5 ms·

Clones of the Apple II

79 points by jamesbowman 9y ago

orionblastar 9y ago
When our Commodore 64 died, I wanted an Apple II or clone to replace it. Instead my father bought a Commodore 128 and 1571 drive. I had my eye on an Apple IIc because I had a friend with it. Franklin Ace and Laser 128 models were available as well. When I went to college in 1986 I bought an Amiga 1000 from Commodore with the PC Transformer 5.25 inch floppy drive. It had the C64 and Apple II emulators but for college I focused on DOS and the PC emulator.
amelius 9y ago
They forgot to mention: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITT_2020 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITT_2020
pandaman 9y ago
The USSR had Apple II clones called "AGAT". I don't think they had been used outside "computer classes" in schools. The only original software I recall had been a Russian keywords educational programming language so I figure there had been no industrial applications intended for them.
__david__ 9y ago
I had an Apple ][+ clone. It wasn't a brand name one or anything, it was purchased as just a logic board with no parts. I guess you could think of it as a bootleg PCB. My dad brought it home one day and said, I'll show you how to build this and when you're done you'll have your own computer. I still have it :-).
- LordKano 9y ago
  Your dad sounds like he is/was an interesting guy. I try to build memories like that with my children.
TD-Linux 9y ago
I still have my grandparents' Franklin Ace 1200. It's actually quite a beast for an apple II+ clone, fully loaded with 64k of RAM and two disk drives. It also comes with the fastest CP/M card available. Unfortunately, it uses the capacitive Keytronics keyboard, which was a rather tedious repair when the foam degraded after 40 years. Its serial card is too old to be compatible with the Super Serial Card, and has a bit of a funky ROM, so I had to write some custom scripts to bootstrap ADT, and hack ADT itself to support the card: https://github.com/tdaede/franklin-tools https://github.com/tdaede/franklin-tools
rbanffy 9y ago
Growing up in Brazil, my first computer was an Apple II+ clone made by CCE. It looked a bit like the Franklin and had a couple interesting enhancements (like being able to switch between a more NTSC-like mode and PAL-M) over the II+. My first actual job was programming educational games for the platform. Apple II+, //e clones were popular machines in Brazil, with at least a dozen local manufacturers (the US-sponsored dictatorship prohibited computer imports). They were largely superseded by MSX machines at the home and PCs at the office.
- dep_b 9y ago
  I still have a Atari 2600 clone from Brazil with some very nonofficial looking multicartridges for it. Seems to be late '80s though, long after Atari stopped making them.
  - rbanffy 9y ago
    There were Atari clones and one, from Polivox, that was licensed. The Polivox one was the black, Darth Vader model.
  - ido 9y ago
    According to Wikipedia Atari manufactured the 2600 till 1992!
    - paulmd 9y ago
      Older consoles often get used in developing countries for quite some time since they're much cheaper (typically at least one console generation longer than the US). IIRC Microsoft only shut down Xbox 360 production very recently, because it was still selling well in South America. The Playstation 2 had a similarly long lifespan, I think production was just shut down a couple years ago.
      - ido 9y ago
        Also the Atari 8 bit series of computers (introduced 1979) was selling in Eastern Europe well into the 90s.
jecel 9y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Apple_II_clones https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Apple_II_clones
protomyth 9y ago
Before the big Apple IIe order, my high school bought one of the Franklins. For all the trouble, they didn't any money if time counted. It glitched a lot. It would have been an interesting history, if instead of cancelling the II line, Apple had kept shrinking it and reducing its price.
kazinator 9y ago
I had a Hong-Kong made II+ clone which reported itself as "V.S.C. 1203" on power up (top line of the screen, where you'd see Apple ][+ in an original). Only meagre Google result for searches related to this: https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/200492012/ https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/200492012/ This is apparently a digitized archive of some 1984 issue of a newspaper from Burlington, Vermont, in which a classified AD mentions an "Apple II Clone made by VSC" which might be the same manufacturer. https://books.google.ca/books?id=uC8EAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA9&ots=IFVy0E5mpw&dq=%22VSC%22%20%22Apple%20II%22&pg=PA9#v=onepage&q=%22VSC%22%20%22Apple%20II%22&f=false https://books.google.ca/books?id=uC8EAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA9&ots=IF... InfoWorld 1983, full page ad by some company lists a VSC-002 Apple II clone.
tombert 9y ago
I actually have always wondered what the "alternate universe" would be like if Franklin had won the case. Do you think that software patents wouldn't be abused? Do you think another kind of abuse would form in its place?
drewg123 9y ago
My first computer was a Franklin Ace 1000. Up until he died in 2005, my Dad still used it for printing address labels, and for running software he'd written in BASIC. I finally had to get rid of it when I moved house a few years back.
joezydeco 9y ago
Don't forget the Bell & Howell Apple ][, the "Darth Vader" model: http://shrineofapple.com/blog/2011/11/15/apple-ii-plus-bh/ http://shrineofapple.com/blog/2011/11/15/apple-ii-plus-bh/
- mrbill 9y ago
  Which is explicitly mentioned in the article along with a link to someone's YouTube video of theirs, in high-contrast white on red text.
nwatson 9y ago
A high-school friend and I sold some GraFORTH animations to dealers of the MicroEngenho I [0] Apple II clone in Brasília in 1982/1983. They were crowd-pleasers and attracted lots of attention at trade shows. GraFORTH was awesome, I used it to explore math, did floating-horizon hidden-line f(x, y) plots before I knew it was a thing. [0] https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectrum_Microengenho_I https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectrum_Microengenho_I
bootload 9y ago
"Surprisingly, it wasn’t a PC clone-maker that forced the question, but one making Apple II machines." There were far more cloners than mentioned in the article. My second computer was a Apple][e clone shipped in parts from South East Asia mixed in a consignment from Rockwell Collins. The cost, that magical $2000 dollar mark. The parts were re-assembled and that's what I used from High School into my early Uni days until I started using PCs, punchcards and Vt100/Mainframe to learn programming. With a Z80 card, 80 Column card money was made off this machine spitting out resumes via a dot-matrix printer and a large supply of spooled paper. If I remember correctly the shell was a direct clone of the 2e chassis. The operating system was a direct clone. Most of my software was cloned and that's were I learned how to program 6502 machine language to interface with hardware. [0] Reference [0] Marvin L. De Jong, "Apple II Assembly Language" https://www.amazon.com/Marvin-L.De-Jong/e/B001H6SRHE/ref=dp_byline_cont_book_1 https://www.amazon.com/Marvin-L.De-Jong/e/B001H6SRHE/ref=dp_...
zoom6628 9y ago
I did ERP (Fact ERP from New Zealand company Fact, later acquired by Geac and then Infor) implementation at VTech at the end of the 80's at their HQ in Taipo district in Hongkong. Later bought a Laser 128 from them to play with. Had always wanted an Apple II after learning to code BASIC on one at high-school in late 70s. Great memories reading this article.

