Check out what I just found on ebay:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Prototype-Apple-II-IIe-IIgs-Dual-Drive-UniDisk-3-5-Rare-Vintage-/191277225011?pt=US_Vintage_Computers_Mainframes&hash=item2c8902d433
This is an awesome piece of hardware. As far as I knew there are next to none of these floating around.
Even if it is two unidisk 3.5 drives on top of each other, it's nothing special. I have two of those as well and I got it at a good price along with a Liron card.
The mechanisms inside might have some of the metal shielding missing to make room inside that case so maybe having them separate is a good idea, thus that might explain why Apple never released it.
I was under the impression these were extremely rare. I have never seen one but once before.
Well, better rare than common, but even better rare and working properly without design flaws. IMHO
The regular 3.5 unidisk is not rare. You see them all the time.
Even if this thing doesn't work, I'm still thinking about bidding on it. It's a collectors piece; not so much something I would use regularly.
This makes the 4th dualie I know of.
There's this one... another one in California, one in France and finally there's mine. I wonder how many were made in all? There are at least 2 variants of the daisychain card, and the case on this one is a little different from mine. It would be a blast to compare them.
If I end up getting it; I will be sure to post a ton of HQ pictures for comparison purposes.
Also are you sure this is not the same one you mentioned from California?
The other one in California is in Tony Diaz's collection. He would *never* sell it.
Good to know.
It ended up selling for more than I have to bid. It sold for $933.56!
Typical that another one shows up shortly after...
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Prototype-Apple-II-IIe-IIGS-Dual-UniDisk-DuoDisk-3-5-WORKING-/251618253265?pt=US_Vintage_Computers_Mainframes&hash=item3a959dd9d1
I find it interesting that we're *still* seeing vintage prototypes that practically no one has ever heard of come to light.
At $933, (plus original Apple II prices), some folks will list stuff.
:). I like the case of the non working one that just sold. It appeared to be in better visual condition.
You could Retr0bright it, if you're brave enough. :o
The serial numbers are a few hundred different from each other, meaning there are likely hundreds (thousands?) out there...
Probably Apple decided not to sell them and they just sold (or gave away) the whole manufacturing run to Apple employees.
production units shells are all textured. the smooth plastic shells are protos.