Twiggy Mac Boots up - software found!

pretty awesome!

i wonder how much $$ was thrown at this project?

So as long as the .rev of the rom's matched the .rev of the system software, it will boot?

Also I am really trying to figure out what makes a twiggy drive defective.

In theory couldn't we locate/fix what ever is messed up?

bring a boat load of twiggy drives back to life...

I'm sure it's the same issues why old floppies are dying. Bad rubber, bad alignment, old grease and motor issues. My IIc doesn't work with internal drive. I just haven't had time to try and fix it yet. There is like a five page write up on test , repair and calibration of regular drives.

One explanation I recall was that the masses involved in the 5.2" floppies didn't work out very well at all for the variable rotational speeds necessary to squeeze in maximum information density. Production yields were then extremely low on the one hand and read write/cycles lengthened due to error rates caused by the mass/rotation problem when the drives did pass inspection on the other.

IIRC it might have been Gorgonops who posted about this.

Regular 5.25 have different rotation speeds , just not variable. I may be off there but the repair guide mentioned different rotation speeds. Its been a year since I even looked at it but again I can imagine due to age the fact they had issues make them worse now.

Yeah I was just reading an article about this somewhere else on the internet. Pretty cool you were able to get it to boot!

Will you be making a demo video of the beta OS? That would be cool to see.

Also i'm assuming, no way this thing is going to run Mac OS..... OR, will this run some other Mac Apps ASIS?

like MacBandit

or

Missile Command

or

Shuffle Puck

or

Stunt Copter

or

macwrite

Thanks guys!

The trouble with the Twiggy Mac prototype is that once you eject a disk, it immediately asks you to re-insert it. This means that you cannot copy files, programs, or even the system / finder. The only way to make Twiggy Mac disks is with a Lisa 1 computer. This is how they did it back in the day, as a form of security control. Also, when you first turn on the computer, it asks you to set the date and time. If the date is not within a couple weeks of Aug. 15th or so, it will auto-destruct the disk and it will not work anymore. There is no way really to get mac games to work on this system, unless you can get the code onto a Lisa 1, and then subsiquently onto a Twiggy Mac system disk. 400k drives do not work on the Twiggy mac, it will fry the drive if you plug one in. I am still looking for the early version of Alice, that i have seen in one photo running on a Twiggy Mac, circa 1983. Joanna Hoffman may have other disks.

We have made a documentary video of the Twiggy mac in operation, still in the editing stages though. Will keep you guys posted.

Original

Original

Here are a few more images of interest that were not used in the Cult of Mac story. I find it interesting that Apple re-set the system and finder version numbering back to 0 when the switched to the 400k Sony drive.

Original

Original

Original

So, with the motherboard and power supply of the other prototype damaged, that means there is only one working Twiggy Mac in existence? Can the other one be repaired, or is it beyond all reasonable hope?

Also, what was on the third disk, or was it too badly damaged to be recovered?

Why do you disagree with the title of the article? These are the oldest known Macs still in existence, no?

It's great you are able to share this with the world. Gives a real window into the mindset at that time in the development process.

As of the post of this mesage, both prototype Twiggy Macs are now in fully working order. The 3rd disk contained only Mac data files meant for the Lisa 1 computer - not a Macintosh bootable disk.

Original

Technically, the oldest "Mac" is on display at the Computer History Museum, in California, circa 1981. It is not in working order.

Original via wikimedia

Thanks,

Adam

That looks like a normal 5.25 floppy drive in that Mac. Light and Apple Logo and all.

Now my Twiggy question.

Can you not hook up an external floppy to the floppy drive port or is no code written to use it? That would allow you to run other programs.

So cool!

Wow, would love to have a play around with that version of mac os... If only there where more twiggy macs

Very cool to see!

Well, now that so much is known about them, perhaps an emulator could be built which would allow at least the software to run, allowing everyone to experience this very early version of the OS.

And maybe replicas of the hardware can be built as well. It's substantially similar to a regular 128k from a hardware perspective (as far as I can tell), albeit with different ROMs and somewhat different logic board layout/wiring, so it would be fairly easy to use a 128k as a template, I would think.

But then the unique-ness would be ruined by tens of thousands of replicas flooding the market

Oh, well. Given that, the emulator option sounds more appealing to me.

And by the way, this is very neat!

c

What interim menu invoked using what command I?

Hi Guys,

Sorry for my late reply.

Since my last posting I have received the following commentary...

Regards,

Adam Goolevitch

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

From Jerry Manock,

Designer of the Original Macintosh Case/Housing:

Hi Adam,

Please pass on the comment below.

Thanks for sending! That side-by-side photo sure brings back many memories.

When the Twiggy started to fail at higher and higher rates, there were many attempts at specifying a substitute drive for the Mac, including one by Terry Oyama and I to use the old Shugart 390 "Disk II" drive with an added mechanical kluge to give auto insert, auto eject operation.  The 400k Sony drive was a much cleaner solution!

