MacRumors member requesting help finding '83 Macintosh parts

#3 Fri, 25 Feb 2011 - 00:41

See thread.

wow. Thanks for posting that.

A couple of thoughts:

I was surprised to see the custom plaque was 3D. From all the pictures i've seen, I always assumed it was printed.

The colored logos on the keyboard and mouse were intended early on, but according to Folklore, were cut for cost and Apple logo overload by Steve Jobs, who complained about all the lottle Apples on everything (there were even Apples stamped on the rubber feet that faced down on the desk in the prototypes). Whether these were vestiges of prototypes, or post assembly mods, who can say for sure. But I wonder if that pre-release external floppy drive had the mod as well?

According to Folklore, Steve Jobs took the first Macs off the assemblyline. So these would literally be among the first consumer ready Macs to roll off the assembly line, not prototypes, or demos.

As for what he's looking for, the motherboard should be relatively easy to find. The analogue board, at least a functioning one a bit harder, especially from 1983. That "fin" was exactly the reason her analogue board had to be replaced in the first place. Same for the cardboard cover. Also, both were revised a few times according to the part numbers printed on them, so while it's possible to get early production models, getting the originals that rolled off the assembly line might be very difficult if there was an early revision in parts, since they began finding new problems as they started testing units by the thousands before packing them up for shipping.