>> 3lectr1c said:

Hold up just one second - how on earth did you get one of those Palm Foleos, let alone two? I remember hearing about those years ago , probably back in 2015. I was big into Palm stuff at the time and it sort of seemed mythical to me. You've got to explain how you got your hands on those. Click to expand...

The Foleo was announced in 2007.. but never shipped due to an incredibly poor response from press and pundits in general. I was fortunate enough to have access to them in my role on the engineering side of things at the company. However being in a satellite office meant that prototype hardware was rarely, if ever, recalled back to HQ. Not long after the Foleo flopped Palm was heading into the dirt as best I could tell, and by the time I finally decided to jump ship it was in proper trouble financially and seemingly the last thing on anyones mind was to ask employees to return prototype hardware. My office was shuttered soon after I left, and Palm globally barely lasted a few more months. It had been my second tour of duty at Palm, and I'd previously published a book on Palm OS development - so I was incredibly saddened by the demise. However, I made the right call, and after 14+ years feel I made the best career decision of my life... ;)

>> rikerjoe said:

Mac IIfx... In my early days at NASA I had one in my office (which was unheard of back in the day) to run simulations for one of the Shuttle flights I was working. Click to expand...

I assume the software used was something custom written by NASA or one of its contractors? Was it mostly a text based sim or semi-graphical?

More than anything else mentioned in this thread, I really REALLY want to see inside one of those backpacks! I'm quite shocked I've never seen a single one sold on EBAY over the years. Maybe some of you have, but I haven't. I mean they must have sold at least a few, so it stands to reason someone out there must have one stashed somewhere. Hmmm...

>> pocketscience said:

The Foleo was announced in 2007.. but never shipped due to an incredibly poor response from press and pundits in general. I was fortunate enough to have access to them in my role on the engineering side of things at the company. However being in a satellite office meant that prototype hardware was rarely, if ever, recalled back to HQ. Not long after the Foleo flopped Palm was heading into the dirt as best I could tell, and by the time I finally decided to jump ship it was in proper trouble financially and seemingly the last thing on anyones mind was to ask employees to return prototype hardware. My office was shuttered soon after I left, and Palm globally barely lasted a few more months. It had been my second tour of duty at Palm, and I'd previously published a book on Palm OS development - so I was incredibly saddened by the demise. However, I made the right call, and after 14+ years feel I made the best career decision of my life... Click to expand...

That is an awesome story! Which devices did you help engineer?

>> JDW said:

View attachment 5113 More than anything else mentioned in this thread, I really REALLY want to see inside one of those backpacks! I'm quite shocked I've never seen a single one sold on EBAY over the years. Maybe some of you have, but I haven't. I mean they must have sold at least a few, so it stands to reason someone out there must have one stashed somewhere. Hmmm... Click to expand...

It's truly a thing of beauty, no? Nope, never seen this unicorn nor heard tell of anyone hoarding one, but I have collected quite a few pics from many angles. I think I may already have posted too many in progress and Hack Proposals I think? I'd love to document this masked/secret/stealth upgrade peripheral in a new hardware proposal thread for community development though, admins? 3D printing tech and plate size availability may have finally broadened enough to carry this one off?

The backstory from the 1990s on the NASA shuttle flight and a Macintosh IIfx.... In partnership with the Italian Space Agency, NASA flew a mission on the Space Shuttle called the Tethered Satellite System which would deploy a spherical satellite attached to the end of a 20-km long conducting tether covered in Kevlar attached to the Shuttle for ionospheric research. That research required connecting the electrical circuit with the ionosphere by collecting electrons at the satellite end, flowing electrons down the tether, and dumping the electrons at the Shuttle end via electron guns. That was the theory, at least.

What happens when you flow a current through a wire? Why, you get a magnetic field. And the Earth is surrounded by a magnetic field of its own. These two magnetic fields can interact to cause a force on the wire (the motor effect). A really talented part of the team I was on developed a simulation on one of the most powerful computers they could get their hands on at the time - a Macintosh IIfx. Several of us acquired IIfx's so that we could run the simulation. The simulation showed that certain situations could arise where the force pushes the tether to the side in such a way to cause a reinforcing resonance. We commonly call that "skip rope." Yep, the tether could have become one giant skip rope with the satellite on one end, and the Shuttle on the other. And unfortunately that skip rope could have overwhelmed the satellite's attitude control system leading to a loss of control, leading to a bad day.

Using the simulation, we devise a way to maneuver the Shuttle end to damp the skip rope. Much like you would do on the playground, moving your hand in a certain way reinforces the skip rope, and another way can cause the skip rope to stop. That was what we devised to get rid of skip rope if it were to arise. Another key part of the simulation was detecting skip rope based on measurements from the attitude control system and scientific instruments on the satellite end, and make the information available to the team working in Mission Control. It was one of the coolest introductions I got into my now 30+ career in the space business into engineering, software development, rocket science, and teamwork.

