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They may have found (most of) the Apple 1 Prototype Board

We had Apple II in schools but there was no way my family would have paid for them.. So it was a weird dynamic using them in school (and later Tandy 2000's) that were unatainable in the real world. Ironically I got my fathers IBM 5160 that he and his partners bought for thier office. I really get the impression my father never, ever used it. I dont remember when exactly, but it went back into a box and put in our basement. My father was as technologically unsavvy as they came. Ironically seeing a Commodore 64 at Crazy Eddies, my parents would say things like "no way, you have video games already." Or "the cost!" As ironic as that is.... and then he buys a 5160...

Im sure a couple wealthy kids in school had Apple II but none of my friends did.

Both sides of the fence are pretty large. The largest of all Vintage machines I think. And both are cult-like... Yeah yeah I know what your going to say. Apple Is worse.. And yep it is.. But the commodore crowd can be pretty xenophobic as well.

I like ALL vintage machines. I have Allegiance to none. Me and Judd Nelson dont conform to your cliques!
 
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It wasn't that long ago--maybe 25 years or so when I spied pallet-loads of the Apple IIs being hauled out for disposal by the local school district. I think they went to replace them with Macintoshes. Schools were a big deal for Apple back in the day. I don't know what schoolkids use today--just a notebook of some sort, I imagine. More likely than not, it runs WIndows, I suspect.
 
They use ipads, chromebooks (mostly from what I have seen), and ocassionally an android tablet. My kids think they know everything about technology but have barely more grasp on technology than my parents did. I think the difference with decades past is we all WANTED TO KNOW how it worked then. Today they just use it and take it for granted. That wasnt meant to be cynisism. Just an observation. We covered File management and college students today in another thread recently... Same thing really.
 
I still remember when Apple IIgs systems were being dumped by school systems (with their property tags etched into the plastics) and nobody wanted them, now they cost some $$$. Very few homes purchased a IIgs.
 
More likely than not, it runs WIndows, I suspect.

Chromebooks are huge these days. There are still some windows machines kicking around classrooms, and the littlest kids do stuff on iPads, but Chrome is king in my kids’ district. For lots of good reasons, honestly; that cloud connection makes it pretty hard to get away with “my dog ate my notebook”.

Apple II’s were indeed the king of elementary back in the 80’s. And has been observed, only the rich kids got to have one at home.
 
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I certainly wasn't endorsing some of the posts (though Uncle Bernies Apple 1 kits are very useful) but some (such as Mike Willegal) have contact with Woz and have some useful insights and Corey does seem to be the authority on the A1

To save others the agony of wading through it this article on the Apple 1 registry has basically all the actually useful information in it. (IE, a summary of what could be gleaned from asking Woz and other principle actors if you take it as read that this *is* actually the “Byte Shop Demo Board”.)

What I consider useful highlights:

1: Woz doesn’t really remember many specifics about the production prototype phase; for instance, why it‘s labeled “A” instead of “1”. Clearly this unit doesn’t occupy a religiously significant place in his heart.

2: Whether or not Woz himself soldered it, he did *not* actually do the PCB layout for either this or the production PCBs, that was a guy named Howard Cantor. His vague recollection is they hand soldered about three units before moving to full wave-soldered production and that Jobs did most of the work, but maybe it’s possible he did this one.

3: Woz completely debunks Uncle Bernie’s blather about there being a 6800-powered version predating the 6502. This is a red herring people throw out there to try to backdate the Apple I by the better part of a year to fluff its “first” claims. (The confusion around this is made worse by some obvious mistakes in Woz’s book, like claiming the Wescon ‘75 expo where MOS introduced the 6501/2 and *where he specifically recalls getting his first CPU* was in June, not September. If one didn’t know better someone might think he was trying to undercut the Sphere 6800, which was being publicly demoed by July 1975.) The “6800” option was to use the originally slightly cheaper 6800-pin-compatible 6501 instead of the 6502, and Woz confirms that.
 
Is Woz's soldering technique rare enough that you could identify his work even if the board didn't say Apple on it?
 
Is Woz's soldering technique rare enough that you could identify his work even if the board didn't say Apple on it?

Seems pretty laughable to me, but I guess I can’t really say given I don’t think I’ve personally ever managed to make two successive solder joints in a row match, let alone a whole board full.

Honestly… look, I know this Corey fellow who makes the Woz-joints claim is the go-to expert and all and has spent infinitely more mental energy on this subject than I’d ever want to, but at a certain point I guess you have to ask how you separate “canon” from “fanon” when the only data points you have are… this. Has someone tested the solder for Woz mouth DNA? (I guess that probably wouldn’t survive molten lead temperatures, would it.)
 
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To be clear, I certainly don't mean to impugn Corey's expertise - I'm just genuinely curious how you authenticate vintage tech like this. With the production boards, you have a reference you can compare to. The prototype is a one off.

His report on this board is 13 pages long, so I assume he relies on more than is said publicly, especially provenance, maybe pictures that aren't public. But in the video of him looking at the board with RR, he seemed to come to the conclusion that it was legit within a few seconds. I guess I'm just used to art experts and such who approach things very suspiciously and take days, sometimes weeks or so before saying yea or nay. Their reputations can be destroyed in an instant if they get it wrong.
 
Jobs jobs Jobs Blah.. "did you know STEVE JOBS was really the guy behind Sinclair Research?" Thats right, Steve Jobs is single handedly responsible for UK computing.
I assume you are kidding here or do you have any evidence for that ?
 
