Photo of Smithsonian microcomputer exhibit

From: Jeff Kaneko <Jeff.Kaneko_at_ifrsys.com>
Date: Wed Feb 25 12:07:23 1998

> > On Tue, 24 Feb 1998, John Higginbotham wrote:
> >
> > > Thinking out loud:
> > > I wonder what the market would be for an Apple I replica?
> >
> > It would be very strong if you claimed it was an original :-) That's one
> > reason I won't pay a lot for a collectible computer. How are you going to
> > authenticate it? Most of the chips and processes are still available
> > today, so it's fairly straightforward to clone them.
>
> You've also got the issue of date codes on IC's to deal with. And not many
> 40-pin DIPs are still made the same way as original 8080A's, i.e.
> white ceramic with a gold cap.
>

Another issue to consider is the board stock used to make the
motherboard. Some kinds of board stock are fairly distinctive (and
some are not made anymore). If thousands of dollars, are at stake, a
spectrograph signature comparison of real vs genuine pcb's would
easily be justified (at least, you could say that both came from the
same lot).


Jeff
Received on Wed Feb 25 1998 - 12:07:23 GMT