later hit the retail stores the
following March. Check out my Apple Lisa 1 on-line museum
via this link.Speaking of the Apple Lisa, I found a really interesting web site. The webmaster says it's actually running off of an Apple Lisa 2. Get a load of that! That extends the "because I can" theory quite a bit. |
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01/14/2003 - My vacation is
officially OVER I'm
back at my home in Pearl City after a long two-week vacation on Maui. As a
personal tradition of mine, I attend the PGA TOUR's Mercedes Championships every
year. This tournament includes all the winners from the 2002 PGA TOUR season,
which includes 18 rookies and three multiple tournament winners. The weather at
Kapalua was perfect -- sunny, no clouds most of the days, and no wind. Because
it wasn't windy, the scores were very low (remember that low scores in golf is a
good thing). Ernie Els scored a record 261 (292 par), breaking the course record
for 36, 54, and 72-holes. He also broke the PGA TOUR scoring record, relative to
par, with a -31, beating the previous record by three strokes. I have over 150
photos, which includes close-ups of the players, and several of Clint Eastwood,
who once again played the Pro-Am on Wednesday. The silent auction at Kapalua sucked this year. Lots of art-sy items, but that's not me. They had several cool Odyssey putters, but the bidding prices were very near or over the full retail price. If you're a baseball fan, you would've drooled over the various autographed baseballs and New York Yankees items (Joe Torre was also at the Pro-Am). Now that I'm back home, I'll be re-opening The Mac Geek store on Wednesday. And I'll be starting the 2003 edition of my Maui photo album. So stay tuned to that! |
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12/25/2002 - The Mac Geek Store
is now open I'm happy to announce to all of you that
The Mac Geek Store is now open for
business! In the store, you'll find many Apple II and Macintosh related items,
including logic boards, memory upgrades, controller boards, software, and
diskettes. The Store's money transactions is via
PayPal, so you must have an account with
them in order to buy something. Take a look... You might find something there
that you need! I'll continue to sell certain items on eBay, so look out for
those as well! |
 Two of my many friends that hang out with me in the computer room... The Ty Beanie Buddy 1997 Christmas Teddy, and "Trumpet", which sit there as a reminder of my mom's love for elephants, sits on top of my Apple IIgs RGB Monitor. |
12/22/2002 - Happy Holidays
from The Mac Geek I'd like to take this opportunity to wish all of my
web site visitors Happy Holidays, and hopefully great things will happen in
2003. Reflecting on 2002... The Museum For-A-Day is not exactly growing, but it's becoming more and more digital by the month. Many of the very important items are now on display on-line. Quite a bit of hard work was put into those items this past year. Also, this time marks the 1st Anniversary of The Mac Geek's web site format. Right after I came back from the Mercedes Championships on Maui, I did a total re-design of the site. I've personalized the site by putting up many items that make me happy, including some of my Japanese anime items. And of course Nori-P herself, who I still have a major crush for after all these years! Stay tuned for 2003!!!!! |
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12/21/2002 - Bell & Howell
Apple II Plus is now on-line After nearly three years of owning
this collection, I finally gained enough energy and enthusiasm to
put this
collection on-line. It's my best write-up to date!!! My particular unit is
the cleanest I've ever seen. No magic marker markings, no major scratches, or
anything of the sort. I purchased it from a school teacher in 1999. The school
teacher was the original owner of this unit, and he took very good care of it.
Please check it
out! I'm sure you'll enjoy the photos and my write-up. |
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 Take a GOOD luck at this puppy because you won't see another one like this for quite a long time! This particular Apple II specimen is more likely the oldest existing Apple II. Truthfully, it waters my eyes up a bit when I see this machine being sold on eBay. WINNING PRICE:
$3850.00 USD
The seller of this item is Ernest, which is what we know of him as on comp.sys.apple2. He has one of the most awesome computer collections around. Besides Apple II computers, he also collects Apple II clone models, including the Orange 2 and the Multitech MPF II. Recently, he's run into a financial situation, and therefore is forced to sell some of his valuable items, including this very Apple II. As a true Apple collector, he's done his research, finding out exactly how this particular specimen fits into the scheme of things. What he's discovered is that not only is this item older than the Apple II displayed at the Smithsonian Institute, it is even older than the Apple II Steve Wozniak currently owns in his collection. |
This is by far the oldest unit I've ever seen of the Apple II line. The one thing that sticks out for me is the power supply. The very early Apple II models used a toggle-type SPST switch, and this is the first time I've ever seen one. The keyboard is also original, with the power light raised way above the shell. The inside of the unit is very clean! Ernest pulled out every moveable part and cleaned it, along with every key on the keyboard. The logic board is very low on the totem pole, hand written serial number 2000. The logic board, however, has been upgraded to the Autostart ROM, enabling the computer to boot into BASIC instead of the system monitor. Other upgrades have been made to unit via add-ons, including the Apple Disk II controller and disk drives, which weren't even in existence at the time of this unit's release. And, the original Apple II Reference Manual, also known as the "Red Book" is part of the bid, and it's in beautiful condition. Sources have mentioned that this particular specimen could reach a price as high as $10,000.00 USD, a number that is usually reserved for an Apple Lisa 1 or a broken Apple 1. However, IMHO, the Lisa 1 is only worth that much because of its scarcity in the collecting market. The Apple II, however, represents something totally different. Besides being very rare, it also represents the first fully-built system in its market. There are many firsts that was set by the Apple II. Because this particular specimen is among the first to be built, it brings this unit that much closer to the roots of Apple Computer, and the microcomputer industry in general. If you read the book Apple Confidential, you'll see a stack of the very first roll-out of empty Apple II shells ever made. This very unit's shell could be one of those shells! Just think about it!!!!! My imagination is endless with this unit. In the very near future, I plan on creating a photo archive of this unit, and hopefully will post a Q&A session with Ernest on how he obtained the Apple II, and his thoughts on the whole collecting scheme of things.
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12/07/2002 - Bandai Pippin
Museum & Archive receives a major facelift Two major events
happened at this site. First, I've made some major improvements to the
Bandai Pippin Museum & Archive
section of the Apple Museum-For-A-Day. If you do not know what a Pippin is,
check it out! Improvements include a total change in the layout and
organization, and also an addition of a development section, where you can
download technical notes related to the Pippin. Another addition to this site is a new forum, dedicated to the Bandai Pippin. Check it out and start posting! |
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 Several parts on the original Apple 1 are impossible to replace, so Vince has re-designed the logic board so it will allow newer components to replace the old ones. If this kit is a reality, I'm buying two of them! |
12/01/2002 - Creating an Apple
1 Clone In the past, I've heard arguments over cloning something like
an Apple 1 computer as being a totally worthless task, bearing no value to the
retro computer community. Well, if that's true, we're soon to see this theory in
action. Vince Briel
is designing an Apple 1 clone. And, if everything goes well, he plans on
selling it for $150 USD to $200 USD, far less than the $15,000 USD value of an authentic
Apple 1, which less than 50 is rumored to exist (and probably even less that's
still functional). The only challenge, however, is using the original ROM of an Apple 1. In 1998, Steve Jobs came back to Apple Computer, and in less than a year killed Gil Amelio's idea of licensing Apple hardware technologies. So having Apple license the Apple 1 ROM is more likely impossible, based on their track record the past few years (killing the clone market, banning distribution of software updates by user groups, etc.) The only way I could see this project working is to sell the kits ROM-less, then let the Internet underground distribute the ROM. This system is already in place, and ROMs for everything from coin-operated games to even Apple's own technologies, can be downloaded if you're creative enough to find them. |
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2003_11_10
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