Rare Macintosh Quadra Prototype Hits eBay (and I Got It!) - Krazy Ken’s Tech Misadventures

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This Macintosh Quadra 700 (aka the Jurassic Park computer) landed on eBay, but it's special… it's a prototype (codenamed Spike).
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#KrazyKen #ComputerClan

[@ComputerClan]

Enjoy the new episode and hold on to your butts. 🚬

[@trafficracer124]

Oh i sure will

[@_lun4r_]

Also enjoy a pinned comment every new episode, because you are one of those KZbinrs who pin their own comments on every goddamn video 😡

[@cpyt]

I still don't care about your sponsorships

[@_lun4r_]

@@cpyt Yes I agree, I don't care either

[@_lun4r_]

@Ramin Omar I hate the type of KZbinrs who pin every comment of theirs on every video

[@billhubauer746]

Hey Ken, my name is Bill Hubauer and I'm the author of "CopyRIGHT Pro". We were a small software company and while I can't remember how many units we sold, it wasn't a lot, I'm sure. It was unbelievable for me to see you boot up that computer and find my software on it. Thanks so much for posting this!

[@ComputerClan]

Oh heck that’s amazing. I was secretly wondering if anyone involved with any stuff on this computer would see this episode. : D

[@JaredConnell]

What kind of software was it?

[@billhubauer746]

@@JaredConnell Back in the day, file copies in the Finder were modal and the user was locked out while a file copy was performed. CopyRIGHT Pro integrated (hacked) the Finder to intercept the copy request and pass it off to our app which would allow multiple background copies. It offered some additional scheduled copy features as a light weight backup tool. Given the relatively small number of copies I'm sure we sold, it seems inconceivable that this video would have come to my attention. I should play the lottery today.

[@fileb]

@@billhubauer746 back in my day🤓

[@greggv8]

@@billhubauer746 Sounds quite useful. Would be a good one for the Macintosh Garden archive of old Mac software.

[@ActionRetro]

Best intro skit ever 😂😂

[@ComputerClan]

Thanks! : D

[@Gadgetman1989]

Just about to comment that lol love both of your contents guys!!

[@JaredConnell]

You bet your ass it was

[@theoldone22]

In my experience when a EBay listing says "untested" it means "tested and not working but we'll get more if don't admit that"

[@bzuidgeest]

Or just more simply we don't want any complaints.

[@myrealusername2193]

I’ve often had the opposite experience but yeah it’s awful when that happens.

[@rambles2727]

With macs if it doesnt come with a power cable and or a keyboard it likely actually is untested as they dont have the means to boot it up

[@myrealusername2193]

@@rambles2727 why? PS/2 keyboards were pretty common for a while and power cables have been standardized for ages

[@rambles2727]

@@myrealusername2193 because the keyboard has the power key for some of these computers so they cant be turned on without one.

[@jasonskerrett3826]

"Untested" aka I tested it briefly and it didn't work so I want to cover my ass against returns and entice a potential tinkerer into buying it for more than if it was sold as faulty

[@cgwworldministries83]

heres the issue with that thought process, as a tinkerer I go out of my way to ignore "untested" and only look for "for parts as is faulty"

[@BollingHolt]

I'm sure a million people have already commented, but good batteries are required for some of the older Macs. From my own experience, the II line and the portable (which is a little bit of a different case). You can "jump start" at least the II and the IIfx with a 9 volt battery. That probably works on some others as well, but I have only jump started my II and IIfxes .

[@alextirrellRI]

I have a LC475 and it needs a PRAM battery, but you can kinda jumpstart it if you turn the PSU switch on/off/on fast.

[@Haffmatthew]

Ken- love the added effort you seem to be putting into the production of your videos. They’re getting offensively good at this point and i enjoy every one you upload. I consider you, techmoan, and technology connections to be my favorites

[@realgtasacramentodashcam7292]

I wish I could take you back in time to the property disposition warehouse at the University of Michigan in the early 1990s...piles of "vintage" Macs and parts so cheap nobody wanted them. Lisas, 512k Macs for $30, stacks of you name it everywhere.

[@tonybossaller4074]

Same here in St. Louis. I remember buying an original Lisa for $20 and being given a free Radius Pivot monitor WITH graphics card as part of the pile (during the Y2K era).

[@utkarshdharmadhikari6816]

Those Apple fonts on the rear sticker still feel fresh to this day! What a legendary calligraphy artist was Mr. Jobs!

[@tdrg_]

That intro was legendary

[@ComputerClan]

Thank you : D

[@micesss]

@@ComputerClan I agree.