This article was posted in the Apple 1 Facebook group. Paul Terrell and Woz say this isn't the Byte Shop machine. Woz says it was wave soldered. Corey disagrees and says Paul's memory is incorrect. Daniel Kottke apparently said there were multiple prototypes made. The auction house is standing behind Corey.. I guess they kind of have no choice; I'd assume climbing down would potentially scuttle the auction.

 
Fantastic! Actual doubt has been cast rather than unsubstantiated bias. Like a real high note auction should be. I didnt think that would happen.

So the cult of jobs passes judgement on the man who actually built the machine..? Wonderful, at least its out in daylight now.


More importantly this adds proof that there would be more prototypes which really makes sense.

Will this stall the current bids? Can a bidder back out with this new information? Wouldnt that be glorious if only to bring spotlight to the absurdity of it all?

Well Woz was good at making stuff (back in the day) Steve Jobs was good at self-promotion.
You know I hear this from alot of people and I never really have an appropriate rebuttal although this idea never really sits well with me.

That idea is like giving all of Steven Kings book writing credit (pick your own famous author) to thier publisher or editor. Who cares who promoted it.. Who came up with it?

Seems a purely parasitic relationship to me.
 
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At least its really easy to tell if something from that era was hand or wave soldered. Its pretty obvious.
If there's one thing I can't deny, they have the board packaged like something I was expecting:
In a sealed metal frame carrier, looking like some alien artifact pulled from the bottom of the ocean and later becoming the core artifact that all of human technology advanced from.
I will not deny presentation looks really good.

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Looking at the Byte Shop photograph, it seems pretty obvious that it is the same board given that resistors just above the 6501 show the same offset in banding. Given that they are the same value it seems very unlikely that they would just happen to have been soldered onto the board with the same offset to each other.
 
Fantastic! Actual doubt has been cast rather than unsubstantiated bias. Like a real high note auction should be. I didnt think that would happen.

So the cult of jobs passes judgement on the man who actually built the machine..? Wonderful, at least its out in daylight now.


More importantly this adds proof that there would be more prototypes which really makes sense.

Will this stall the current bids? Can a bidder back out with this new information? Wouldnt that be glorious if only to bring spotlight to the absurdity of it all?

Don't know. We know production Apple-1s typically go for $350-800k, and they're at $400k right now with something everyone seems to agree is an authentic Apple piece. The question is, is it drawing any premium because of the perception that this is the one in the Paul Terrell photos? If all the info about this board that is known is public, if I were the auction house, I'dve been a little less unequivocal in my description, to cover my a--. I would say simply that this appears to be "one of the prototypes". But both RR and Corey are digging in here and the auction description clearly asserts that this is *the* board shown in the Polaroid. That's risky - if another prototype that looks like the one in the photo, or additional photos or info ever surfaces to contradict their claims, their reputations will be severely harmed, and someone could potentially bring suit (this is America after all). However, if Corey and RR are sitting on additional information not in the public domain, but disclosed in Corey's report to bidders, then maybe they really do know more than one of the founders, the guy who took the photos and one of the first employees. Memories are not 100% reliable.
 
If I was WOZ and trully believed this was not the board in question nor hand soldered by me. I would definitely make it known in the media that the details are fraudulant.

Don't know. We know production Apple-1s typically go for $350-800k, and they're at $400k right now with something everyone seems to agree is an authentic Apple piece. The question is, is it drawing any premium because of the perception that this is the one in the Paul Terrell photos? If all the info about this board that is known is public, if I were the auction house, I'dve been a little less unequivocal in my description, to cover my a--. I would say simply that this appears to be "one of the prototypes". But both RR and Corey are digging in here and the auction description clearly asserts that this is *the* board shown in the Polaroid. That's risky - if another prototype that looks like the one in the photo, or additional photos or info ever surfaces to contradict their claims, their reputations will be severely harmed, and someone could potentially bring suit (this is America after all). However, if Corey and RR are sitting on additional information not in the public domain, but disclosed in Corey's report to bidders, then maybe they really do know more than one of the founders, the guy who took the photos and one of the first employees. Memories are not 100% reliable.

I believe its commanding the money for the fact that most of these people with disposable money are under the impression a prototype mean a 1-off and this is the only one to exist...
 
I believe its commanding the money for the fact that most of these people with disposable money are under the impression a prototype mean a 1-off and this is the only one to exist...

It would seem bizarre that they would get a board made up in the singular. The comments that it was one of the first 50 seems odd in that none of the Byteshop units show 'Apple A'. It seems it was a final pre-production run before minor changes to accommodate the 6502 rather than the 6501 as its missing the '6502' jumpers that were present in the known units ?

Ah well, its just a board. An interesting board with an interesting history, but mustn't get caught up in the hype :)
 
Looking at the Byte Shop photograph, it seems pretty obvious that it is the same board given that resistors just above the 6501 show the same offset in banding. Given that they are the same value it seems very unlikely that they would just happen to have been soldered onto the board with the same offset to each other.
That's kind of what I was relying on when I looked at it closely in my video. There's another set of resistors up top that are slightly misaligned and seem to be similarly misaligned in the photo.

I wonder - and I am *not* suggesting this was done, but suppose you had *a* prototype, but wanted to make it *the* prototype. Could you move the resistors undetected? The rework would be obvious, right?
 
If there's one thing I can't deny, they have the board packaged like something I was expecting:
In a sealed metal frame carrier, looking like some alien artifact pulled from the bottom of the ocean and later becoming the core artifact that all of human technology advanced from.
I will not deny presentation looks really good.

Like it came out of the vault in Terminator 2!
 
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