Nice reconstruction of the electronics and drives!

High error rates with the Twiggy disk drive forced Apple to switch over to the 400k Sony 3.5″ disk drive

in the last two or three months before the Macintosh’s scheduled release on January 24th 1984.

Regards,

Jerry

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

From Bruce Horn,

Designer of the orginal Macintosh Finder & Macintosh Resource Manager:

Hi Adam

Great article! Love seeing it and hearing the background.

A wonderful effort and perfect timing with the Jobs movie

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

From Susan Kare,

Designer of the Original Macinosh Icons:

Hi Adam,

Thanks for your note - it was fun to follow the link! My first Mac at Apple had a Twiggy drive.

I honestly can't remember if I did the icon for "Steve Sez..." or not.

I believe (but am not totally sure) that Steve Capps did the sleepless programmer icon.

I know I was at Apple then, because I designed those MacPaint icons and title bar.

Best regards,

Susan

wow this is hard-core info.

I'd also be interested in extracting the WDEF resources (if they were using resources yet), as those would be cool to patch into the system file of more modern systems.

I'm pretty sure your hearts skipped a beat when you found the disks were timebombed. Good thing you thought to archive FIRST and experiment later. That could of ended badly.

I'm really amazed that Jobs thought ahead to timebomb the disks. I bet that was not a common practice back in those days.

I'm really amazed that Jobs thought ahead to timebomb the disks.

Click to expand...

Who said it was Steve's call? Timebombing has been around for a while. Hell, during the Apple II dev days Apple supposedly had their custom chips decapped so that they would eventually fail within a week and the dev department had to fetch new ones.

Now if only we could get this System off the 'nets. I really want to see those "Steve Sez..." icons.

Maybe I should add it in via ResEdit instead... |) Whaddaya think, instead of that weird flat manface with a speech bubble, I'll make it Steve instead! ... That might work.

How did you know what to do so that it didn't timebomb the disks?

EDIT: Where are my WDEF resources?

Definitely better than that other talking manface. :O I might just have to fire up ResEdit now... :beige:

I'd actually appreciate if someone were to make all of the scrapped icons from these documented builds, unless I get around to making them first, which, judging by the quickness of Slomacuser's response, won't happen.

Really, really awesome! Thanks again. :b&w:

Side note, I find it somewhat interesting that the desktop icons for the diskettes themselves were 3.5" diskettes. It's as if, by this point in the Mac's development, Apple already knew that they were to be using them instead of the twiggy disks...

It would be better to copy the icons from the original file than to remake them manually.

It would be better to copy the icons from the original file than to remake them manually.

Click to expand...

It would be easier, not 'better'.

For a one bit, pixel defined graphics format there is only one way to create an image.

Short of uploading the software online, pixel by pixel replication is the ONLY way to get these icons, and what interesting icons I think they are.

If anyone can mad an OS8/OS9 style version of the Jobs icon or the Sleepless Developer icon, uh, I'd like to see it? Idk, I'd better make a color System 7 version first :lol:

So the only way to read/duplicate these disks is use a twiggy lisa?

Hmm wonder if you attach direct to the processor bus, trap the CPU and then do a disk dump that way, then recording it to an SD card or something of the like. Or disassembling ROM to figure out how to run the twiggy mechanism and use the IWM directly.

Using the ResEdit palette, I came up with this coloring (in 2 different sizes)





Based on this picture below

http://www.erikjheels.com/Images/articles/2011-10-11-apple-steve-jobs-720x1296.jpg

Should work with ResEdit or something.

I really like these beta icons, they're new, fun, and more exciting than the final icons we got, imo. :b&w:

I suppose I should try the sleepless developer next? Give them purple swirly eyes and stuff? :approve:

We just had a reunion with the original Macintosh team, which included Woz himself - hosted by the Computer History Museum.

Thank you all for your support.

This is "Insanely Great"! I am proud to say that I was able to participate in this event. Please follow this link:

http://shrineofapple.com/blog/2013/09/12/twiggyevent/

That's actually rather awesome.

Then again, I'm a bit more curious about the software, as heretical as that sounds. :lol:

Right, I finally got around to making a Sleepless Developer icon. It took me a while, as I was putting it directly into ResEdit.



Remember, coffee is no substitute for sleep.

Just had another thought...

Have you dumped the ROMs? And have you got more copies of the disks?

When last did you give them a run as well, by the way .

Another Twiggy mac has surfaced.

the second, the Macintosh . looks like the classic, but its a yellowish color. the front has a drive for something but it's not a floppy, and apple logo . the back just has a apple logo and another logo with the word "apple " in it . the logo is in color and has a gray background , but the one with the word apple in which it is not. no labels on the back , but the logos i said. Also the back has written on it " Property of Apple Computer" . On the front, have a very unusual drive is longer and thinner than the classic ii, it has a big indent on the right side of it.. does not fit any disk i have, is much thinner . Maybe CD?
if the power that it goes to a gray screen , then a box then says some box comes up and says this:

Welcome to Macintosh . System Version 2.1

MacsBug installed.

