From: Charles T. Turley (cturley@wco.com) Subject: More 'TRUE FACTS' on Mark Twain! Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple2 Date: 1996/09/26 Given all the current interest and such over the Mark Twain (Apple IIGS prototype computers), I thought the following information and facts concerning it might be in order - for all the CSA2 readers to review. Presented with premission for distribution - as you wish! Enjoy & Cheers! Tom ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: Thu, 9 May 1996 12:41:44 -0700 (PDT) X-Sender: mac@mail.wco.com Mime-Version: 1.0 To: gbmaidsf@wco.com From: mac@wco.com (Ray McAnally) Subject: Re: Mark Twain Cc: joko@crl.com >Thanks for the reply Ray, >I understand about lack of time, only to well. What type of job do you have? What are your current machines that you use? How did you first see and or have use of a Mark Twain? I came into possession of 2.5 machines from a member of our group. In return for being able to keep one of them, I repaired multiple problems on the 2 complete machines and provided a Fully functional ROM 01 in return. I later replaced the ROM 01 for 40 bucks, so I guess you could say I got the mark twain for 40 bucks and about 4 hours of work. There was no interesting software on the internal drives except for a beta of AppleWorks GS that later became version 1.1. I later traded the Mark Twain for a Macintosh Centris 610 system. Joe got his by trading a 486 system that was given to him by a friend. So the original owner ended up with a fully functional ROM 01 GS and a 486 IBM clone. Worked out well for all concerned. I made sure that the machine that Joe got was the one that was repaired the best. All features function and I had no crashes with it. I was however unable to test the sound input function as I had no software at the time. According to the numbers on the machines, we've been able to determine that at least 20 machines were produced. 10 of which were definitely crushed at Apple. 5 were with one researher at the time of her resignation from Apple, and our 2.5 machines came from her in a round about way. (She left them behind after a divorce and the husband gave them away.) Our member got 2.5 and the SF trash people got the other 3 complete ones. Upon opening the case, I discovered that there were only 5 slots. Slots 5 and 7 being mapped to the internal drives. The machine had a Quantum LPS 40 meg drive mounted under the floppy at the front of the case. The case was a hack job rather then any sort of production run. The back of the case was cut to acommidate a new type of power suppy that I found to be under powered for its job. Also, it contained a fan, something that Apple never included in the // series. Even the Macs never had one until the SE. The supports for the drives and the motherboard were fabricated from metal that had an unfinished look to them. It was a real bitch to disassemble the whole thing. I needed to replace the composite output jack on one machine, so removal of the motherboard was required. All three boards were slightly different. 2 had on board mini speakers that were worthless for anything above a small beep. The third had a regular speaker header with no speaker as no place to mount it was available due to the placement of the drives. The machine Joe has functioning is one with a mini speaker. However, the floppy would not eject when the button was pushed. this was due to a problem on the motherboard and not on the drive or switch. I by passed this by rewiring the switch directly to the drive connector. It works, but it will eject the disk anytime the button is pushed, including while being written to. The eject by dragging to the trash was unaffected and works properly. You may be aware that the only way to eject a disk in a Mac is by that means. (not including the emergency method with a paper clip.) The other two motherboards would eject with the button, but had other problems that made one unstable and the other had no place to mount the speaker. With the exception of the rewired switch, I left the two machines in original condition. Joe later had the external SCSI port added, something that Apple neglected to do. I believe he may have also bumped it up to 4 megs. In essense, what we have here is a ROM 03 with built in sound input (mono), New sound output (stereo). Built in 40 meg Hard drive and 800K Floppy. One machine had an 800K and the other had a 1.44 meg drive that only functioned as an 800K. I believe that was due to the fact that Apple no longer sells 800K drives. I would guess that the machine with the 800K was an earlier prototype or at least the group working on it had more parts in stock from previous designs. The machines were standard speed, and the drives behaved like they were attached to a standard SCSI card although one did have the circuitry of a high speed SCSI card. That was the most unstable board though, and not suited for use. In contrast, I have a perfectly stable ROM 01 GS with 8 megs of RAM, a 100 meg SCSI drive in an old Vulcan case attached to a RAMFast SCSI card. A ZIP 8 mhz card, a Hyper studio digitizer and a MDIdeas stereo card. This gives me the same abilities as the Mark Twain except for the internal floppy, plus a higher clock speed. I found the Mark Twain to be largly a disappointment, and was quite happy to be able to trade it for the Centris. The Apple // is a dead platform. I keep mine for my 3 year old daughter to play on. If she trashes it, who cares. I figure it will get her through grammar school before I have to provide her with either a Macintosh or a PC clone. Besides. I spent the last few years collecting childrens software for it, and would hate to have it all go to waste. Thats about all I remember off hand. That should give you a good start on your research. I doubt you'll ever see any more of them floating around, so I suggest you check out Joe's demo when he gives it at the next meeting. MAC -END OF FILE- ------------------------------------------------------------------------