So, what happened? The Tethered Satellite System flew on Shuttle mission STS-46 in Summer 1992, and unfortunately due to a problem in the tether deployment mechanism was only deployed to about 250m, well short of the 20 km sought, and not enough of a potential difference over that length to flow current. We tried again in early 1996 on Shuttle mission STS-75, and this time we almost made it to the 20-km point when a flaw in the tether sheathing (the Kevlar I mentioned earlier) allowed the current in the tether to arc against structure in the Shuttle payload bay that caused the tether to break. We never got the chance to put our skip rope detection and mitigation techniques originally developed on a Macintosh IIfx into play.

Here is a NASA link about the Tethered Satellite System: https://science.nasa.gov/missions/tss

And to answer James's question, the skip rope simulation was a text-based one.

I still have a piece of the 2.54-mm diameter tether in my office desk as a treasured memory. Unfortunately the Macintosh IIfx is long gone, hence why it is on my personal grail list. Hope y'all enjoyed the backstory!

Wow! What a great story. Are you still working at Goddard or elsewhere for NASA?

I wonder how many IIfx were scattered about the agency? A VERY cool customized case IIfx that a Mission Specialist used popped up somewhere or other fairly recently. What a gem, I snagged every pic available of it. :D

Any guess at how many Mac Portables were scattered around the agency. There was on the STS-?? mission where they documented a game of "catch the floppy" on video and then there's my NASA property tagged unit (assuming that's an authentic marking/nameplate and I have no wish to know different) and I'm guessing there were quite a few more amongst the wandering techs?


edit: on a related note, IIfx was the brains behind the Aegis Cruiser weapons system and continued to be for many years.

Iff'n it ain't broke . . . :p

>> 3lectr1c said:

That is an awesome story! Which devices did you help engineer? Click to expand...

I was involved on the cellular side of things, so was involved with the Treo's - from the 650 through.. The Foleo was effectively an accessory for the Treo as it only had Wifi and BT - so used the Treo via BT for connectivity outside of home/office.

That's really cool - I've got a Treo 650 boxed (I think it's a 650 anyway), a Palm Centro and a Treo Pro (850). They're pretty cool for old phones! It's funny how far things have come. It's a real shame they went under - webOS was awesome from what I hear. Alas, I haven't gotten a chance to use it, well, not yet anyway.

Mine is fairly simple yet crazy. I want to hopefully one day have a Macintosh prototype of some sort, I know it's insane to think of maybe one day having one but I think it'd be unique to see what Apple originally had planned and I think it'd be neat to tinker with. The other thing I wish to own here one day (I believe soon we shall see in the coming hours....) is a Quadra 950.

>> rikerjoe said:

And to answer James's question, the skip rope simulation was a text-based one. Click to expand...

Thought so. Thanks! :)

>> trag said:

I've been answering this question the same way for the last 20 years... The docking card for the Outbound Laptop Model 125. It installs in a Mac Plus or Mac SE and displaces the ROMs. When the Outbound is docked, it can use the desktop machine's screen and ports, supposedly. The host machine won't operate without the docked Outbound, so the few machines that ever had the docking card have probably been scrapped as non-working. An incomplete unit did turn up on Ebay and a member of 68Kmla managed to buy it. But it lacks at least one critical component that will cause guess work to replace. Edit: A few photos of the Outbound Laptop Model 125 (but not the docking station, darn-it). https://www.prismnet.com/~trag/Outbound/MVC-681F.JPG https://www.prismnet.com/~trag/Outbound/MVC-686F.JPG https://www.prismnet.com/~trag/Outbound/MVC-687F.JPG https://www.prismnet.com/~trag/Outbound/MVC-691F.JPG https://www.prismnet.com/~trag/Outbound/MVC-683F.JPG Click to expand...

>> jajan547 said:

Mine is fairly simple yet crazy. I want to hopefully one day have a Macintosh prototype of some sort, I know it's insane to think of maybe one day having one but I think it'd be unique to see what Apple originally had planned and I think it'd be neat to tinker with. The other thing I wish to own here one day (I believe soon we shall see in the coming hours....) is a Quadra 950. Click to expand...

Well ticked off one onto finding a prototype lol

My grail items are probably pretty boring: A G4 Cube, and a TAM. That's pretty much it!

Oh, except for the ultimate holy grail: a replacement for the missing apple logo from my graphite clamshell iBook! I've had an ebay search for over a year and nothing. Someone on reddit was making replacements but not for the graphite color.

