Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Apple Pip-pin?

carve

carve

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Hello to all, I first found out about the Apple Pip-pin a couple of months ago and I found it quite interesting. I was wondering is anyone knows someplace where you can buy "used" Pip-pins? Thanks for helping!
 
On Wikipedia it says only a "few thousand"(on the side its says less then 42k) were made....not sure how true that is, but if it is they will be hard(er) to find


edit- found this

http://www.gooddealgames.com/Release_Lists/RL_Pippin.html

says its a link to all the games for Pippin...if true I see why the Pippin failed...still Super Marathon looks ok


On ebay there was a buy it now Pippin 194USD and some ones to bid on for 50ish bucks
 
Talking of Pippins, mine has the design engineers names embossed on the inside of the top cover. Can anyone confirm if this is normal (mkjj?) I suspect it probably is as the names must have been built in to the mold tool as per the Macintosh, however mine is a prototype so could be different?
 
Sly said:
Talking of Pippins, mine has the design engineers names embossed on the inside of the top cover. Can anyone confirm if this is normal (mkjj?) I suspect it probably is as the names must have been built in to the mold tool as per the Macintosh, however mine is a prototype so could be different?
Click to expand...

Will have a look for you guys, try to do it tonight.
 
I've actually been watching one on eBay for a little while now - at $113 shipped from Brazil right now. A little bit too pricey for my tastes, though I wouldn't mind getting my hands on one of these someday.
 
The difficult part is getting hold of games for the Pippin now. You can't do much with a standard unit without the game disks as a stripped down version of the Mac OS is included on each game disk. My own Pippin runs any standard Macintosh game or piece of software designed to run on OS 7 with requirements for less than 16MB of RAM. 😎
 
Sly said:
The difficult part is getting hold of games for the Pippin now. You can't do much with a standard unit without the game disks as a stripped down version of the Mac OS is included on each game disk. My own Pippin runs any standard Macintosh game or piece of software designed to run on OS 7 with requirements for less than 16MB of RAM. 😎
Click to expand...
what can u do then? can u burn mac games on a cd and then play them on the pipin?
 
macg4 said:
what can u do then? can u burn mac games on a cd and then play them on the pipin?
Click to expand...

My Pippin Prototype has an internal HD that takes up the space of the standard models CD drive. The unit basically functions like a Powermac, booting in to the Pippin version of OS 7.5.2 Games or any other program for that matter can be run from the internal hard drive, floppy drive or an external SCSI drive (CD drive in photo). A standard ADB Mac keyboard and mouse can be plugged in to the front of the Pippin using an adapter cable.
 

Attachments

  • Library - 1349.jpg
    Library - 1349.jpg
    166 KB · Views: 153
Sly said:
My Pippin Prototype has an internal HD that takes up the space of the standard models CD drive. The unit basically functions like a Powermac, booting in to the Pippin version of OS 7.5.2 Games or any other program for that matter can be run from the internal hard drive, floppy drive or an external SCSI drive (CD drive in photo). A standard ADB Mac keyboard and mouse can be plugged in to the front of the Pippin using an adapter cable.
Click to expand...

wow thats pretty cool, how much and where did u pick up ur pipin? also how come the production units came with cd drives and not internal hd's?
 
I picked up this rarity on ebay, its a Katz Media prototype. These atmarks were due to be released in Europe by Katz Media, Apple pulled the plug before they went in to production . It came from a seller who, I assume used to work for Katz Media. About two or three years ago he sold off all the old Pippin stock he was still holding. He sold off about 10 brand new boxed atmark developer systems, he also sold off the prototype systems and parts. I bought as many of the prototype parts as I could afford, I ended up with the above atmark unit which has the very rare KINKA Pre-Release ROM installed as well as the HD, a prototype floppy dive, prototype 16mb RAM card & prototype controller. Since then I have picked up a number of other items for the Pippin mostly from ebay.

The Pippin was never meant to be a fully fledged computer, it was designed primarily as a gaming machine. Hard drives would have added unnecessary cost & complexity, would not have been needed by most users and may have been seen as steeling sales from Apples main stream computers. Pippins do have 128k of flash memory to store game scores and saves.

I don't know but I have a feeling my unit may have been an engineers "breakfast club project", the seller claims it was the only one made. When I booted it for the first time I found the hard drive had word a processor, email client, internet browser and some what look like beta children's games on it. It also had a loads of saved emails and internal documents from Katz Media. I deleted it all apart from the games. I'm guessing some engineer have been using it as a test machine as well as for his daily computing needs, maybe even the seller which is why I deleted all the documents.
 
Signatures

Hi Sly, the grey (ie Black!) plastics I picked up from Katzmedia have the signatures in the plastic also. I have brought it in to work to photograph and should be able to do that tomorrow.

Not sure about the white versions, not looked at then yet.

Regards
 
pippin

man apple should make the pippin in a new version, i know they made :apple: tv but it dosent have an optical drive and it only runs front row. apple should make a tv computer that is cheap that runs a special version of osx.
 
Martin. said:
man apple should make the pippin in a new version, i know they made :apple: tv but it dosent have an optical drive and it only runs front row. apple should make a tv computer that is cheap that runs a special version of osx.
Click to expand...

Kind of like a stripped down Mac Mini...
 
mkjj said:
Overall it was a good console with things like wireless controllers, 16mb memory cards (Sony had 1mb), keyboards etc. But It tried to be too much rather than a straight games machine and was expensive.
Click to expand...
Sounds very familiar to a newer gaming console. 😛
 
Signatures

Some shots of a dismantled Pippin hopefully showing the signatures.

The chassis is as I bought it including the extra heatsink taped to the side!
 

Attachments

  • Sigs2.jpg
    Sigs2.jpg
    121.1 KB · Views: 711
  • Board.jpg
    Board.jpg
    106.3 KB · Views: 691
  • Katz.jpg
    Katz.jpg
    90 KB · Views: 704
  • All.jpg
    All.jpg
    109.3 KB · Views: 699
apfhex said:
Sounds very familiar to a newer gaming console. 😛
Click to expand...

No doubt...a quote of Wikipedia to back you up

"Costing US$599 on launch, and touted as a cheap computer, the system, in reality, was commonly identified as a video-game console. As such, its price was considered too expensive in comparison to its contemporaries."
Click to expand...

It was in the Pippin article, but fits nicely along with the PS3😉
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back