NeXT
Veteran Member
Normally I don't like to toss the P-word around because the Apple fanatics have used it to death on anything they find that's somehow different from a normal Apple product but after investigating I'm somewhat confident but I don't mind second opinions.
I picked this laptop up in a lot of other GRiD laptops (it was the pick-up only listing that had been on Ebay for a while and I was an hour away from the seller when I was at VCF West) and thought it was one of the garbage Tandy-era GRiD's because it's all plastic, it's broken, no AC adapter, no hard drive and just ugh, that era was not really GRiD and I was expecting to find it full of leaky caps inside. I did however note that both above the screen and underneath the branding and information/certification stickers were missing.
Well it was full of leaky caps and a standby battery that had just started to leak, but as I was digging into it I realized the screen wasn't actually attached to the system and it doesn't seem like that's because the ribbon was torn off. It's just not there then as I was getting into the laptop I started noticing the signs of worn screws and broken wires that screamed people had been into this before.
This is where things get suspicious. We have what looks to be some form of a modular DC-DC board that aside from two transformers that are barely soldered on are completely empty and show no signs of ever having components soldered to them. Next is the keyboard itself where it has a sticker underneath stating it's a functional sample, dated January 29, 1990. This will be more important in a minute.
So the logic board itself that I can tell from others pictured on the internet don't look different. It does have a bit of cap leakage and one EPROM is missing but that seems to of been an optional MS-DOS ROM you could get. As for getting the system running, as we've seen so far it's missing quite a few other pieces and for 1990 Tandy/GRiD was trying to sell this with a V20 and 1mb ram? Yuck, how the mighty had fallen. Anyways, the BIOS date is important. February 7, 1990, not long after the keyboard was assembled and both dated months before the GRiD 1810 launched in July 1990. "HBIRD" by the way refers to the logic board, presumably the codename. No I have not dumped it but I can probably do so without too much effort if anyone wants but I think it's just a preliminary BIOS.
Okay, so I'm still not 100% about being a prototype but a mechanical fitment machine/final revision before it was released to manufacturing also sounds plausible. It doesn't need to run if they were just putting parts in and checking to make sure everything fits correctly.
I picked this laptop up in a lot of other GRiD laptops (it was the pick-up only listing that had been on Ebay for a while and I was an hour away from the seller when I was at VCF West) and thought it was one of the garbage Tandy-era GRiD's because it's all plastic, it's broken, no AC adapter, no hard drive and just ugh, that era was not really GRiD and I was expecting to find it full of leaky caps inside. I did however note that both above the screen and underneath the branding and information/certification stickers were missing.
Well it was full of leaky caps and a standby battery that had just started to leak, but as I was digging into it I realized the screen wasn't actually attached to the system and it doesn't seem like that's because the ribbon was torn off. It's just not there then as I was getting into the laptop I started noticing the signs of worn screws and broken wires that screamed people had been into this before.
This is where things get suspicious. We have what looks to be some form of a modular DC-DC board that aside from two transformers that are barely soldered on are completely empty and show no signs of ever having components soldered to them. Next is the keyboard itself where it has a sticker underneath stating it's a functional sample, dated January 29, 1990. This will be more important in a minute.
So the logic board itself that I can tell from others pictured on the internet don't look different. It does have a bit of cap leakage and one EPROM is missing but that seems to of been an optional MS-DOS ROM you could get. As for getting the system running, as we've seen so far it's missing quite a few other pieces and for 1990 Tandy/GRiD was trying to sell this with a V20 and 1mb ram? Yuck, how the mighty had fallen. Anyways, the BIOS date is important. February 7, 1990, not long after the keyboard was assembled and both dated months before the GRiD 1810 launched in July 1990. "HBIRD" by the way refers to the logic board, presumably the codename. No I have not dumped it but I can probably do so without too much effort if anyone wants but I think it's just a preliminary BIOS.
Okay, so I'm still not 100% about being a prototype but a mechanical fitment machine/final revision before it was released to manufacturing also sounds plausible. It doesn't need to run if they were just putting parts in and checking to make sure everything fits correctly.
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