Macintosh 128K Prototype with Twiggy drive

Tom asked me to write an article with pictures about this, so that's what I'm working on right now. I'll do a partial disassembly to get pictures of the interesting stuff inside too. This is the first time I've discharged a CRT in 10 years, lol...

Actually, that's a very good question! I'll have to see once I assemble it all back together and boot it up.

I just noticed while further disassembling it that the printed serial # on the CRT is 824400001, possibly making this the first assembled Macintosh ever. Other components might have been changed, like the analog and logic boards, but the CRT would have probably stayed the same.

Here's a little picture preview:

Care to share how you got this system?

I bought it through an online ad. The elderly gentleman I purchased it off of is a retired engraver. The company he worked for was hired to make some award medallions for a ceremony at Apple. It would have been some point in 1983 I personally think, but he really couldn't recall. They sent over this Mac to use as a model for him to work off of. When the job was done, they tried to make arrangements to send it back. Apparently after several attempts, Apple just told them to keep it.

He knew what he had, and knew the price he was asking was low, but didn't want to deal with trying to market it. He was really just happy it was going to someone who knew what it was and would appreciate it.

No rubber feet anywhere, on the Mac or the keyboard. Probably came off through the years from moving around and storage.

For fun, can you share a link to the online ad that you got this from? Then I can pretend I stumbled upon the ad before you did, ha ha!

I will at some point. But right now, it's kinda a privacy issue.

Maybe this link will help you figure out a better build date...

http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Macintosh_Prototypes.txt

I do find the boot up icon interesting because it looke like a hard plastic 3.5 disk to me.

I'm curious if anyone knows when they started using this form factor case. From what I've gathered, everything up to the point of using it was basically hacked together.

No disks came with it, and I don't have any Twiggy FileWare disks. But a kind fellow is sending me a 400k 3.5" drive and some boot disks to at least see if it recognizes the Sony drives and boots to *something*, lol.

At some point if I can get my hand on Twiggy disk and can get the 400k drive working, I want to try formatting it and copying the system files onto one.

No idea how to fix one. Hopefully a head cleaning with some alcohol before I try and use a disk in it is all it needs.

You should dump those EEPROMs

I don't have a hardware reader, and have ruined enough chips by attempting to pull them out of the sockets to know that I wouldn't feel comfortable doing that myself. But, someone is sending me a disk with a ROM dump utility on it. Hopefully it works.

I've gone ahead and uploaded the high-res images to a web album:

http://imgur.com/a/0Itdf#0

BTW if you want to contact me via e-mail about it, you can do so at "mactwiggy83@gmail.com"

I've written some more details about it:

I purchased this Macintosh on 1/18/2012 from an elderly gentleman who is a retired engraver. Apple had comissioned the company he worked for to design and produce some medallions, presumably for some sort of internal awards ceremony. He didn't recall the exact time period, but I assume it must have been at some point in 1983. They sent him this unit to use as an art model to work off of. When the job was completed they attempted to make arrangements to return it, but Apple ended up telling them to just keep it. After almost 30 years, he decided to sell it by posting an ad on the internet, and that's how I found it. He said he always knew he had something special, because he'd never seen another Mac with a 5.25" floppy drive in it. He was also aware that it was potentially very valuable, but that he didn't want to fuss with trying to sell it beyond a classified posting. I think he was just glad that it went to someone who could appreciate what a piece of history it is. It was a special moment just to be able to see it in person, nevermind being able to own it. He said that it never had any disks with it.

I went through the trouble of completely disassembling it out of both personal curiousity and desire to document it through pictures. I'm not a photographer, so don't mind my poor skills at taking them too much.

The purchase came with a prototype keyboard, but no mouse. The computer weighs 18lb 3oz in its current state. It has some cosmetic issues, the main one being a scratch on the front bezel. It could use a good cleaning, but I didn't want to mess anything up by doing it.

