Everyone,
As you all know Mike Willegal created the Mimeo Apple-1 reproduction over the course of many years and with the help of original Apple-1 owners to refine the design over time. When Mike decided to stop production of the Mimeo, I took over with Mike's blessing to keep up the high quality and reputation of his work. Every Mimeo board was US built and electrically tested so we could be sure there were no manufacturing errors and I know I personally visually inspected every board for cosmetic defects before I shipped. As many of you know the big investment in a Mimeo is the parts and so having a high quality board will prevent you from pulling your hair out if it doesn't run after you built and populate it.
Well someone sent me a link to an eBay listing for "Mimeo" Apple-1 boards.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/194537272368
Warning, fake Mimeo marked Apple-1 boards out there...
I emailed the seller and confirmed these are NOT real Mimeo boards. They were not created using Mike Willegal's Gerber designs and from a general look they appear to be from the open-source one except they are apparently marked on the reverse side as Mimeo and they are selling for much less than the actual Mimeo PCB cost to manufacturer to the high standards Mike Willegal established.
I cannot speak as to their quality or if they are tested, but understand if you have not bought your "Mimeo" board from Mike or myself, going forward it may be suspect in quality. Just caused it's marked Mimeo doesn't mean it is one anymore.
I also want to mention, I messaged the seller on eBay and he said he got them from someone here. If that person can PM me and show that these are real Mimeo boards, I will have this post deleted, but they would have sold these at a major loss. The Mimeo cost me much more to make than these are sold for.
Also for those of you wanting on real Mimeo's. I should be starting production back up this spring. With much of the travel restrictions being removed here in the states and my comfort level with traveling, I will be visiting some PCB manufacturers in the new year to decide which one will create the new run of "Super" Mimeo's.
Sorry for my rant, but I have already someone contact me for help with a Mimeo he acquired recently and now that I know this "fake" Mimeo is out there I need to worry that the board itself could be the problem, which I never had to before, I could just trust the board and it's many hundreds of VIAs are good. These “fake” Mimeo’s could get someone a false sense of security that the issue with your system isn’t the board.
Cheers,
Corey
I don't think it will last long, soon this guy will get tired of packing boards and running to the post office while earning a few bucks. However, selling them under the guise of Mimeo is kind of unfair. And I agree with Corey986, the best way to counter this is to start selling the real Mimeo!
In post #2, macintosh_nik wrote:
"... tired of packing boards and running to the post office ..."
Uncle Bernie agrees !
Packing and shipping these large PCBs is extremely nasty. Especially here in the USA ... always long waiting lines at the post office. Not as bad as the DMV, though. But our senators should make a law that government has to reimburse everybody forced to wait in line for a government "service", minimum wage per hour at least. This waiting is 3rd world league ! At least in the 2nd world (i.e. Brazil) they have self-employed "service placeholders" who for a small "fee" will stand in line or wait in government corridors for you, and then call you on the phone when your number comes near. Don't expect such sophistication in the 1st world.
But back to the suspect PCBs:
This looks like dumping the excess of a JLCPCB minimum production run based on the open source Gerbers. Solder pads typical.
You can even see the lot# which JLCPCB puts on the boards unless asked not to do so (under the PIA).
It's the ENIG process option to make it look "golden". Not a real industry standard nickel/gold edge connector plating.
And they made the same mistake every newbie makes ... look how the silkscreen print is not present over areas with no solder mask.
Two more left (I just looked) and then it's probably over.
I'm still waiting for the real MIMEO PCBs becoming available again. I must build an Apple-1 clone from time to time to test new lots of the passive parts which go into my kits and I consider each build on one of the cheaper PCBs as a total loss. I have a few friends in the vintage computer scene who expressed interest in taking these superflous builds off my hands, but they insist on Newton or MIMEO boards with no optical blemishes. This is how collectors who can't solder a clone together by themselves do tick. Computer museums who want a clone to display (or even allow for patrons to "program" it) are much more indifferent, I was told, as long as the clone is a donation. So like everything in life, there is a price attached, and only if it's damn cheap or for free, compromises are accepted.
So "caveat emptor", buyer beware ! The small incremental expense for a more desirable PCB is justified !
Considering the quantity of Apple 1 boards for sale has been adjusted twice, the username is "pcb4diy", and he has a variety of vintage/hobbyist-related PCBs in stock in quantity, it seems unlikely he happened to pick up a few Mimeo boards second hand.
