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I wonder what the chance would be of getting a replacement ROM from Apple? For items of this age, even when the original vendor is still in business the distinction is typically moot.

(Maybe I'm wrong and they'd do it though! But I'd put a non-zero probability on them doing it starting by downloading the images from this guy's site.)



Apple almost certainly has both the raw ROM image and the source code in their archive. Remember, in the past they’ve shared things like the original QuickDraw, MacPaint, and Lisa operating system and Office System source code.


That's a good point, though it's not like they'd be able to release stuff that they'd lost.

(What the chances are of things getting lost - who knows. Apple may well be unusually well-organised. But my bet stands. There are a lot of non-zero values.)


I know some of the people involved in those releases; Apple has been extremely diligent about keeping all of those artifacts in perpetuity. They use geologically-stable offsite storage and so on, and keep that stuff for IP protection reasons.


They also seem to have continued using the same 7-digit part numbering system throughout; this ROM is 342-0441 and 342-0442, a 2014 iMac has 820-4668.


All the early Macintosh stuff is at an archive in Stanford.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33548131


Heresy! It should have ended up at Berkeley - Woz went there. Not that school down on the peninsula.


I think they used to sneak into the Stanford technical library to read tech bulletins. Which lead to the blue box.

https://woz.org/blue-box/




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