[@DavisMakesGames]

Cool, always love seeing prototype hardware! I own a PBT Radeon card, but the strange thing is, its date code is from a month after the official release (but it still has an engineering sample sticker). And it appears to have been sold as regular stock at some point, since it seems to have been used daily like any other video card. These are always such a mystery.

[@MrKillswitch88]

Got two Alienware laptops that are engineering samples as well an XPS which is pretty cool as there were minor difference between them and the retail models.

[@DavisMakesGames]

@@MrKillswitch88 Sweet! Saw a Dell Precision engineering sample on ebay but it was $9,999 so I didn't go for it lol

[@MrKillswitch88]

@@DavisMakesGames Yea at that price no one will lol wow. I bagged the XPS at a local goodwill before it closed down years ago and the two Alienwares were cheap eBay fodder.

[@JayTheComputerGuy]

Cool!

[@Chickenbreadlp]

Maybe that Radeon card you have is a PVT with another factory. I'm not too sure on how manufacturing processes work, but it would make sense to me that if a company decides to pull in another factory they haven't worked with yet to run another PVT batch with them to see if the quality is good enough or any adjustments need to be made, kinda like how the current Mac Studios Power Supply has different designs based on what factory it came out of...

[@saintguardian3639]

Love these videos. Computer history is something I grew up in and admire the past for how much they change.

[@StevenOBrien]

4:43 "Alright, let's bust this" **smashes rare one-of-a-kind prototype against desk** :)

[@jsubuntuxp]

Best I can tell, it looks like the black menu bar seen in 10:06 is achieved by using the Kolor control panel, which I found on Macintosh Garden.

[@bryanp.1327]

It's like a digital time capsule, amazing!

[@ComputerClan]

Yeah! I love this kind of stuff.

[@davidbillberg2203]

Thanks for this! Always love this kind of reviews!

[@ComputerClan]

My pleasure : D

[@FMRG7009]

The intro was wayyyy tooo funny. I love taking a look at pre iMac Macs.

[@ComputerClan]

Thanks : D

[@FMRG7009]

Also ill feed my Mac, I haven't done that in...

[@macinman]

Hey Ken, good video as always. I really miss the classic Mac OS at times. I have most of my old Mac software backed up on a flash drive, after I was able to get it off floppy to a CD, and then moved it to flash storage. Used to run it in BasiliskII on my current Macs. It was nice to play around with again.

[@egmccann]

Man, I miss my Quadra 700. It and a IIsi got me into older Apple PCs for quite a while. Loved the thought put into the toolless (or nearly toolless) designs.

[@scottcol23]

Another amazing video! I loved the little Jurassic Park easter Egg "ahh ahh ahh, you didnt say the magic word" LOL I saw that movie in the theater when it first came out and my sister and I drove our parents' crazy saying that phrase over and over endlessly. And even as a adult I still say it from time to time. Mostly nobody picks up on it or knows where it comes from.

[@miguelalmeida7696]

It really worked for me after I look and try some tutorials, yours is the one that worked. Owe you a lot.

[@1337GameDev]

2:30 - Actually, for vintage stuff, it's generally not that good to pre-test systems / devices that are rare by the layman. They can be damaged if a component is bad and they aren't tested properly for proper functioning parts -- eg: taking the psu out and testing it independently, testing the caps on the mobo, etc..

[@bwc1976]

The Quadra/Centris era was such a fascinating one! Full featured (for the time) web browsers running in a few megabytes of RAM as opposed to needing gigabytes today. Today's browsers are practically whole operating systems of their own (and sites like Facebook and KZbin are practically whole applications), although I guess that's what it takes to safely and reliably have multiple tabs open. And very interesting that an Apple prototype would use an IBM hard drive. The smoking character was hilarious because it still doesn't feel like that long ago to me that so many people still did smoke indoors at their desks without giving it a second thought, and it's one of the very few things I don't miss from that era but it is very accurate to when this computer was made, and above and beyond what most tech content creators today would do. Finally, seeing you literally stuff a cleaning cloth inside a computer like that with your hand made me so nervous, how is that safe from static electricity? Anyway keep up the great work.

[@JVHShack]

Unfortunately, Ebay sellers these days are like "Gibme monays neowwww!!!!" That and a vast amount of them are just purely lazy. Example: I bought an Apple IIgs 3 years ago with the same "As-is, for parts, not working", etc. Once it got here and I got a keyboard, mouse, and some sort of monitor on hand to try it out, I just yolo'd it and it worked out of the box. Like I said, "lazy". Great video as always, Ken!

