was: National Semi... is Apple ][ collectability (if any)

drlegendre . drlegendre at gmail.com
Wed Jan 4 02:29:03 CST 2017


My first encounter with Apple II was in 1978 or so, when we got 2 units at
my school. They were each fitted with a pair of Disc II units, and what
must have been an 8" B&W CCTV monitor.

Both floppy drives, plus the monitor were heaped atop the rear portion of
the Apple II case; drives to the left, monitor to the right, best of my
recall. Learned my first BASIC and so forth on those machines.

On Wed, Jan 4, 2017 at 1:03 AM, Brad H <vintagecomputer at bettercomputing.net>
wrote:

>
>
> -------- Original message --------
> From: "drlegendre ." <drlegendre at gmail.com>
> Date: 2017-01-03  8:03 PM  (GMT-08:00)
> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <
> cctalk at classiccmp.org>
> Subject: Re: was: National Semi... is Apple ][ collectability (if any)
>
> "Vent-less case" - LoL!!
>
> Add some RAM, maybe a DISC-II card and those things overheated even +with+
> the vents.. that's why the Cider fan became popular, among other things.
>
> When I was in high school, we'd pop the case tops open, and run them that
> way. Otherwise, they'd overheat and start screwing up after the first or
> second class period.
>
> On Tue, Jan 3, 2017 at 10:36 AM, Brad H <vintagecomputer@
> bettercomputing.net
> > wrote:
>
> > >On 1/2/2017 11:26 PM, Brad H wrote:
> > > I brought the RFI thing up with him.  No response.  There is a legit
> Rev
> > 1 there too asking $3500.  I don't find Apple IIs below Rev 0 that
> > interesting anymore, personally.  I think even the legit guy would
> struggle
> > to get much above $1500.
> > >The vintagecomputer museum guy on epay is selling mounted and framed
> > motherboards now for $1500 (might not >work noted).
> >
> > >I guess someone would care about low ref Apple 2's but I'm not sure why
> > there would be any interest.  I've got one >I bought with the original
> > packing box, which I have picked and moved twice, which is rare for my
> > collecting, but I >don't know what makes any Apple 2 like that
> > collectible.  As in why are they collectible with low serials / part
> > >numbers.
> >
> > >is there any documentation as to when they were made with those numbers
> > that would make them significant?  >The numbers made as Raymond said
> would
> > make most of us with Apple 2's millionaires I'd think unless they have
> > >some other significance.
> >
> > >just curious.
> > >thanks
> > >Jim
> >
> > When I got into collecting an original Apple II was as rare as hen's
> teeth
> > on ebay, etc.  Those got huge bucks, regardless of rev.  Then sellers
> > caught on and stuff started coming out of closets, basements, estate
> > sales.  I actually track Apple II sales and prices have massively
> declined
> > since 15 years ago.  I mean, there's 60000+ out there theoretically, and
> > II+ shared the same components and production lines for a time.  Only
> diff
> > was the ROMs.  Now Rev 0 is where it's at, especially a rare ventless
> > case.  Oh, and late SNs in the 70000 range for some reason still get
> > $700-800.  I don't know why.
> >
> > The one thing I can tell you is, if an 'expert' tells you something about
> > original II production, there's a good chance they are wrong.  Some
> > authoritative sources claimed no Rev 02 boards went into public hands,
> for
> > example, but I have one in my SN 16000s machine.  Some would claim that
> > can't be original, but it is.. the date code on it is the same as the
> > keyboard and case, all right in the range of other 16000 series machines,
> > which on either side of mine have Rev 03.  Apple didn't use the same rev
> > consistently.. sometimes they just grabbed from the pile.  It's kind of a
> > dogs breakfast after Rev 0.
> >
> > My Rev 02 operates no differently, other than Integer BASIC, than my RFI
> > II+.  More and more I'm not finding IIs to be all that amazing or worth
> > fighting over.  A Rev 0, just owing to the few truly unique design
> > features, is the only one I might want now.
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
> Yeah.  We were on to IIes when I was in grade school and then Commodores
> and PCs after that.. original IIs and II+ were long gone.  I have four
> units and never have any issue but come to think of it I do tend to run
> them case top off.  I imagine other users might have run them with the
> monitor (another massive heat source) sitting right on top.
> I think the ventless cases also were made of a weaker plastic that melted
> and warped just from the heat of the innards.  The few examples I've seen
> are almost invariably somewhat concave.


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