Testing An Ultra Rare Apple Macintosh 128K Prototype slated for the Auction Block

Let's take a deep dive into this special prototype Macintosh 128K and see what makes it different from the final version. Huge thanks to Beth and Rick Ross for letting me access this Mac.
Macintosh Prototype Auction Link (Ends March 16, 2023!):
www.rrauction....
Rick's story about this Mac:
d2skn5554g4boz...
My assessment report of this prototype:
docs.google.co...
Folklore.org articles:
www.folklore.o...
www.folklore.o...
www.folklore.o...
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🎹 Music Credits
Leveled Up! by Bad Snacks (via the KZbin Audio Library)

[@LGR]

I remember that original Reddit post, it’s great to see this thing working again and going up for sale! Glad that they went through you to make it happen, Steve. Perhaps I missed something, but what resolved the Sad Mac issue? Was it just the reseating of the riser board that did the trick?

[@Mac84]

Thanks, Clint! Yes, it was awesome to get a chance to inspect it and get it working again. It seemed the first ghastly Sad Mac was caused by the ROMs not being seated properly, so reseating the adapter board and using some contact cleaner seemed to have resolved that. Any Sad Mac issues after that we’re thankfully only software related, such as a bad disk image, or an incompatible boot disk.

[@ac1d54bol]

ellgeeaaarrrrr!

[@MediaWest]

we had an early 128, in a hollywood recording studio. one of our techs took 4 256k memory chips, and then made 4 boards, and we had 4meg of ram! we were using it for early sound designer sampling program that allowed us to build a sound effect library, that was one of the first of this type. the mac changed the whole freaking town. i still have a se30 on a shelf.

[@MaxOakland]

As a music producer, that’s cool!

[@TheOriginalCollectorA1303]

Awesome, very cool to see this machine hasn’t been lost to time or even worse, destroyed! Quite a unique machine, even more interesting considering just how early it is! It’s also very cool you got all of those floppies, I’m sure there’s tons of software and information on them that isn’t available anywhere else, at least until now. Great video!

[@applemuzeumpolska]

I was awakened by a strong night wind and could not sleep, so I saw your video :) It was worth it! A remarkable artifact and wonderful nooks and crannies of the early days of Macintosh. It must have been an exciting moment when you started up and looked inside :) Thx for video.

[@lucasRem-ku6eb]

any people visiting the apple old junk museum ?

[@Mac84]

Thank you! Yes, it was very excited to take a look inside. I'm very happy I had the opportunity to play around with this system.

[@Bad_CRC]

That thing is so cool! I am so glad that that hidden gem wasn't trashed or destroyed by time!

[@jupo42]

Love the archeology work, letting us see the little details that made this different from the production model. And it's fantastic that you were able to preserve software that's not been imaged before. Kudos!

[@lawrencedoliveiro9104]

11:06 The only drawback with that is you don’t get the lovely musical hum that the 400K drive makes. It’s so hard to find any record of that sound any more ...

[@GarthBeagle]

Wow great job Steve! The community and Apple preservation is lucky to have you

[@MacintoshLibrarian]

This is an awesome video! I am bidding now !

[@scottharvey-davies1607]

Came to your channel via Action Retro. Love the content and delivery buddy. Just killing time while I try and get a battered and semi destroyed G4/Ali 15" Powerbook back to life while next to my other immaculate G4/ali powerbook... the list of broken (and dented) bits is insane....(don't talk about the BeOS attempt) Kudos to you mate :)

[@Mac84]

Thanks! And good luck with the PowerBook!

[@MSmith-Photography]

That's quite awesome that you were given the opportunity to have your hands on that prototype.

[@TheJurassicJunkie]

Fantastic video. Thank you for preserving those pieces of history, and bravo for the original owners to step forward to enable that to happen!

[@lawrencedoliveiro9104]

14:38 I used MDS. Editor on one disk, assembler on the other, on a dual-floppy Mac Plus. Then, the following year, I got a Mac II, and I graduated to MPW, which absolutely required a hard drive. Now there was a step up in power.

[@geofftottenperthcoys9944]

Have not use a Mac since the VERY early days, but always watch these types of vids!

