Possibly rarest Apple 1 ever for auction

[Tothwolf]

On Fri, 22 Jul 2016, Corey Cohen wrote:

> There were no blank boards. That's the key. The sockets were wave 
> soldered by the PCB manufacturer according to Woz. There were 2 runs of 
> 100 boards each.
>
> This is also an early layout board (Non NTI) but with different wave 
> soldered sockets than the two known production runs which both used TI 
> sockets even though they were from a different PCB house. This board is 
> from the 1st PCB house that made the "byte shop" boards but has the more 
> expensive and reliable RN sockets. Which implies it predates the Byte 
> Shop boards because of all the evidence.

TBH, I'm not sure why people get hung up on wave soldering vs hand 
soldering. My own hand soldering is practically indistinguishable from a 
properly wave soldered board and it wouldn't be unreasonable for someone 
working at Apple to be able to hand solder boards similarly, or even for a 
prior owner of the board to have retrofitted those sockets.

When I stuff boards, I use an assembly jig and form/pre-cut component 
leads before soldering. This is how I was (re)taught to solder when I 
began working with high reliability gear (cutting leads after soldering 
can cause microfractures in the joint) and I continue to use those 
techniques. I also use supplemental flux because the flux in cored solder 
is really only sufficient for bright/clean pads and leads. I consistently 
get better results with the extra flux.