Apple 1 manual sold for $4050 USD

Earlier today, the well used Apple 1 manual from the Byte Shop (Menlo Park, Californa) sold for $4050.00   All images provided by Alex Z.

Early Postcard from 1976

Image source:   Silicon Valley Archives at Stanford University.

Note the prices 665.00...  Allegedly from Mike Rose, referring to the production of the Apple 1 Operation Manual.

About Regis McKenna 

I've been studying this image trying to find differences between the Byte Shop images, and have concluded with certainty, that this keyboard is the same Amkey keyboard that is in the Polaroid images supplied by Paul Terrell.
The Motherboard however, is probably different, supplied with 4k DRAM (as in the Byte Shop images) and notice that the cassette interface edge connector also does not exist on this unit (B&W image).  However, it does not appear to me that the 6800 area of the motherboard has been populated.  The 6820 PIA also appears to be different  (This one is probably the grey AMI S6820 vs. the unknown PIA in the Byte Shop image).

In any case, the Amkey keyboard seems to be the same brand in this image.  So maybe Datanetics wasn't the only way to go.  :D

Early Apple-1 PCB

The article below is from Harry McCracken, Editor @ TIME magazine.  All images here are used with permission, and are provided by Paul Terrell, who opened up the Byte Shop in 1975.  The article link was sent to my by Cameron Cooper.

After a small group of us looked at the PCB images, we noticed this was not a production board,  but a prototype.  We noticed several differences -- the earlier orange sprague capacitors for the power supply, fewer smoothing caps, and in the upper left, components populate the PCB in the 6800 area.  Why? What was this all about?  So I asked the Woz and Wendell Sander if they knew --  See Woz's response below, under the images.

http://techland.time.com/2012/11/22/behold-some-of-the-first-apple-computer-photos-ever/

From: ʞɐıuzoʍ ǝʌǝʇs  

Subject: Re: Early Apple 1 PCB ??

Date: November 25, 2012 2:16:56 PM EST

To: John Calande 

good catch

Those components were used to create a stronger, faster clock signal at higher voltage, which was required by the 6501 (and 6800). The 6501 was introduced at $20 when the 6502 was introduced at $25. They were equivalent except for this clocking requirement. I did have at least one 6501 and probably a few more so I most likely constructed this board with it in order to save my more precious 6502. Or I may have just wanted to test that this clock circuitry worked, so we could possibly have shipped Apple I's with lower cost processors.

The main reason the clock circuitry was included went back to my original design, which was for a 6800. The 6800 also needed the better clock signal. I had originally planned on a 6800 since I could get one for $40 from Hewlett Packard, where I was working. But the 6501 came out at $20. My real reason for choosing the 6501 was the indexed addressing modes. I was more a fan of alternate addressing modes, a bit akin to the IBM 360, where register contents were added to form a final address. The 6800 would have been actually the same cost since the $40 deal with HP included a UART (parallel interface chip for keyboard) and a serial chip for modems, as I recall.

ʞɐıuzoʍ ǝʌǝʇs 

On Nov 25, 2012, at 10:59 AM, John Calande ; wrote:

Woz, Wendell,

Wondering if you guys can shed any light on these images from the Byte Shop.

This PCB appears to have a populated 6800 area in the upper left, and the earlier Orange power supply caps.

Is this an early prototype or were there a good portion of PCBs with orange caps?

http://techland.time.com/2012/11/22/behold-some-of-the-first-apple-computer-photos-ever/

Best,

John

Question for the Woz on the choice of 2513 char gen....

On Oct 30, 2012, at 2:54 PM, John Calande  wrote:

Hi Woz,

I'm guessing the 2513 was a widely used character generator back in the day.  Was there any reason you chose this generator, or were other options available that you considered?

Best,

John

<<<

I think it was the main or only character generator at the time…or maybe it's just the one I came across…or maybe it's the one I'd used before…or maybe it was in our lab at HP…no real reason.

I was surprised to find out that using a character generator to put characters on a raster scanned TV was patented by RCA. I figured that using a chip you bought avoided patents like that.

