Don,
The TV123 documents came from one Bert Soltoff, a former Philco engineer, later working for RCA on the lunar field-sequential cameras for the early moon landings. Does his name ring a bell?
I picked up a TV123 from him and he was kind enough to give me all of his documents which I gave to Chuck for research. We are indebted to him for saving them.
Chuck's description of the sequence of events is accurate given the documents and schematics...some of which are hand-drawn. The whole collection is clearly an attempt at a conventional tri-color 21" set far different than Philco's attempt a 15" set. It is doubtful that Philco ever got beyond prototypes for the TV121 and TV122.
Even more interesting is your description of many TV123 sets being produced. Urban legend around here in Philadelphia is that about 500 TV123 sets were produced with CRT's supplied by RCA. The legend continues that the CRT's were less than good quality with a spectacular failure rate. We cannot figure out how only 4 sets remain...and one spare parts chassis.
Chuck has posted some of the Apple information from the documents that exist. You can see them at;
http://www.myvintagetv.com/philco_apple_tube.htm
Look there for the file about the Apple test benches. Could it be what you have? They were given women's names as I remember.
Dave A