this is all stuff that Dougg3 and Bbraun from 68kmla have already accomplished. Check this thread out.
so fantastic even the mod added his introduction. http://68kmla.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=16544 On Mon, Aug 12, 2013 at 5:54 PM, J.S. Garrison <[email protected]> wrote: > Wow, great backstory, Greg. I know you've been with the LEM Lists for a > very long time and apparently associate with all things Apple for some > time, too. > > So this thing is gonna go one of two ways. I find a IIsi and put it to the > test, or it goes to Ebay for someone else to experiment on. The labels on > the ROMS are printed, albeit crudely. That and the "Apple Confidential" on > the labels seems to me to point to prototype, not > engineering sample, which are always a little more crudely assembled and > labeled. > > But the mystery stays. I'm pretty curious about what makes that ROM SIMM > special, if it is. It would be nice to debug those ROMS > just to see if anything fun was added to make the IIsi they were made for > faster, better, different. > > > Jeff Garrison > > ------------------------------ > *From:* Gregg Eshelman <[email protected]> > *To:* [email protected] > *Sent:* Monday, August 12, 2013 1:39 AM > > *Subject:* Re: Expert Vintage Member's Input Needed > > > > AFAIK, no IIsi shipped with a ROM SIMM and none were released later. From > what you described it's probably from a prototype or possibly an > engineering sample IIsi. > > A sort of "Holy Grail" of vintage Mac lovers are the "Mr. Clean" ROMs for > Macs made prior to the IIci. Tid-Bits ran a short article on them, someone > found a box with "Mr. Clean" written on it, in storage at Apple. In it were > ROMs for the SE/30 and other Macs. It was presumed they were 32 bit clean > ROMs used during the design of System 7.0 and the IIci. Having 32 bit clean > ROMs for the SE, SE/30, and the pre IIci Mac II models would be very nice. > Apple could have produced and sold them as upgrades but chose not to. :-( > Nobody knows if they're still hidden somewhere at Apple. > > Apple's prototypes they released to developers (which they were supposed > to later return but some didn't) tended to be almost identical to the > production versions. The next stage was engineering samples, which almost > always were identical to productions versions except sometimes missing > labels on the cases. > > That was the last step for finding any problems or bugs Apple's own > testing failed to find, and at least once they somehow missed a huge > problem, but it turned out to be a non-issue because the product got > canceled. Some years ago I conversed on IRC with a person who worked in > Micron's RAM compatibility testing lab. Apple had sent the company several > second version "Super Cubes" and every one of them had one of the RAM slots > that didn't work*. A week later the Super Cube was a dead product. The > disassembled ones (the lab always took the test subjects apart to mount the > boards in fixtures so swapping RAM multiple times would be easier) are > likely still in a bin in a Micron warehouse somewhere in Idaho. I figured > that was the final nail for the Super Cube, after the slow sales of the > original Apple didn't want to waste money fixing such a major screwup. > > I used to have a Yeager prototype Duo 280 (but alas, not the 280c) which > had the lid and screen from a 250 on it and production style lables on the > bottom stating it was a Yeager Prototype Unit, Not For Resale and that it > was NOT tested to comply with FCC regulations. There was a glitch somewhere > in the ROM which caused all the black pixels in window titlebars to be > white in a narrow vertical stripe below the Edit menu. Only the title bars > were affected, everything else on the screen was fine. > > I also had a Duo 230 engineering sample with no lables at all on the > bottom and the printing on the screen bezel was different from the > production version. Far as I could tell the ROM was identical to > production. How'd I know it was an ES? It had pink labels on its innards > with ENGINEERING SAMPLE and a note written in Sharpie on the metal frame - > Glued and tested ground clips - followed by a date. > > I booted both clean and used a ROM image utility on them. I most likely > have those files somewhere if someone wants to do a compare with production > versions. > > *IIRC it was around the time Intel managed to have a similar bug in > thousands of motherboards they shipped with one RAMBUS slot non-functional. > HTH does a company like Apple or Intel manage to get a computer mainboard > to a production state with a non-functional RAM slot? I guess it's a > similar kind of stupid to the 47 story condo building that's almost > finished in Spain - where the architects completely forgot to include any > elevators in the design. > > > -- > -- > ----- > You received this message because you are a member of the Vintage Macs > group. > The list FAQ is at http://lowendmac.com/lists/vintagemacs.shtml and our > netiquette guide is at http://www.lowendmac.com/lists/netiquette.shtml > To post to this group, send email to [email protected] > To leave this group, send email to > [email protected] > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/vintage-macs > > Support for older Macs: http://lowendmac.com/services/ > --- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Vintage Macs" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. > -- Charles -- -- ----- You received this message because you are a member of the Vintage Macs group. The list FAQ is at http://lowendmac.com/lists/vintagemacs.shtml and our netiquette guide is at http://www.lowendmac.com/lists/netiquette.shtml To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To leave this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/vintage-macs Support for older Macs: http://lowendmac.com/services/ --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Vintage Macs" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