ʞɐıuzoʍ ǝʌǝʇs 

ǝuoz ǝʞɐʍ sı ʌʇ

Corey Cohen's Apple-1 / Mimeo-1 donated to museum

Very nice job on this Mimeo-1.
Corey donated his unit to the March/InfoAge Museum.

Mike Willegal has received a new shipment of Mimeo-1 PCBs.

SWEET.... time for a hackfest!

Contact him @  :  mike@willegal.net

There is an unassembled Obtronix Reproduction kit  for sale on ebay

UPDATE:

"Newton 1" last breath... well.. we'll see...

According to the seller, these are the last of the "Newton 1" reproductions.   I don't own one, but have heard that the quality is fairly brittle. Price is steep.

Apple 1 color question for the Woz...

Hi Woz,

I was watching a video on one of your conferences on Apple history timeline up to the A2.

You mentioned tinkering with eventually adding color to the A1.

Did you find this too much of a task or waste of time for the A1, or did you just move on to the A2?

I'm asking because, I'm wondering if this would be possible on one of the clones, maybe one of us can mess around with.

Wondering if an old MC1372 would work....  I played around with the MC6847, straight-forward stuff - my results here:

http://homebrewcpu.blogspot.com/2009/02/this-is-mc6847-character-generator.html

Best,

John

---------

From the Woz...

I measured my designs by efficient use of chips.

The Apple I was designed around the U.S. (NTSC) color TV subcarrier frequency so that I could 'try' my digital color idea on it later. But when I went to start adding chips to do this it was about 7 chips alone for the basic timing (things like NTSC sync signals) and I saw that it would be more chips to generate color from my cycling text memory. I see now that it would have worked but thinking about this problem led me to incredible chip efficiencies and reductions of the Apple II. I don't have time to get into detail about it now but there were many other reasons to move to the Apple ][, the main one being the speed of character/graphics management moving from a shifting display memory to normal RAM.

best,

ʞɐıuzoʍ ǝʌǝʇs 

It doesn't work that way

-- Ariana Gilles, John and the Monster

----------

And followup -- From the Woz...

and somewhere in my files is my short exercise trying to design some color stuff for the Apple I but the Apple lawyers took all my working papers for a lawsuit and I never got them back.

ʞɐıuzoʍ ǝʌǝʇs 

Good stuff...   Here's the Woz....

Although this isn't exactly precise, it's a "nice to have" item for a clone.  I bought 2 of these on eslay for about 10 bucks each.  It includes the "PRELIMINARY APPLE BASIC USERS MANUAL  OCTOBER 1976" and schematics.   However... I did not see any documentation for the cassette interface :<

BTW.... don't leave these manuals in any light... they will fade to purple... as mine did.  

Signetics 2519B are on the way....


I was scolded for being so vague so here you go:

I've ordered a good handful of the ever elusive Signetics 2519B shift registers, allegedly with date codes from 1974-1976.  I do not have them on hand yet, but will post more info when I do.

FWIW, 2519N will work as well... if you can find them :D

Apple-1 fever - After last Friday's Sotheby's auction, apparently it's time to cash in if you own one.

Estimate:  100k - 150k

Up for auction at Christie's

Thanks for tipping me off on this one Corey!

Check it out, an Apple-1 clone, the Mimeo-1 made by Mike Willegal, sells on ebay for 2k+ (USD) yesterday --
Note, this unit was sold as an unassembled kit, but included the Stancor p-8667 and 8380 power supply transformers.

You may still be able to view the listing while it lasts.... here

I have no words.....

Here's a nice pic of the Sotheby's unit (iPhone pic courtesy of Corey Cohen who was lucky enough to check it out in person!)

So Sotheby's will be auctioning an Apple-1 tomorrow.   My friend Corey Cohen tipped me off on this link...   http://video.msnbc.msn.com/cnbc/47815031#47815031

Apparently, another Apple-1 was sold on ebay last week for 70k but I missed it (per Mike Willegal).

Apple Video Recalling the early days

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).

Watch the video

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.

Apple-1 BASIC firmware card youtube Demo

I finally got around to doing a video -- enjoy.

Apple-1 BASIC Firmware Card

View the Schematic