retroplace
Member
Hello,
This one will take a while to read, but I hope it's worth your time in the end …
A few months ago, I designed an acrylic cases for my KIM-1. Because I thought it came out really nice, I then went to produce a small batch and sell them online. One of the buyers then asked me if I could produce a similar case for the Apple-1. So I did that, too, but it was pretty difficult as the mounting holes of the different versions of the PCBs (original, Mimeo, Newton, and the open-source Gerber files) all differ. But I am diverting …
During my research, I also came across the various manuals that had been created for the Apple-1: The Operation Manual, the Preliminary Basic Users Manual and the Cassette Interface Manual. I also saw reprints of scans offered online on cheap laser printer paper which I thought might be done more nicely, so I had them properly printed and bound.
Although those copies looked much nicer than what I had seen before, the result was not ideal: The quality of the scans was mediocre, the original fold-out schematics were missing – the whole thing did not honor the original from 45 years ago I felt.
And then I did what a man has to do: I re-created the manuals from scratch. This means:
1. Researching the typefaces that had been used in the original (including one that resembles the IBM "Electric" Typewriter that had been used for the main copy of one of the manuals – that typeface was incredibly hard to track down!)
2. Redesigning all the pages using the scans as a positioning guide so the redesign would perfectly match the original regarding the position of each and every single character down to a fraction of a millimeter. This video gives you an impression of how painstaking this work has been: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBvTg3Fl3aI
3. Redrawing all the schematics
4. Finding a printer that would produce the Operation Manual with the proper fold-out section (and the correct US Letter format, not common in Germany where I live) on a small print run
The pictures show what the final product looks like (I don't know why, but I can only upload 2 pictures with a total max size of 256 kB).
You probably can not tell from the pictures, but as this is a proper typeset job, the characters and schematics look super crisp.
Hope you like what you see. If you are interested in a copy, please see the marketplace section, where I will list options where to get your copy from.
Best,
Armin
This one will take a while to read, but I hope it's worth your time in the end …
A few months ago, I designed an acrylic cases for my KIM-1. Because I thought it came out really nice, I then went to produce a small batch and sell them online. One of the buyers then asked me if I could produce a similar case for the Apple-1. So I did that, too, but it was pretty difficult as the mounting holes of the different versions of the PCBs (original, Mimeo, Newton, and the open-source Gerber files) all differ. But I am diverting …
During my research, I also came across the various manuals that had been created for the Apple-1: The Operation Manual, the Preliminary Basic Users Manual and the Cassette Interface Manual. I also saw reprints of scans offered online on cheap laser printer paper which I thought might be done more nicely, so I had them properly printed and bound.
Although those copies looked much nicer than what I had seen before, the result was not ideal: The quality of the scans was mediocre, the original fold-out schematics were missing – the whole thing did not honor the original from 45 years ago I felt.
And then I did what a man has to do: I re-created the manuals from scratch. This means:
1. Researching the typefaces that had been used in the original (including one that resembles the IBM "Electric" Typewriter that had been used for the main copy of one of the manuals – that typeface was incredibly hard to track down!)
2. Redesigning all the pages using the scans as a positioning guide so the redesign would perfectly match the original regarding the position of each and every single character down to a fraction of a millimeter. This video gives you an impression of how painstaking this work has been: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBvTg3Fl3aI
3. Redrawing all the schematics
4. Finding a printer that would produce the Operation Manual with the proper fold-out section (and the correct US Letter format, not common in Germany where I live) on a small print run
The pictures show what the final product looks like (I don't know why, but I can only upload 2 pictures with a total max size of 256 kB).
You probably can not tell from the pictures, but as this is a proper typeset job, the characters and schematics look super crisp.
Hope you like what you see. If you are interested in a copy, please see the marketplace section, where I will list options where to get your copy from.
Best,
Armin