I don't see a photo of the Mimeo label in the eBay listing. Was there one previously?
UncleBernie, we have a special forum for discussing the relative merits of the U.S. and Brazilian postal services.
In post #4, Tom Owad wrote:
"we have a special forum for discussing the relative merits of the U.S. and Brazilian postal services"
Uncle Bernie begs for pardon:
Tom - the part of my comment #3 on the nastyness and waste of time with shipping PCBs through the postal services was not meant to be empty drivel, but to highlight the problems every purveyor of Apple-1 PCBs faces. It is such a PITA to do this that the Apple-1 community can be grateful that there are people out there who are willing to go through that ordeal for the pittance they can make off it. Proper packing alone is a nightmare. And then standing in line ... terrible. If they instead work as a greeter at Walmart they get more money out for the time spent.
Hope this helps. And no, I will never use fartbook. But I've heard stories that their are hemmorhaging users (aka "prey" to be spied upon) and some snarky people say that they are the next "Myspace".
- Uncle Bernie
I share your dislike for facebook, and although I've never waited more than 5 minutes in my own local post office, I understand the point you're making. However, you point turns into a rant about the DMV, our senators, and Brazil. It also uses "2nd world" in a socio-economic sense rather than its traditional political sense, which is a pet peeve of mine and a usage that I personally would want to argue about, except I don't want to get into an argument over Cold War political jargon in an Apple 1 forum. And that's where the problem lies with off-topic political commentary: silence looks like agreement and rebuttal derails the conversation.
I enjoy having a respite from politics here.
Very Interesting post Corey! My understanding was that these boards are NOT mimeo boards. But they are the "Russian Version" of an Apple-1 Replica PCB. I have made and used these boards and they work just fine, I have used these boards for PCBs when I have customer orders for fully-assembled and tested boards, they are even burned in for 12 hours and they still come up with no problems. But yes. I do AGREE that nobody should buy those boards thinking that they ARE Mimeo Boards. For anyone looking to buy a Mimeo replica PCB, "COREY IS THE ONLY SELLER" for that specific version of the Apple-1 Replica PCB. You can ONLY buy one from myapplecomputer.net !
Best,
Logan
This one is listed in Poland. It seems to be very similar to the German listing with links to the Mimeo instructions. I wrote the seller explaining it's not a Mimeo but a Russian Apple 1 replica so maybe he will fix his listing.
https://www.ebay.ca/itm/403171622786
Justin.
I think I ran into this guy because he basically copied my ebay offers using my materials. I wrote to him and he behaved like a total d*ck. He changed his user name. I still knew him as "hoesslin" on ebay.
To his defense: He is not writing in that offer that his replicas are Mimeo, he writes that they are in the style of Mimeo. But of course, he integrates the term Mimeo to get traffic on his offer – this is obivous.
Best,
Armin
Nice to see, how people run their mouth! Especially retroplace_1 - I know him as "apple1manuals" on ebay. He is the same d*ck like me!
Armin, you think you must talk bad about me here and tell real names?! What are you crying about here like a "pu***y"? mimimi ... my manuals...mimimi...my offer
Once again, I did not copy "YOUR" offer or "YOUR" f*cking manuals! The manuals are FREE available on the internet - I do not charge my customers money for that but you do!
You rip off your customers with these manuals - which are "supposedly" elaborately remasterd - funny! You also sell the same NON MIMEO board like me, from the same supplier JLCPCB - like me.
You put two ridiculous cheap acrylic glas around this non mimeo board and sell it for an outrageous price - this is a rip off!! But the customers now see, that they get the same quality at a reasonable price - from me!
Or why did you reduce your price? Because customers recognized that you are ripping them off?
So shut up your big mouth and do not tell bullshit how I try to get traffic on my offer! You are just pissed off that you cant call this high price anymore like before!
All my prices are fair - you are a rip-off!
And yes - when I started I was very unknowing in this apple1 replica scene. I believed what people told me - and they told me that this gerbers belongs to a "mimeo"!
But I corrected my fault! Of course my replica board is "like" a mimeo replica board - because a mimeo board also is like a apple1 board!!
Btw. - my - these NON mineo boards work great! Many customers tell me success stories!!
And please - do not tell fairy tales about the JLCPCB ENIG ..."no chemical gold..." blablabla if you dont have any clue!
Is this how businesses advertise in your country? Publicly pouring out vitriol on those whose product you copied?