This unit's serial number seems to be "1031". It's written on both the underside of the screen on the front bezel and on the chassis. It boots up with a standard Mac beep from the 128K, and shows a flashing question mark in a 3.5" floppy disk. Seeing this graphic we can presume that it has the ROM code to use the 400k Sony 3.5" drives, giving some better hope to be able to get this machine to boot in the future. The picture on the CRT is tilted and a bit out of focus, but it should re-calibrate OK. The front bezel is very smooth and shiny, not having the rough textured finish as the back part of the case. The part number embossed inside the bezel is "815 0752REV A". The rear section of the casing does not have the vent holes in the top that production 128k's do. Where you'd find the "Macintosh" name badge on the rear is just the Apple name moulded into the plastic and a rainbow logo to the right of it. The battery cover was not present when I took posession. The torx screws that go in the top handle portion, along with all the rubber feet are also missing. The port icons for "Modem" and "Printer" are reversed compared to production model cases.

Opening up the case, the typical signatures of the Macintosh team are in the inside rear casing. The dark flat finish that's sprayed onto the inside of the front bezel hasn't been applied here. There wasn't any RFI sheild covering the logic board like in a production model. With the ROM riser card, it is a very tight fit trying to slide the board in and out of the chassis. The riser card is labeled "512 EPROM ADAPTER", with "MC1027-01" as the apparent part number. The board seems to expand the two normal ROM slots on the PCB with four. The riser board is secured to the logic board with soldered leads. The ROM's all have "7T" written in faded blueish felt tip marker on the label, along with the following writing on each of the 4 ROMS:

0 HI - H0 B6ED
1 HI - H1 A04A
0 LOW - LO0F332
1 LOW - LO 1 6CBC

The "Mac Man" figure is silkscreened on the logic board, suggesting this version of the PCB supported up to 512K of memory. The total amount of memory currently installed is 128K, on sixteen 64 kilobit MOSTEK/Apple branded chips. The part number on the top of the PCB is "630-0101A", on the bottom it's "820-0086-00", both with 1983 copyright dates. The hand written serial number on the board is "1042". One of the reset/interrupt switches is soldered with one side sticking way too far up, an error that was made at the time the board was assembled. The PAL chips seem to have version numbers written on the stickers on them. The IWM chip appears to be a prototype, with "8248 - xxx-x299 - APPLE 82" stamped on it.

The 5.25" Twiggy drive that's installed connects to the motherboard with the same type of ribbon cable used on the 400K Sony floppy drives. It's enclosed in an anodized aluminum enclosure, with the number "2" written on the rear. It attaches to the drive mechanism using two screws. The enclosure looks like it has been slightly modified with an indentation to accomodate the shaft of the stepper motor. It appears to be a standard Lisa Twiggy drive, but with an extra aluminum cutout on the top front installed. I presume this is to deflect disks from accidentally ending up inside the casing of the Mac. The eject button is present, but is inaccessable with the aluminum encosure in place. The hand written number "1043" is on the bottom PCB. It mounts to the chassis with 4 screws, but one of the screws seems to have sheared off at some point. I'm unable to test the functionality of the drive at the moment without a FileWare disk with a bootable operating system.

The CRT is a Samsung branded one, with the serial number "824400001". Could this possibly make it the very first assembled Mac ever? Hard to tell without being able to reference other date codes, or knowing if production sample CRT's sent by the manufacturer were sequentially numbered.

The analog board doesn't have any plastic safety covering on the solder side of the PCB. The part number is "630-0102" on the top side, and "820-0082-03" on the bottom, both with 1983 copyright dates. There are two hand written numbers on it, what appears to be the serial number "1053" and "3.9". The "Mac Man" logo is also present on this board.

The keyboard's outer casing has the same smooth texture finish as the front panel bezel. The serial number "268" is hand written on a label on the underside. All the rubber bumpers are missing. It attaches to the computer with the normal "telephone" connector used in the production Mac. The "BACKSPACE" key has a broken spring. I'm unsure of the functionality of the keyboard, because I have no means to test it.

I was informed of an interesting fact about the floppy drive in this Mac. Lisa 1 Twiggy drives have a 26-pin ribbon cable connector on the PCB, this one has a standard 20-pin Mac one.

Any more news on this, did you manage to get it to boot? Or did you sell it already?

I wasn't able to even try to get it to boot, the two people who offered to send me parts never did. And yes, I am no longer the owner of it.