the Newton NTI - assembly and story                                       Page: A07  
         
   


  As explained in the Apple-1 page there have been only 250 mainboards made from the Apple-1 and that amount had been split in two runs, of
  which the first run consisted of 100 pieces ( later called the "preNTI-version ) and the second run - which had been made by the NTI-company and 
  that models from the second run have been called later the "NTI-version" of the Apple 1.

  Allthough the layout of the leads and traces havenīt been changed in that second run, the assembly and the used components did slightly differ
  from the earlier "preNTI-version". In main the decoupling capacitors on the second run have been more modern multilayer capacitors, while in the
  first run "old-fashioned" ceramic disccapacitors have been used. Another change in assembly had been, that the majority of the pre-NTI boards
  still had been populated with the white ceramic version of the 6502 CPU and the violett ceramic version of the 6820 PIA while in the later NTI-version
  nearly only the CPU and PIA with the plastic-case had been used. And in the later NTI-version there have been different kinds of small electrolytic
  capacitors used ( ones in yellow cases instead of the blue cased ones that have been only used in the "pre-NTI version".

  But the very first remarkable difference to common users had been the fact that NTI set itīs factory logo below the label from Apple Computer
  - a diamond square with the letters NTI inside of it.

 Differences between "pre-NTI" version Newton 1 and the "NTI"-version of the Newton NTI board if populated like original Apple-1
 

  "pre-NTI" version Newton 1   "NTI"-version of the Newton NTI
  ceramic CPU and PIA    plastic CPU and PIA
   
  ceramic disc decoupling capacitors   multilayer ceramic decoupling capacitors
   
  blue electrolytic capacitors   yellow electrolytic capacitors
   

   a remark to the pictures above: the different shades of green silkscreen on the boards is partially also caused by dirt or bleaching of the sun !

  But the very first remarkable difference to common users had been the fact that NTI set itīs factory logo below the label from Apple Computer
  - a diamond square with the letters NTI inside of it.
 

   
  here the Newton-1 board without the NTI-logo   and here the Newton NTI board with the NTI-logo


 

  The Newton1 is ( similar to the MIMEO ) an replication of the "pre-NTI version" of the Apple-1 out from the first run. The reproduction of the mainboard
  was carried out by Michael Ng, who also runs a computer museum. In fact it seems to ms that the manufacturing of the Newton1 was a reaction to the
  fact that after Mike Willegal had made his īfirst limited edition of the MIMEO ( which was also a reproduction of the pre-NTI version of the Apple-1 ) and t
  hat boards had been sold out after very short period of time and then for a long period the community of Apple freaks had been quite a while waiting - 
  the Newton1 had been made to solve the still not completely satisfied complaints on more replications of the Apple-1 mainboard.

  The NewtonNTI is  an replication of the "NTI version" of the Apple-1 out from the second run. The reproduction of the mainboard was
  carried out by Michael Ng, who also runs a computer museum. In fact it seems to me that the manufacturing of the Newton NTI was a reaction to the
  fact that after Mike Willegal had made his īfirst limited edition of the MIMEO ( which was also a reproduction of the pre-NTI version of the Apple-1 ) and
  that boards had been sold out after very short period of time and then for a long period the community of Apple freaks had been quite a while waiting -
  bthe Newton 1 had een made to solve the still not completely satisfied complaints on more replications of the Apple-1 mainboard.

  But up till few months ago ( Oct 2012 ) all replications have been made from the "per-NTI" version of the Apple-1 and not a single replication was made
  from the "NTI" version. So Michael Ng decided to make a run of replications of this historical "second run" of the Apple-1.

  Another reason was surely also that Michael Ng was experimenting / trying to get a board "finish" with a coating getting closer to the original by color
  and surface. The Finish of the Newton-NTI is a very close copy to the original NTI-version of the Apple-1. This sounds simple, but it isnīt, because itīs
  today very difficult to get asolderingmask with same color as used in the mid seventies.... ao in very tiny specific details the Newton1 is closer similar 
  to the originalApple-1 . But in the meantime amount of availiable boards of the Newton-NTi is very limited - itīs nowadays difficult to get "hands-on"
  one of those boards.