79 points by jamesbowman 9y ago

When our Commodore 64 died, I wanted an Apple II or clone to replace it. Instead my father bought a Commodore 128 and 1571 drive. I had my eye on an Apple IIc because I had a friend with it. Franklin Ace and Laser 128 models were available as well. When I went to college in 1986 I bought an Amiga 1000 from Commodore with the PC Transformer 5.25 inch floppy drive. It had the C64 and Apple II emulators but for college I focused on DOS and the PC emulator.

amelius 9y ago

They forgot to mention: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITT_2020 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITT_2020

pandaman 9y ago

The USSR had Apple II clones called "AGAT". I don't think they had been used outside "computer classes" in schools. The only original software I recall had been a Russian keywords educational programming language so I figure there had been no industrial applications intended for them.

__david__ 9y ago

I had an Apple ][+ clone. It wasn't a brand name one or anything, it was purchased as just a logic board with no parts. I guess you could think of it as a bootleg PCB. My dad brought it home one day and said, I'll show you how to build this and when you're done you'll have your own computer. I still have it :-).

LordKano 9y ago
Your dad sounds like he is/was an interesting guy. I try to build memories like that with my children.

TD-Linux 9y ago

I still have my grandparents' Franklin Ace 1200. It's actually quite a beast for an apple II+ clone, fully loaded with 64k of RAM and two disk drives. It also comes with the fastest CP/M card available. Unfortunately, it uses the capacitive Keytronics keyboard, which was a rather tedious repair when the foam degraded after 40 years. Its serial card is too old to be compatible with the Super Serial Card, and has a bit of a funky ROM, so I had to write some custom scripts to bootstrap ADT, and hack ADT itself to support the card: https://github.com/tdaede/franklin-tools https://github.com/tdaede/franklin-tools

rbanffy 9y ago

Growing up in Brazil, my first computer was an Apple II+ clone made by CCE. It looked a bit like the Franklin and had a couple interesting enhancements (like being able to switch between a more NTSC-like mode and PAL-M) over the II+. My first actual job was programming educational games for the platform. Apple II+, //e clones were popular machines in Brazil, with at least a dozen local manufacturers (the US-sponsored dictatorship prohibited computer imports). They were largely superseded by MSX machines at the home and PCs at the office.

