I saw this really crisp-looking Macintosh IIx on eBay. It has the least yellowing of any case from that era that I have ever seen. (Difficult to tell in a photo with so much wood nearby)
I already have plenty of IIx computers, but the serial number on this one intrigued me. It follows the IIfx encoding ('F3'). Thus, this claims to be made in 1991 ('1') on the sixth week ('06'). Yet, according to Wikipedia, the IIx was discontinued in October of 1990.
After arriving, I found a number of supporting dates to confirm this Mac IIx was really manufactured this late.
The batteries are from December 1990.
There are a number of motherboard chips with 3rd/4th quarter 1990 date codes.
Based on these dates, either:
1. Apple kept making IIx computers beyond the publicly announced discontinued date.
2. The date on Wikipedia is wrong (I couldn't find its source).
Given that the IIci and IIfx had been out for a year or more, why would anyone be buying a IIx in 1991?
The owner upgraded the RAM to 8 MB and installed a 120 MB aftermarket hard drive. The drive was full of applications, documents, and System 7.1 chock full of inits. Whoever got it sure did love it.
Any Improvements Over Earlier Boards?
The ROM is from the 49th week of 1990. Sadly, it is still the standard 32-bit dirty ROM. I guess it wasn't worth it to Apple to test the IIci/IIfx ROM in older models?
But, the battery holder appears to be factory installed. Looking at the underside of the board, there isn't any indication of hand rework to desolder fixed batteries.
Unlike the other IIx computers I've seen, this one has metal tabs in the memory slots. Sweet!
Other than that, I didn't notice any other differences.
Really Clean Example
This is the nicest IIx I've ever seen. The plastic is clean and not yellowed. The metal does not have any rust or graying.
Of course there was capacitor leakage. But, no traces or chips were damaged. The recapping went smoothly.
All in all, a nice computer to have in the collection. Still a bit of a mystery why Apple would still be making these in 1991.
- David
I already have plenty of IIx computers, but the serial number on this one intrigued me. It follows the IIfx encoding ('F3'). Thus, this claims to be made in 1991 ('1') on the sixth week ('06'). Yet, according to Wikipedia, the IIx was discontinued in October of 1990.
After arriving, I found a number of supporting dates to confirm this Mac IIx was really manufactured this late.
The batteries are from December 1990.
There are a number of motherboard chips with 3rd/4th quarter 1990 date codes.
Based on these dates, either:
1. Apple kept making IIx computers beyond the publicly announced discontinued date.
2. The date on Wikipedia is wrong (I couldn't find its source).
Given that the IIci and IIfx had been out for a year or more, why would anyone be buying a IIx in 1991?
The owner upgraded the RAM to 8 MB and installed a 120 MB aftermarket hard drive. The drive was full of applications, documents, and System 7.1 chock full of inits. Whoever got it sure did love it.
Any Improvements Over Earlier Boards?
The ROM is from the 49th week of 1990. Sadly, it is still the standard 32-bit dirty ROM. I guess it wasn't worth it to Apple to test the IIci/IIfx ROM in older models?
But, the battery holder appears to be factory installed. Looking at the underside of the board, there isn't any indication of hand rework to desolder fixed batteries.
Unlike the other IIx computers I've seen, this one has metal tabs in the memory slots. Sweet!
Other than that, I didn't notice any other differences.
Really Clean Example
This is the nicest IIx I've ever seen. The plastic is clean and not yellowed. The metal does not have any rust or graying.
Of course there was capacitor leakage. But, no traces or chips were damaged. The recapping went smoothly.
All in all, a nice computer to have in the collection. Still a bit of a mystery why Apple would still be making these in 1991.
- David