[@therealpapercat]

Or, and here me out now, they don't have access to the necessary accessories to test it out. Most people don't.

[@KLondike5]

I bought a IIgs on eBay since I wanted some card that was in it I think. Ended up getting a WOZ edition instead. The seller mixed up shipments and said I could keep it.

[@LordDewi]

Another great video. I'm pretty sure that the seller just didn't have the rest of the old Mac equipment like you do or they would have sold it as a bundle. Was there even a power cord? I assume a Mac like that is like old Windows PCs where you couldn't get far without a keyboard plugged in. Plus if they didn't have a monitor they couldn't be sure it really booted.

[@wongles]

It isn't every day that I see skits that break the fourth wall in new and novel ways. Kudos sir! I loved this whole video.

[@TheGlitchyMario]

That was a great outro.

[@ZanaGBYT]

Could you check if those ROMs have any significant differences from the retail ROMs? maybe there's some prototype or development strings or resources in the toolbox.

[@Mirroxaphene]

In 1999 I worked at a store called Computer Renaissance. In the back of the store they had a Quadra 700 style computer with a 68040 processor at 20 MHz. It had no label & on the back of the computer it had a label saying “SPIKE PVT” just like yours.

[@LunarWindows]

We gotta love the yesterday shipping reference from the eMac!

[@rickkarrer8370]

9:45: Must have been a memory pill lol

[@dennisud]

I had the IIci version way back when I was teaching. Used it as my main computer and network hub for 6 Apple IIs!

[@mobslicer1529]

your videos are always funny, but this one is one of the funniest. also can totally relate to hacking myself, i made a zipbomb of garbage files, extracted it, and then my drive got corrupted and my files had mixed with the garbage ones.

[@half-dusted]

I would love to see some vids on aluminium imacs (not the unibody ones) like in the background. I love them so much!

[@SuperSucc69]

Haha! I saw that thing in the background of the last video and was excited to learn more about it

[@ChandyJones]

Super fun vid, thanks Ken!

[@ComputerClan]

My pleasure : D

[@Fuzy2K]

13:37 -- When I'm hungry, I also go "Ooooooooo, foooooooood"

[@jackdipicche_]

This computer might have ended up in an university and later on sold to a private, it might explain the files on it

[@danielrhodes7594]

I enjoyed this video and liked the concept of collecting protoypes. Are you aware of the the Jonathan computer prototype for Apple designed by John Fitch? Do any of them exist in the wild? It would be awesome to own one? Would you do a video on it?

[@LynxCarpathica]

Those Astec PSUs from the IIcx/ci are notorious for not turning on for a logn time. You simply have to leave the computer pluged in for up to a day, before you could turn it on. Maybe some of the caps need reforming or something.

[@firestorm1859]

seeing a desktop computer from 1991 resizing windows so quickly blew my mind. Had no idea machines that powerful existed in 1991

[@sdewey4152]

Yesterday shipping, sounds like a scam 🙃

[@woodengamer]

Fun! glad you got another fun item in your collection. Say are you going to VCFMW again this year?

[@danielrhodes7594]

Hi Ken, a question for you. Have you ever ran across an Apple Workgroup Server 9150? Supposedly the same basic case as the Quadra 900, but has a 1.44 superdrive in the middle of the case front. I have been looking for one and cannot find one and it seems nobody on KZbin seems to have ever reviewed one.

[@DavidStahlOLDHAPPyMACs]

Nice Prototype Ken + the fact that it works

[@ComputerClan]

Thanks : D

[@micesss]

4:44 bro became Linus for a second...

[@fdolbec123]

Really good intro Ken! I loved it! 😊😊😊

[@ComputerClan]

Thanks you : )

[@osgeld]

PV samples are prototypes, there's still time to change things before prelaunch rampup and there often is like minor smt pad changes, silkscreen and components, things you wouldn't find doing smaller DV and breadboard builds. Cause once the paperwork is signed its usually an act of god just to change the brand of a single component

[@rikspector]

Ken, It was so cool to see Bill Hubauer's comment about "CopyRIGHT Pro", Not so much because he developed it, but because he found your site and is still not feeble:) Cheers, Rik Spector

[@nickolaswilcox425]

a lot of retro tech is a pain to test if you arent neck deep in the retro ecosystem given that a lot of these use obsolete connectors, display formats and/or require accessories to boot that arent necessarily on hand or common, ive gotten deals on a lot of old stuff because of this

[@liliwinnt6]

what are those 3 blue cylinders on the big PCB in the background? are they batteries or capacitors?

