Apple II Bits

A once-annual tradition of KansasFest was an outing to the Apple Store. Whether it was to Country Club Plaza location, where I was tricked into buying my first iPod, or to the newly opened Leawood location, where the store manager gave us all free t-shirts, it was always fun to check out the latest Apple gear and to set all the in-store iMac’s browsers to A2Central.com.

I often fantasized what the reaction would be if it weren’t just Apple II convention-goers who arrived at the store, but the Apple II itself. Let’s bring our ancient Apple computers and see if it’d be recognized by the even younger store employees. Better yet, let’s schedule a Genius Bar appointment to get help installing GS/OS!

I’m not the only one to daydream this scenario: Bryan Villados, Forrest Hodges, and Steve Chamberlin have proposed the same gag. But it was Luke Hsu who finally pulled it off when the first Apple Store opened in Taiwan.

Luke didn’t mention any interaction with or reaction from Apple Store employees, though. But we may have a hook to try staging this scene again soon: Apple will be implementing a "Repair Vintage Apple Products Pilot". The program will service products dating back to 2011 only, but the trial is deemed successful, perhaps we can expect that window to reach even further back in Apple’s history — and thus, with the Apple II being fully expected and supported at the Genius Bar, the gag will be entirely ruined.

(Hat tip to Alan Martin)