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DigiBarn Computer Museum Feature Story:
Daniel Kottke's Amazing Apple Relics

On February 6, 2002 I had the great pleasure of visiting Daniel Kottke in Palo Alto California. I have known Dan since the mid 90s and had always heard of his key role in the birth of modern personal computing, especially as one of the first Apple employees and a key part of the team that brought you the MacIntosh.

The next three pages just scratch the surface of Daniel's personal computing history through a photo gallery of some of his amazing Apple "relics". Don't think of "relic" as a dead sort of thing, in this context these are very alive as they form the very basis for millions of computers on your desk and mine. Take a look at his mind-blowingly early MacIntosh memorabilia, then the earliest Apple III and Apple II documentation, and lastly probably the first portable Apple computers designed to play music.

See also our re-scanning and in-depth documenting of all these relics at the Making the Mac pages and the Documenting the Mac pages, all part of our Mac at 20 site. Find out more about Daniel at the DigiBarn's pages on Daniel Kottke.

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Mind-blowingly early MacIntosh Memorabilia
(very early, but well after Jef Raskin created the Macintosh project in 1979)

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An amazing sight, MacIntosh logic board #5, produced in early 1983 as the Mac entered its final prototyping phase
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Wire wrapping on the back of Mac logic board #5, all this wiring was done by Daniel himself!
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Dan and his creation
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With the wire wrapping on the reverse
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Original prototype MacIntosh power/systems board
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Daniel's personalized Mac Team Member 128K with his own signature
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Daniel with a "signature" case produced before any shipping Macs (white inside, not sprayed with the grey coating)
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5 1/4 inch floppies used to prototype the MacIntosh (keyboard driver) on early 5 1/4 equipped Mac development systems
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Whole drawer of research and diagrams leading up to the Mac

 

Can you get any earlier than this? Yes! MacIntosh's Logic Board Diagram and the first circuit boards
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Daniel showing one of the first ever complete Mac circuit boards

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Extremely early prototype circuit board for the MacIntosh
(probably the first piece of actual Mac hardware: 1981)
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Daniel relating the history of these circuit boards
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Another early board
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First "IBM" circuit board for the Mac, using a specific IBM chip
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Another circuit board, note the little "macintosh man" logo turned on its side on the board, a logo never used by Apple

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512K board design (see diagram below)

 


The diagram that started it all, Daniel's one-sheet-of-paper complete specification (showing signals and chips) for the Mac logic board (click for more on this schematic)


February 1983, detail from the lower right hand corner, 512K board design which led directly to the first Mac logic board

 

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