My friend just gave me a 20th Anniversary Mac which appears to be an engineering sample. I assume this because:
The processor is 200 MHz, not 250 MHz,
The RAM is 24 Mb, not 32,
There boards all say "Copyright Apple 1996",
There are no labeled ports or buttons,
The label on the CD drive says "Sample Engineering Sample". (I had to connect the cable because my friend disconnected for an unknown reason),
There are no labels on the custom subwoofer,
It has no special application like on the final release,
The Fan is located in a different area, and
The 2 keyboards I got with it are clear. One has the leather palm rest and the other doesn't. Also there is a label on the one keyboard that says
"Spartacus Keyboard
EVT3 MFG @ Alps GG12/05/96
Unit # 5".

I know this is apple made because it has the proper sound speakers inside. They are labled "Bose",
It runs Mac OS,
The hard drive is an Apple OEM drive made by IBM.

So, do you think this is real or fake?

Real. Sounds like you've got quite the little machine there, congratulations.

Any chance we could see some pics of that beast?

I will upload some as soon as I find my camera cable. It is missing the two speaker covers that go on the side.

Nice machine you got there.

What version of OSX is it running?

P.S.: I don't think Apple will take that machine in for servicing, just for the heads-up.

It's Mac OS Classic. Would that even run 10.0? I dunno, but it won't be running OS X at the moment.

EDIT: Apparently OS X bricks a TAM. Probably a proto will be bricked as well - so don't install it!

It runs a max of OS 9.1.

Sorry, I forgot to resize the images before I uploaded them.

Here is a page on my web site with the images.

https://sites.google.com/site/quickkeyboardshortcuts/tam-prototype

wow! that must be worth thousands!

Apple prototypes do go for a pretty penny.

Nice find there!

yeah and twentieth anniversary mac's are'nt the most widely circulated mac's either!

You very lucky since you get that freely, Because some people sell like that very high price n only a Collector want to buy it

May sound like a dumb question, but what's with that "barrel"-thingie on the right of the mac's screen ? Is is the main unit (or that one's inside the monitor) ?

That barrel thing is the TAM's subwoofer and power supply.

Any chance you can dump the ROM from that machine?

See here for more discussion on how to do so: http://www.macintoshgarden.org/forum/pr ... g-mac-roms

I can try to dump the rom but it would be illegal to distribute it unless you have another prototype with the same rom. Also as far as I know because it has a PPC 603, it would only be usable if you are using SheepShaver. (The only emulator I know of that emulates a Power PC that can run 7.5.5-9.1).

Edit: It also is a 4 Mb. ROM and the only way I would be able to remove it from the computer is if I connected my PowerUser Pro 4200 external hard drive which has the system folder for my Supermac.

That looks like a real computer to me, and I would be very happy if you could dump the ROM, so, yeah. (:

Distributing and downloading betas is also illegal - good thing none of us do that!

I can dump it but, I will not allow it to be uploaded to any website\FTP site. PM me for it.

Please wait until Wednesday before sending a PM because I have to find a way to transfer the rom dumping program since I don't have any macs that have an internet connection.