  Maybe some day in the future Michael Ng will raise another limited run of that boards.

  Just to tell this clear: All series of replication boards from the Apple-1 have been made only in restricted and limited amount of pieces ( some runs had
  50 pieces like those from Michael Ng and others like the MIMEO ( now the second run availiable ) from Mike Willegal have runs with about only 100
  units. So even replications are still quite rare and there are quite some order waiting lists for future runs. And among the replications there is a wide
  spread of authenticity. Specially if the user wants to populate the board with as similar as possible parts the "true" facsimiles are rather rare. In the
  meantime itīs nearly impossible to get the TI-sockets used on the original boards and a lot of other obsolete parts are also very difficult to get.
 
  Anyhow i allready had ordered a MIMEO board in September 2012, when few weeks later Michel Ng posted at applefritter the release of a run of
  Newton NTIboards and i immediatly put myself on the waitinglist for that board. After several weeks he announced the first shippings of this board to
  be processed and iwaited for the board to arrive in December 2012. In the meantime i started with the assembly of the MIMEO  and collected
  information on the NTI-version.

  I discovered that many more original boards from the "preNTI" version did exist compared to the larger amount of the NTI-version released later. It
  took quite a lot time to collect the availiable pictures of the remaining original NTI-boards and analyzing the boards for the populated parts on it to find
  the differences between both versions. The main differences i now listed above. Comparing the amount of availiable replica boards i would guess the  
  NTI-replication to be quite rare among those replications. The amount of MIMEOīs, Obtronix, and Newton-1 all together might sum up to about 400 to
  500 Boards all together ( not counting in this list the amount of replica-1 boards - because i donīt claim them to be true replications - but rather more
  only being a modern "emulation-board" with modern chips and no real comparability with the original Apple-1 ) and only about 50 NTI-version like
  replications by the Newtoin NTI.

  So among the total amount of replication boards the Newton NTI is a quite rare ( because only replication of the NTI-version ) reproduction of the
  Apple-1.

   Due to the fact that i also received in December an invitation to take part at the Vintage Computer Festival Europe in end of April 2013 i decided to   
   make a transparent case for the Newton NTI and take it along to the VCFe together with the MIMEO and set both together besides each other and
   permit the visitors to compare both versions with each other. Also the case for the Newton NTI was designed to bear the new designed
   slotexpansionboard in the case too.

 

 

  The picture above shows the board with the sockets soldered and
  the picture below shows the board mounted on the groundplate with the slotexpansion-board.

 

      The following picture displays the state of the board in end of February 2013 and still a lot of components missing ( shaded grey ):

 

     The next picture displays the status of the Board 4 weeks before itīs exhibition at the VCFs in end of April 2013:

 

     At this point i was still hunting for a keyboard that i could use with this board. I finally decided to use an early Apple II keyboard and mofify it for use
     with this NTI-Board. I then added in this case as well as also in the MIMEO case an adapter from Mike Willegal, that permits use of a PS2 keyboard
     together with the board. That should permit to protect the old keyboard and instead use in "normal mode" a modern keyboard.

 

    The picture above shows the state of the case short before the VCFe started.

 

 




 

 



    In fact it turned out, while making examinations with the expansioncards, that the boards donīt differ by the layout, but they surely result in 
    differences by their population. In fact the use of different decoupling capacitors and different electrolytic capacitors seem to have quite remarkable 
   effect to the clocking signals and the bussignals. In the NTI-version the signals are much less disturbed by "noise" ( or say: spikes and unwanted
    flattening of signals ) resulting from the rather simple powersupply stabilization. For demonstretion purpose i have taken some pictures from the
    oscilloscope and set them in the > table below besides eachother - and you can compare them by yourself:

         
         
       

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