Here's a youtube video with some nice pics of the first hand-wired Apple-1, and an Apple-2 prototype from 1977 (If I'm not mistaken, this Apple II was sold on ebay about a year ago).
Above: Stack of the Apple-1 white boxes, probably in Steve Jobs' room on Crist Drive.
UPDATE: I was just informed by Cameron Cooper that this was actually Patti's room (Steve's sister) before they moved into the garage. Info is from Daniel Kottke.
Below: Hand-wired Apple-1 computer.
Is that a RAM card with the gold IC's mounted on top of the Apple-1 board?
ReplyDeleteDid you notice that Woz used the same form factor prototype board as was used by the SCELBI?
ReplyDeleteThis was my true prototype. I started with my TV terminal (which Jobs and I had made some money off of) and added a microprocessor to replace the modem connection, 2 PROM's for a 256-byte monitor program, getting rid of the entire front panel, and a connector for RAM. I first tried 4KB of static RAM. Then I added some refresh circuitry, using the video counters for reference. I had the microprocessor stop during video blanking and applied refresh addresses to the RAM. It was something like 40 microseconds for the uP and maybe 24 microseconds for refresh. The first 4Kb dynamic RAMs I bought were the AMI variety. I got them at the Homebrew Computer Club, maybe from Dan Sokol. There were 3 types of 4K DRAMS that had just come out in the summer of 1975. These had 22 pins on each chip. Those are the chips on this board. Eventually Steve Jobs saw this computer and asked why I didn't use Intel RAMs. I told him that because of TTL compatibility and lower pin count, the Intel approach was better but I couldn't afford them. Jobs got me some of those for free and then I switched to them. Jobs knew how to ask for prices. I just paid whatever the single price was. So we went with the correct and best choice, the Intel chips when we manufactured this computer.
ReplyDeleteThe above is from the WOZ
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