If You Could Only Keep Three...

Interesting thread.

This for me is pretty ease as I decided to keep my collection to only 4 machines.

Those are currently:

Apple IIe Platinum
Apple IIc Plus
Apple IIgs Rom3
Apple IIe to IIgs Upgrade

So the short answer is the IIc Plus would be first to go. Why, well it is the one that I use the least, least treasured and least modified.

See the mods go like this:

IIe Platinum, completely restored and Signed by Woz
Cards installed:
Slot 0 Microsoft Softcard IIe Premium
Slot 1 Transwarp ][
Slot 2 8megRam/Rom by A2Heaven
Slot 3 Uthernet II
Slot 4 Mockingboard Clone by A2 Heaven with Tube output stage
Slot 5 CFFA 3000
Slot 6 Vtech Disk Controller Card
Slot 7 VGA video output by A2Heaven

Upgraded power supply and no slot clock

Apple IIc Plus, Completely Restored and Signed by Woz
Custom Rom that lets the machine boot to normal speed by default and holding the esc key at boot makes it boot to accelerated mode
8Meg Ram / Clock Board - A2Heaven

Apple IIgs Rom3 Signed by Woz (really not that woz edition)

Slot 2 AE Sonic Balster
Slot 3 AE TranswarpGS (running at 12mhz)
Slot 5 Uthernet II
Slot 6 CFFA 3000
Slot 7 FingerPrint GSi

8MegRam/Rom Card from A2Heaven and upgraded power supply

Apple IIx (custom build)

Apple IIe to IIgs kit, I got rid of the IIe Enhanced top and changed it out for a IIe Platinum top. I painted the Pan to match what a IIe Platinum pan would be color wise. I remade all the port logos on the back.

Cards installed:
Slot 2 AE Sonic Blaster
Slot 3 AE TranswarpGS (upgraded by ReActiveMicro to 15.5mhz)
Slot 6 CFFA 3000
Slot 7 Uthernet II

Custom Rom - Shows IIx on the boot screen, upgraded power supply

My current Apple II machines consist of:

• Home-brew IIgs in //e case (//e case was from childhood - the motherboard died shortly after firing it up for the first time in 15 years)
  
• Enhanced //e (A2 Heaven VGA Adapter, Home-brew hand soldered Mockingboard clone, PCPI Applicard, Apple High Speed SCSI with 18.2Gb hard disk)
  
• ROM 01 IIgs (4Mb RAM, 10MHz Zip GSX, Home-brew hand soldered sound card, CFFA 2 with 2Gb flash card, Vulcan GS Gold with 100Mb hard disk)
  
• ROM 03 IIgs (ByteBoosters 8Mb Dark RAM, 13.75Mhz Transwarp GS 32Kb cache, Drew ][ stereo card with Roger Wagner digitizer, Uthernet card, Nishida Radio DVI output)
  
• //c (A2 Heaven VGA output, Nishida Radio UNISDisk Air C)
  

Cutting them down to 3 would be tricky, and heart-breaking.

However, if I *had to* cut back to 3, I would keep:

• the Enhanced //e (but I would put the //e into my childhood case as the current //e case has some etching on it)
  
• the ROM03 IIgs (it continues to be my favourite Apple II as it can pretty much do anything I need - games, programming, networking, etc..)
  
• this last spot is *tough* - either keep the //c or the ROM01 IIgs - probably the //c would go as the ROM01 with it's current installed cards is much more valuable and flexible. Besides, I have a friend who had a //c as a kid, he might take it from me - that way I can still use it when I go to see him.
  

Interested to see what others would do...

Cheers,
Mike

I would keep...

1. Apple II+ - the first computer I ever bought with my own money, I was 15 years old, and worked all summer at McDonald's for $2.85/hr to come up with the $800 my friend's parents were asking for it. They were nice enough to not sell it while I slaved...boy, what a great day THAT was, when I brought it home. I played Ultima III for about a year as the first game I bought. Then I played Ultima IV, and that was the greatest video game I've ever played in my life.
2. Apple IIe (or //e) Enhanced - only because it's the neatest looking of all the machines, to me. Plus I enhanced it myself, which, if you knew me, would make you wonder how I didn't burn the house doing doing it.
3. Apple IIc - it was the one I used in high school to help focus on something in order survive the almost daily onslaught of bullying from mouth-breathing reprobates who are hopefully all dead now.

Jeez, now I want to play Ultima IV again!!

Patrick