[@RSOFT92]

I laughed so hard at the Monitor bit, i nearly choked on my hamburger. Thanks Ken! 🙂

[@sebasvegab3720]

FINALLY ANOTHER EPISODE

[@zachsmith1731]

Chadds ford pa is my home town...weird hahaha. I don't think that company exists anymore. But I recognize the other places she worked on her resume at 11:34. I wonder if this fam is still around!!

[@travisjones2089]

did thay have a working keybord ? it has the power buttin?

[@robert1975031]

I did have a few macs that wouldn't boot with a dead pram battery, especially if they were completely flat. (my starmax 3000 is a prime example.) but a dead pram battery could also cause erratic behavior in other models, maybe this one was doing that, and they assumed it was not working correctly.

[@victorbarron6504]

Here at an hour in, let’s gooo! Keep up the skits and amazing content to entertain us!

[@ComputerClan]

Thanks! 😇

[@gameraspect29]

Hi awesome video Ken

[@SaccoBelmonte]

That was my dad's dream computer. First time I tried a RGB CRT monitor and first time I tried a color picker and painted with a brush (this was at a pro design studio)....I was mind blown.

[@OutrideMaro]

Hey! Can you give us a small update on that imac g3 prototype?

[@SuperVstech]

I am impressed the original apple overheat detection kernel was still intact. Amazing find… save that for later indeed!

[@tom611]

A lot of vintage computers on eBay are sold by people that don't have the hardware to bring it up. So, pending it's something that isn't standard PC stuff, it very well might be actually untested. I still look through their other items just in case: if it's full of garage sale type finds and very little computing stuff of that type, probably actually untested. If it's full of other stuff that would likely mean they have the gear to test (needed monitor or adapters), or even more telling, tested items of the same sort, it's dead Jim.

[@ericrosen6626]

When I sell on eBay, if that is the case, I'll state that. Power cords on a lot of these are standard and common, so I might try plugging it in. Did I get a puff of magic blue smoke? If so, then that is something worth noting. If not, did it do anything at all (or nothing at all)? I'll mention that. I could then try the power button. Do I get any LEDs? Are they on solid, flashing, a particular color? Any sounds? There are almost always **easy** things you can do even if you don't have an appropriate keyboard, mouse or display. A seller too lazy to even try some basic stuff is probably too lazy to even pack the unit up properly, so if I do buy it, amd I just going to get a banged up piece of equipment that even if it worked before likely doesn't work now? Unless I'm paying literal pennies on the dollar, a seller doing the bare minimum doesn't get my business. [edit] As a note-- back around 2002-2008 I was buying Silicon Graphics machines on eBay and with those you often need a sync-on-green display that required a 13W3-VGA adaptor, so it was understandable if the seller couldn't test it for video.

[@St0rmcrash]

My suspicion is that this was a pre production machine seeded to a 3rd party developer so they could test against the 68040 before the Quadra line launched. I guess afterwords since it seems a nearly stock board Apple just never bothered to collect it or let them keep testing on it until it was no longer needed and some employee ended up with it as surplus

[@NoobixCube]

It's amazing to see an "untested" machine boot first try. It really shakes my world-view. I've always known "untested" to mean "tested and definitely broken".

[@klausschmidt982]

yep, I bought off two systems on eBay declared as untested and they just worked straight out of the box. I believe the average Joe who just wants to get rid of their old machine doesn’t really bother setting them up and testing them. Obviously, there are also a lot of scammer knowingly selling broken parts so you never really know.

[@squeeeb]

I see a "Zoop Prefs file" @12:36 - someone was playing Zoop at one point 🤓 (I hope you took that bad battery back out!)

[@kosutamikyouko]

13:23 Fingerprints on the screen LOL

[@scottcol23]

On a side note. I have been selling computers and computer hardware on Ebay since 1998 and it is common practice to sell vintage hardware "As is/For parts" even though it works fully. This just covers your butt in the long run. The only way to return it is if the buyer pays postage and the seller decides to take the return. It just saves a bunch of possible headaches.

[@Tahngarthor]

I feel like i've seen that black menu bar before, but I can't remember where.

[@richardcooper]

Love your videos, and battery tester, I have 2 the same and use all the time and on my desk in front of me now ;)

[@furbyguy]

0:18 was that a muhfuggin TMNT Baxter Stockman reference!?

[@dextrodemon]

damn missed a great pun opportunity with that corn kernel 7:30

[@savagepro9060]

Everyone is talking about the intro, but boy that outro was the fkin BOMB! Jurassic Park trying to fit into Jurassic Park!😆😅😂🤣

[@ComputerClan]

: D

[@elisetless7256]

People who remember yesterday shipping are OGs

[@ComputerClan]

You know it!

