Dr. Sander on the Clock chip and Applelogic.org





And on the issue of loose chips on the PCB:


One thought on “Dr. Sander on the Clock chip and Applelogic.org”

  1. My memory is that there were 3 versions of the motherboard for the ///. The first was the prototype board (2 layer) which had lots of wires and was really just used for the launch, etc. The issue was that the auto-routing software that Apple used at the time couldn’t handle the complexity of the layout requirements. The second board, which was used in the first volume shipments, was hand layed out by a woman at Apple who was a real genius at figuring out that kind of stuff – that board was also 2 layers, but had all kinds of issues relative to heat warping, etc. I thought the final version was a 4 layer board, which addressed some of the interconnect issues, and also was stiffer (less warping under heat) and that was a reliable enough unit to do the swap out program (I was the product marketing guy that introduced that program, which was directly managed by a guy named Jerry Bower). It was that last board that had the pads for the interlace switch, that we eventually leveraged for the Apple /// Plus.

    As for layered boards, we also began using that in the Apple ][, but primarily to defeat the guys offshore that just made photocopies of the boards to create knockoffs. By burying some of the connections on the inside layers, it made it very difficult for others to copy the board, as well as produce it.

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