It seems the shadow of Soviet times is long. But it's good that the true nature of counterfeit products was confirmed by the perpetrators own words.
BTW, using other brand names to increase a listing's visibility is against ebay policy and should be reported.
Thank you "robespierre" for your comment - you perfectly confirms my statement about "making big speeches but having no clue"!!
"in my country"...."soviet times"..."perpertrators" ....???? what are you talking about ? dont drink and write!
1. "my country" is called Germany - what country are you from? behind moon?
2. "soviet times"?? maybe you had too much wodka today - see 1.
3. i did not copy the mimeo board - I got a "gerbers" file, had the board manufactured and "just" sell the boards on ebay!
4. "perpetrators"? so everybody who just sell pcbs of gerbers form internet is a "perpetrator"? so, the guy i mentioned in my thread before is also a "perpetrator"?
5. "brand" ?? do you know what a brand is? please show me the registration of the brand "mimeo"! In "my country" it is called "brand" what you have after too much drinking - a big head!
In short - I sell pcbs for retro diy projects - thats it! And maybe you cant believe - in most cases I pay royalties for every sold pcb.
As I already mentioned - YES, I made a mistake calling it "Mimeo" but I fixed my fault! I am not "guilty" of anything else!!! So watch your words!
I also already mentioned - my apple1 retro pcb like the one which are sold by the other guy with his "manuals" work pretty fine - because they are the SAME from the SAME supplier!!
Battle of the clones. Funny stuff.
In post #8, tom68 wrote:
"The manuals are FREE available on the internet - I do not charge my customers money for that but you do ! "
Uncle Bernie says:
Just to avoid any false impression: the Apple-1 "manuals" pdfs on the internet are poor quality scans of the original manuals. Of course they are "free" and only cost the 10 cents per page (or so) to print them out on your laser printer. Good enough as a user manual to learn how to hook up and operate the machine. But the schematics are so pixellated they suck and are almost useless.
The Apple-1 manuals sold by www.apple-1-manuals.com have been painstakingly re-typeset ("remastered") letter by letter, the schematics have been re-drawn, and then everything was printed on high quality paper by a real printing house. They are what I would call "museum grade" replicas of the real manuals. Indeed, some famous museums show these very same manuals in their Apple-1 displays.
How much profit did this guy make from that ? I bet he did not even make U.S. minimum wage per hour invested in the work. It's more a labor of love and not a business model.
Other than this clarification , I do not want to engage in any "Apple-1 PCB flame wars" as IMHO all currently available PCBs leave much to be desired. The real MIMEOs are unobtainium, the NEWTON ones which paid more attention to details than the Russian "Open Source" Gerbers have ceased production due to the cheaper alternatives made from the latter, and Logan's improved Gerbers based on the Russian Gerbers look promising but need to be tested first to see if they are what they are advertised to be.
Note that both Misha Mdesk who made the "Russian" Gerbers and Logan Greer who "massaged" them to be closer to the original layout gave away the fruits of their work for free, as a great gift to the Apple-1 cloning community. Anyone who is able to download these Gerbers and then upload them to JLCPCB can see what they really cost when produced in quantities, and this should work against rip-off artists who demand usurious prices for them. Still, do not under estimate the tedium and costs to properly pack and ship such large PCBs. So nobody can sell them at the JLCPCB production costs. But I have seen so blatantly usurious prices for them that I take the liberty to warn everbody against buying at these moon prices.
As far as I am concerned I give away my "improved ACI" PCBs as a free gift in my IC kits, because at the peanuts price I paid for them it's not even worth my RQLT to try to sell them in any quantity, shape or form. Oh, and my offer to the usual suspects to sell them for their own profit was declined. Not worth the effort, perhaps. You can't get rich with selling such little PCBs. You also can't get rich with selling Apple-1 kits: you have to be rich to be able to do that. As far as I'm concerned I'm still in the hole (money wise) and this is why I will stop selling these IC kits once my IC stock is depleted. IMHO there is no real commercial viability in selling Apple-1 kits nor PCBs nor any other parts. So it's a hobby, people do this for fun and to make friends, and to celebrate the early work of Woz. How the fierce "PCB wars" fit into this picture eludes me. It's just silly.
- Uncle Bernie
It's not worth fighting over nothing. A lot of different offers on the market is good, someone will choose the cheapest option, someone will be interested in a more expensive set. People are different, the market is big, it is not worth wasting time arguing with each other, work gentlemen!