[@john_ace]

You can still scan the HDD with an undelete tool?

[@ComputerClan]

I was thinking about that… perhaps that could be a good follow-up.

[@jsl151850b]

Which Mac was introduced to the public playing the Jetsons' Theme? Was it an audio format that predates MP3? Something uncompressed that used up all the memory?

[@Twylight85]

Awesome stuff as always! Also, was that a real cigarette?

[@ComputerClan]

Thanks! As for the cigarette, what do you think?

[@Twylight85]

@@ComputerClan I think phone screens are really tiny and I couldn’t tell 😂

[@micesss]

@@ComputerClan Please don't be a real one! It looks real but I don't think you would smoke.

[@Ashleyyyyy666]

cigarette looks real, there is what looks like real smoke too, in about the quantity i'd expect from a lit cigarette... i smoke so i know roughly what that looks like

[@OakCityGamers]

On screen cigarettes are rarely tobacco. It could be a non tobacco one. It could be a battery smoker. Small fogger device made to look like a cig.

[@knight2000ct]

How do the guards tell you and Clone Ken apart?

[@templeofleila]

I'd like you to find and show a product that I've only seen once in Japan. It was one of the early 2000s bubble Imac with a mini disc data drive. It wasn't the 100 mg zip drive. it was a mini disc data drive... Has anyone else seen one of these?

[@xanderplayz3446]

7:27 My school IT guy has the exact same battery tester

[@mightyraptor01]

Nice Video!

[@MiguelRodriguez2010]

Intro was hilarious. This is now part of the Jurassic Park lore.

[@ComputerClan]

Haha. Thanks!

[@tonybossaller4074]

Been thinking about why the seller wouldn't have tested, and I'm curious if maybe they didn't have an old CRT to test with. Those era Macs used non-standard resolutions/refresh rates as I recall. Most LCD monitors couldn't handle unless they were MultiSync or you had a video card added (to do more standard output). I worked a job with a bunch of IIci's and IIcx's and vaguely remember spending hours troubleshooting why the replacement monitors (that had worked great on more highend systems) would not work on the lower end systems. And I believe I gave up after a while and stuck them back on the generic Apple monitors that they came with.

[@ComputerClan]

They could have at least tested power and POST! You don't need a monitor for that. : D

[@R-E-D-A-C-T-E-D.]

Thank you Ken for reminding me to feed my tamagotchi!

[@JZM006]

Is that a different model AEKII? mine has a flat power button, while yours looks like a normal key.

[@ComputerClan]

Oops! It's actually an AppleDesign Keyboard.

[@theoriginalrecycler]

I did the majority of my Masters on a performa 840 av

[@Toxicity1987]

Now you need to buy an SGI Crimson, the other computer in Jurassic Park, but also it and other SGI Computers were used to make the special effects in the movie.

[@justinapone80]

Can we get more evil ken appearance's in your video's? He was great and added more humor to the video.

[@MinifigNewsguy]

10:10 -looks more like the Avaya logo.

[@user-bm9se8xm7r]

I was sorting out my old workshop today, or rather I was watching it being sorted out. Anyway I found a couple of those bubble Macs, the working one is Blue. I was wondering what it's worth. Plus I found a large plastic tub full of Mac memory sticks and numerous PC boards (not Motherboards) I haven't a clue what they're for, but they are for Macs. The clean up still has a way to go and I'm sure I'll find more Mac stuff. If anyone can give me some guidance, I'd appreciate it. If you think they may be worth putting on Ebay I'll take some photos and hopefully we can identify them.

[@macmikey]

I have a bunch of older Macs, iMacs, etc... Been in the Apple world since my first IIe

[@euclideanspace2573]

I sell lots of similar stuff as well and even if it does turn on and seem to function, sometimes I still list it as parts because I don't have the knowledge to extensively test it. It's a common practice, has nothing to do with the price.

[@thetechsavvy01]

Clever 'KENsored' lol

[@notbuffy]

Is the pill a cynide by any chance

[@ILikeStyx]

Would using 72-pin SIMMS increase RAM performance at all?

[@prla5400]

I love your channel

[@Jaxermd]

Why did it have a black menu bar? Was they an extension?

[@SavvySage]

That was my first thought 🤔

[@Snape1337]

Nice Jurassic Park Reference

[@mr.k7457]

nice linus moment

[@DanielAWhite27]

He spared no expense

[@Dresling]

A+ for the JP reference.. great stuff.

[@ComputerClan]

Thanks! It was fun to do >:)