[@mindluge]

really cool. love the Mr. Macintosh anecdote. just think, maybe if that came to fruition we would have had Mr. Macintosh cartoons and video games today

[@retrodude6215]

The only light that “Mr. Macintosh” got was in the movie called The Blank Check lol

[@MaxOakland]

Huh?

[@geekbabe100]

New subscriber, found you via Luke Milani ❤

[@rager-69]

It would be interesting to see what this sells for. It's currently at $2197, but there's almost 2 days left on the auction, so I'm sure it will go up quite a bit as the end draws near.

[@MaxOakland]

What causes a menu chip to go bad? What changes inside it to make it stop working?

[@macretro_techvintage]

So cool this prototype !

[@PROSTO4Tabal]

Good stuff

[@kenboyle9905]

I have one of these prototypes as well very similar to this one.

[@phillippereira6468]

How odd it only sold for $16,500. Considering that a newer board alone sold for higher and like you said this is the complete package and a working one, I am surprised.

[@stpworld]

I have a lost tape in my collection about the manufacturing of the apple 2gs.

[@50ShadesOfBeige]

Many years later Microsoft tried to introduce something similar, but we ended up with Clippie instead.

[@cjsebes]

You're a good egg, Steve. Nice job. I hope the owners get a huge payday with it.

[@Toonrick12]

I wonder who was the person who won the auction. I really do hope they contact you to recap the system.

[@GaiusIuliusCaesar1]

I am more curious about if there are any major differences in the ROM

[@jimthain8777]

About that processor and why it might be missing the Motorola name: Maybe it's a prototype chip built in house. (It would later be mass manufactured by Motorola) That would explain why there's no Motorola name on it as they weren't yet brought in to mass manufacture the chips. I vaguely remember Apple being involved with development of their chips. So a developers chip? What do you think?

[@Canthus13]

RIFA caps get brittle because of the heat they're exposed to iirc. So age should have much less of an effect on something like this where it was seemingly only used for sales demos.

[@codys4668]

Very cool 😎

[@dwarftoad]

Hey did you explain the numbers written on the boards? Or did I miss something?

[@Mac84]

The numbers written on the boards were also apparent in the other auction. Therefore we could determine that this board “C023” was produced much earlier than the other Sotheby’s auction “C296”.

[@007knick]

My parents had one of these and put it out for hard waste about 20 years ago. I am still mad about that

[@duringthemeanwhilst]

amazing vide - really enjoyed 🙂 i'd love for those feet to make a comeback on a MBP or MBA some day

[@yorgle]

Were the ROMs in it different from the retail 128k?

[@8BitRetroJournal]

It's only at $2200...maybe the auction should be longer...

[@sbrazenor2]

The last day or so; sometimes the last hour is where all the action happens. I usually snipe-bid. I'll come up with a price in my head that works for me and then fire it off with like 8 seconds left. If I win, I win; if not, I'm ok with it. The value I put in is what I'm willing to pay and the bid increments will not always require all of it, so I can get it cheaper with luck. If you bid early and increase the volume of bids, people will drive up the price.

[@8BitRetroJournal]

​@@sbrazenor2 That's a pretty common strategy for a buyer. For this item, I would have listed it at a high buy-it-now price, let it sit for a while, and give make-offer option. Didn't a newer motherboard-only go for $20K? If so, then if this doesn't go for at least twice that it would be a shame.

[@sbrazenor2]

@@8BitRetroJournal they have a 'value' listed of like $12K. They might have a reserve on it, in case the bids are too low.

[@8BitRetroJournal]

@@sbrazenor2 didn't see the reserve...that would be good to have.

[@mojoblues66]

Did you dump the ROMs?

[@darkwinter6028]

It looks like there’s a Motorola logo on the 68000?

[@Mac84]

Yes, there is. My point being that it wasn't distinctly labeled as a 68000 chip yet. Although it obviously is, otherwise the system wouldn't work with the ROM and software.

[@Antony-w3l]

Like this upload...

[@Kyle-xv5kv]

Selling for $16,500 that's crazy money! I hope whoever got it is going to post more of it and not stick it on a shelf :(

[@Mac84]

I hope so too! Especially since those analog board caps need replacing

[@robertbuechel6394]

😂

[@anidnmeno]

anybody got twenty-five hundred dollars i ca hold rq?