Disassembly installed.

Debugger installed.

Booting ROM-Based OS

then goes to another screen that says the following:

This Macintosh personal computer is not fit for use by the general public. Please return this Macintosh to your local Apple dealer for replacement with a computer fit for use by the general public. Press "Continue" to view data specific to the dealer, or press "Restart" to restart the computer.

ok then continue clickingg says this:

UNITID 41504C-3431333833

TFS 3431333833

TFE 3432393833

EXPBY: -39373337

Dealer: Send to G.R, destroy ROMs and LB, destroy system OS and returned disks,

send to HUB reporting lost pre-dropdate unit & above data

I do not know what to do or how to do this . So now I have two macs broken and $ 40 down the drain. Should I throw these away or sell them , I dunno. Thanks for help on repairing units.

Click to expand...

So he bought it for $20 at a flea market and thought it would be his starter system. We're all flipping out for him to post pictures however he seems to be confirming through verbal description that it does seem to have a twiggy drive and IT IS BOOTING.

I gave him incredibly structured instructions to NOT SET THE DATE. We know from restoring the other twiggy that they timebomb.

on the back theres a small port and battery lookd bad, kind of lookd like bulges and stuff was coming out . so I took the battery out. now i turn it on, and it asks for a date. so I tried Puttin on the date of today and I got the same message about it not being fit for use by the general public . i rebooted and date asked again. it's odd , but I'm afraid I might have damaged. if I put the battery in just goes directly to the message unfit for public.

Click to expand...

I understand flaming people is not really allowed but were you dropped as a child? We just finished telling you to NOT SET THE DAMN DATE. You activated the timebomb. Now you can't boot the damn thing.

Anyways, we're all waiting for photos. I'm sure people are already flooding him with PM's. I'm pretty sure this is going to get ugly.

This guy sounds soooo trollish. Just sayin'.

I'm being weary of that too. Something seems a touch suspicious yet so far unless anyone else disputes the uintID code and the likes I can't say if it's true or not. We'll know almost immediately though if and when he take photos.

This guy sounds soooo trollish. Just sayin'.

Click to expand...

I wonder if he's related to that guy that used to hang out on various Mac forums a decade ago and weave/bluster these tall tales about how he'd hacked OS X to boot on NuBus Power Macintoshes, accompanied by these bizarre technical explanations about how it ran so much faster on those machines than on new ones because of, I dunno, pipes or something. Anyone else remember him? He was great.

I do, vaguely. its a very very VERY faint memory though. But i do remember the rumblings about it.

Smells *VERY* trollish to me...

Which makes me wonder. A notorious troll (who is 14 years old, the same age someone born in '99, such as "oldmacuser99" would imply,) was just banned from the MacRumors forum - someone famous for claiming to have many PowerPC systems and doing dumb things with them, without ever proving he had them... (Such as installing Snow Leopard on a PowerPC, and putting a current-generation video card into a G5, and over clocking everything beyond the point of reasonability.)

So, if he was just banned from MR for trolling about PPCs, I wonder if coming to VCForum or here to troll about 68k Macs is an obvious next step...

I'm betting it's 100% real. The TFS, TFE, & EXPBY all look like something similar to Unix epoch time. The EXPBY is negative because it is unsigned and overflowed.

Don't worry about the date. It looks like it is running off of an internal boot ROM of some kind. ROM can't self-modify, hence the RO in its acronym.

If I'm decoding the dates right, it should start up if he gives it May 30th, 1983

lol so its totally posable that this kid found a 20 or 50 thousand dollar prototype at a flea market for 20 bucks

hap, you should call em and offer him a nice crisp hundie for it!!

Betchya a million Confederate Pesos that the same guy has a Lisa 1 sitting in a plastic tub in his closet. (Pictures of plastic tub available upon request.)

Interesting video of running twiggy mac: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9AxuiW0qHM

watch in HD

Given the reliability issues with the Twiggy drive, I wonder if the Mac would have been a failure if they proceeded to use one in it without ever resolving the issues.

Very cool video! I still find it extremely odd to see such a big hole in the front of the Mac. I'm so use to the standard 3.5" drive.

Was anyone ever able to confirm exactly how many Twiggy Macs Apple had made? Maybe there are more out there.

Given the reliability issues with the Twiggy drive, I wonder if the Mac would have been a failure if they proceeded to use one in it without ever resolving the issues.

Click to expand...

I doubt it. As with the Lisa, they probably would've updated it to a 3.5" drive anyway.
It's funny to think that the Mac could've ended up with 800k of storage space (yes?) two to three years earlier than it did.

c

Anyone seen this site?

http://www.twiggymac.com/