dep_b 9y ago
I still have a Atari 2600 clone from Brazil with some very nonofficial looking multicartridges for it. Seems to be late '80s though, long after Atari stopped making them.
- rbanffy 9y ago
  There were Atari clones and one, from Polivox, that was licensed. The Polivox one was the black, Darth Vader model.
- ido 9y ago
  According to Wikipedia Atari manufactured the 2600 till 1992!
  - paulmd 9y ago
    Older consoles often get used in developing countries for quite some time since they're much cheaper (typically at least one console generation longer than the US). IIRC Microsoft only shut down Xbox 360 production very recently, because it was still selling well in South America. The Playstation 2 had a similarly long lifespan, I think production was just shut down a couple years ago.
    - ido 9y ago
      Also the Atari 8 bit series of computers (introduced 1979) was selling in Eastern Europe well into the 90s.

jecel 9y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Apple_II_clones https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Apple_II_clones

protomyth 9y ago

Before the big Apple IIe order, my high school bought one of the Franklins. For all the trouble, they didn't any money if time counted. It glitched a lot. It would have been an interesting history, if instead of cancelling the II line, Apple had kept shrinking it and reducing its price.

kazinator 9y ago

I had a Hong-Kong made II+ clone which reported itself as "V.S.C. 1203" on power up (top line of the screen, where you'd see Apple ][+ in an original). Only meagre Google result for searches related to this: https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/200492012/ https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/200492012/ This is apparently a digitized archive of some 1984 issue of a newspaper from Burlington, Vermont, in which a classified AD mentions an "Apple II Clone made by VSC" which might be the same manufacturer. https://books.google.ca/books?id=uC8EAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA9&ots=IFVy0E5mpw&dq=%22VSC%22%20%22Apple%20II%22&pg=PA9#v=onepage&q=%22VSC%22%20%22Apple%20II%22&f=false https://books.google.ca/books?id=uC8EAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA9&ots=IF... InfoWorld 1983, full page ad by some company lists a VSC-002 Apple II clone.

tombert 9y ago

I actually have always wondered what the "alternate universe" would be like if Franklin had won the case. Do you think that software patents wouldn't be abused? Do you think another kind of abuse would form in its place?

drewg123 9y ago

My first computer was a Franklin Ace 1000. Up until he died in 2005, my Dad still used it for printing address labels, and for running software he'd written in BASIC. I finally had to get rid of it when I moved house a few years back.

joezydeco 9y ago

Don't forget the Bell & Howell Apple ][, the "Darth Vader" model: http://shrineofapple.com/blog/2011/11/15/apple-ii-plus-bh/ http://shrineofapple.com/blog/2011/11/15/apple-ii-plus-bh/

mrbill 9y ago
Which is explicitly mentioned in the article along with a link to someone's YouTube video of theirs, in high-contrast white on red text.

nwatson 9y ago

A high-school friend and I sold some GraFORTH animations to dealers of the MicroEngenho I [0] Apple II clone in Brasília in 1982/1983. They were crowd-pleasers and attracted lots of attention at trade shows. GraFORTH was awesome, I used it to explore math, did floating-horizon hidden-line f(x, y) plots before I knew it was a thing. [0] https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectrum_Microengenho_I https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectrum_Microengenho_I

bootload 9y ago

"Surprisingly, it wasn’t a PC clone-maker that forced the question, but one making Apple II machines." There were far more cloners than mentioned in the article. My second computer was a Apple][e clone shipped in parts from South East Asia mixed in a consignment from Rockwell Collins. The cost, that magical $2000 dollar mark. The parts were re-assembled and that's what I used from High School into my early Uni days until I started using PCs, punchcards and Vt100/Mainframe to learn programming. With a Z80 card, 80 Column card money was made off this machine spitting out resumes via a dot-matrix printer and a large supply of spooled paper. If I remember correctly the shell was a direct clone of the 2e chassis. The operating system was a direct clone. Most of my software was cloned and that's were I learned how to program 6502 machine language to interface with hardware. [0] Reference [0] Marvin L. De Jong, "Apple II Assembly Language" https://www.amazon.com/Marvin-L.De-Jong/e/B001H6SRHE/ref=dp_byline_cont_book_1 https://www.amazon.com/Marvin-L.De-Jong/e/B001H6SRHE/ref=dp_...

zoom6628 9y ago

I did ERP (Fact ERP from New Zealand company Fact, later acquired by Geac and then Infor) implementation at VTech at the end of the 80's at their HQ in Taipo district in Hongkong. Later bought a Laser 128 from them to play with. Had always wanted an Apple II after learning to code BASIC on one at high-school in late 70s. Great memories reading this article.