Identify Unique Apple II Computer

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WildFire's picture
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Identify Unique Apple II Computer
WildFire's picture
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Unique Apple II Computer

I'm new here and I guess I messed up as my original message isn't showing up.  lol.  So I am posting a reply which includes the subject associated with the above pictures. 

 

A friend has a unique looking Apple II Computer.  The internals include a 1978 Apple Computer motherboard with either "JP" or "IP" hand written in lower left corner.  It is housed in a wooden frame with an apple emblem and a brown metal top/cover.  I have been unable to find information on this interesting computer.  Any help would be very much appreciated, and a quick response would be even more appreciated! 

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not an early Apple

That board is an Apple II+ from 1981-2, a so-called "RFI" board revision. The FCC was enforcing the Part 14 regulations to limit radiated interference from home computers, and so Apple had to redo the layout to improve its electromagnetic compatibility. They made other changes at the same time: some improvements to the video circuit were made, for example.

If you were to look at the part number on the board near the 'F1' location it would read 820-0044-XX where the "XX" can be 01, C, or D. This is hidden by the RAM card in the photo shown. You can also see that is a late revision board by the area immediately left of the CPU, where the bus transceivers are placed. The "RFI" boards use a single 8304 (and that is printed on the silkscreen legend) next to an empty space at locations H10 - H11, where the early revisions use a pair of 8T28 chips.

Based on the locations of some capacitors and ferrite beads, it looks like this is an 820-0044-C revision from late 1981. There is a white square near the power connector where the week of production was hand-written. There were also always other hand-written or stamped marks from the worker who ran the functional tests, "IP" in your case. The copyright date (1979) is misleading and does not indicate when these boards were produced.

The 16K RAM card in Slot 0 is a Microsoft RAMcard. The ROM part numbers are Applesoft with the Autostart monitor (no surprise there) which makes this an Apple II Plus.

The only way this computer is unique is that a wood case has been built around it, but there is no reason to assume that work was done at the factory.

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The wooden case looks

The wooden case looks professionally done. Maybe an early RFI prototype? Do the plastic molds differ from early Apple ][ and later RFI versions? Maybe the plastic was not ready yet? Or an owner that broke his plastic housing and had nice woodworking skills...

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It looks alike this one on

It looks alike this one on auction https://www.estatesales.net/TX/Richmond/77406/4198263 

https://picturescdn.estatesales.net/4198263/1-1/611c3443-88aa-4328-bafc-2ac2b7bc4adf.jpg

 

 

 

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Identify Unique Apple II Computer

Thank you for all this great information.  That picture you found is my friend's computer.   She is having an estate sale this weekend and her  family had a lot of computers from the 80's and 90's.  I mean a lot. That picture generated much interest and I was challenged to confirm its origin.  If you all are in the Houston area you should check this sale out.  

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It's a good thing I'm on a different continent.

The amount of stuff in that collection...

Multiple black Bell & Howell. A Mac Portable. So many "Classic" macs. A Sol. Two Imsai 8080s. A Challenger. Atari. Commodore. TRS. 

It's like an instant retro-computer museum!

 

Chesh.

 

 

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