>> Paolo B said:

Wallaby Systems Outbound Laptop 16MB Silicon ... - [katakana-letter-ya]! Outbound Docking System[hiragana-letter-no]16MB Silicon Drive model[hiragana-letter-de] Outbound Laptop 16MB Silicon Drive model, Internal Floppy disk Drive Mac Plus Desktop, Host connector card and cable 19V AC/AC Outbound AC adapter 2.5" 170MB backpack SCSI [katakana-letter-ha], AC adapte page.auctions.yahoo.co.jp Click to expand...

Oh my.

>> Paolo B said:

Wallaby Systems Outbound Laptop 16MB Silicon ... - [katakana-letter-ya]! Outbound Docking System[hiragana-letter-no]16MB Silicon Drive model[hiragana-letter-de] Outbound Laptop 16MB Silicon Drive model, Internal Floppy disk Drive Mac Plus Desktop, Host connector card and cable 19V AC/AC Outbound AC adapter 2.5" 170MB backpack SCSI [katakana-letter-ha], AC adapte page.auctions.yahoo.co.jp Click to expand...

While looking at that Yahoo Auction page, I scrolled down and spotted an LC575 machine complete with Ethernet card. These aren't grail/rare at all on Yahoo Auctions Japan, but many Color Classic owners THINK they are rare and therefore stick with their painfully slow stock 16MHz 030 board instead of doing the Mystic upgrade. While I retained my stock CC board, of course, I have no use for it now that I have the 575 Mystic upgrade installed. (I happened to buy a complete LC575 off Yahoo Auctions for the express purpose of grabbing the motherboard -- thanks to Kay Koba for that suggestion.) And with Spicy O'Clock from @Kay K.M.Mods and fast 60n VRAM from Kay or @Mr. Fahrenheit, along with a full FPU version 040, you have the potential to at least hit 49MHz. Then you can do the VGA mod for greater software compatibility. That setup triggers a "Grail find" feeling in me!

Hmm, interesting - none of the yahoo japan pages load, i get an error message saying that it's unavailable in the EEA & UK :/

>> Kai Robinson said:

Hmm, interesting - none of the yahoo japan pages load, i get an error message saying that it's unavailable in the EEA & UK :/ Click to expand...

Here's a Buyee link of the same Yahoo Auction I referenced in my previous post...

>> JDW said:

While looking at that Yahoo Auction page, I scrolled down and spotted an LC575 machine complete with Ethernet card. These aren't grail/rare at all on Yahoo Auctions Japan, but many Color Classic owners THINK they are rare and therefore stick with their painfully slow stock 16MHz 030 board instead of doing the Mystic upgrade. Click to expand...

Surely LC757s pop up relatively often, but they normally go at around 30k to 35k yen. A tad pricey by my tastes. Giving you the problem of inhousing yet another bulky piece of hardware, which here in Japan may be fastidious to many of us. Or disposing it altogether, after ripping off the interesting bits. Anyhow, I'm screening yahoo auctions regularly for sourcing a donor for a mystic upgrade to my Performa 275.
All in all, though, yahoo Japan is a continuous source of delight and surprise, but it's also true that the local vintage computing scene is very discerning and therefore auctions often slip out of control.

>> Paolo B said:

Surely LC757s pop up relatively often, but they normally go at around 30k to 35k yen. A tad pricey by my tastes. Giving you the problem of inhousing yet another bulky piece of hardware, which here in Japan may be fastidious to many of us. Or disposing it altogether, after ripping off the interesting bits. Anyhow, I'm screening yahoo auctions regularly for sourcing a donor for a mystic upgrade to my Performa 275. All in all, though, yahoo Japan is a continuous source of delight and surprise, but it's also true that the local vintage computing scene is very discerning and therefore auctions often slip out of control. Click to expand...

I bought a fully functional L575 (entire computer, with keyboard, mouse and a few CDs) with shipping to my address in Japan on Yahoo Auctions Japan for a total of 9250 Yen in Oct. 2021. Then in Nov. 2021, I purchased a Performa 630, with shipping, for 3960 Yen. (Kay Koba kindly spotted those for me and because of his kind tip, I decided to bid, and I won. With that said, those prices aren't considered low based on later auctions I've seen.)

I bought the LC575 for the lone purpose of getting the motherboard for my CC, but it gives me other benefits too, for various parts.

I bought the 630 for the lone purpose of getting the speaker to do the stereo mod on my CC, and I gave the logic board (which happened to have been upgraded to a 75MHz PPC 6200) to a friend of Kay Koba's because he wanted it, and it was of no use to me.

Now prices via Buyee will no doubt be higher, but because I live in Japan, I've not had reason to use it.