6 ms·

Counterfeit Apple II computers (1985) [video]

42 points by hggh 3y ago

wanderingstan 3y ago
My first computer was an Apple 2 plus clone from Hong Kong. My dad was a teacher on a military base in Okinawa and a pilot friend offered to get one for us. It was $1000 for the computer, two floppy drives, green monitor, dot matrix printer, 80 column card, z80 card, joystick, paddles, and a pack of 10 games. At that time an Apple 2 alone cost $1200, IIRC. The computer itself was superior to an Apple in many ways: it had built in keyboard shortcuts (e.g. ctrl-6 for “PR#6” to reboot from floppy), lower case letters, and 64k on the motherboard. I’m torn: Then at 8 years old I didn’t understand that it was contraband, but OTOH there’s no way my family could have afforded such a system on my dad’s salary as a fifth grade teacher. It gave me a head start on programming that only rich kids my age had.
- 13of40 3y ago
  Illicit Apple II knockoffs were an occasional find in thrift shops in the US in the early 90s. One of the many things I wish I'd paid the $10 for at the time and kept somewhere safe.
- kencausey 3y ago
  Did it look like this one? https://youtu.be/vYMiSz-WlEY?si=Mk8Bua_2xGkgLDeR https://youtu.be/vYMiSz-WlEY?si=Mk8Bua_2xGkgLDeR
  - wanderingstan 3y ago
    Almost, though mine looked closer to a normal Apple 2: no number keypad but did have an extra button for toggling upper/lower case. Didn’t have anything where the Apple logo should have been.
- flohofwoe 3y ago
  > Then at 8 years old I didn’t understand that it was contraband As an adult I still don't understand what's the problem ;) It was a working computer, and apparently a nice one (offering a lot more bang for the buck than an original Apple). Why does it matter that someone slapped a fake Apple logo on it?
  - tonyedgecombe 3y ago
    >Why does it matter that someone slapped a fake Apple logo on it? It's a dis-incentive to investment. If society allowed the fakes then the market would be overrun by copies and in this instance Apple wouldn't have had the resources to create the Mac.
    - jeroenhd 3y ago
      On the other hand, the fact almost anyone can buy a PC that runs almost any program is the result of blatant copying of IBM's machines. Even Apple caved and started selling PCs, because it turned out a unified platform has many advantages that isolated architectures don't have. We're still stuck with the "everybody has their own designs and specifications" problem on (ARM) phones and tablets and it's affecting both operating system choice and operating system maintainability in major ways. I dread to think of a world where software written for HP computers wouldn't work on Dells, and where Lenovo's wouldn't be able to run Microsoft software. Developing software would just be needlessly expensive and annoying.
      - flohofwoe 3y ago
        Exactly, if IBM hadn't lost control over the PC, the world would look very different today. We'd probably be stuck with very expensive "professional workstations", Linux probably wouldn't have been created, everything would be closed and tightly controlled platforms like game consoles or mobile phones are today, hardware as a whole would most likely be behind 10..15 years because of lack of competitive pressure (see the messed up PS3 design which was a result of the old "closed platforms" thinking). I think there's a very solid case to be made that "illegal clones" are actually good for progress. PS: there's also this interesting take that Germany's quick industrialization in the 19th century was mainly driven by ignoring British copyright law: https://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/no-copyright-law-the-real-reason-for-germany-s-industrial-expansion-a-710976.html https://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/no-copyright-...
      - tonyedgecombe 3y ago
        >I dread to think of a world where software written for HP computers wouldn't work on Dells, and where Lenovo's wouldn't be able to run Microsoft software. Developing software would just be needlessly expensive and annoying. Having a Wintel monopoly hasn't been great for customers though. I've always thought that one of HP's biggest failures was ceding control of their platform to Microsoft.
- pcurve 3y ago
  My first computer was an Apple 2 clone too, but there really was no visibile Apple logo or branding on it. My parents bought it for a helfty sum of my Dad's 1 month pay at the time thinking their two kids would learn BASIC programming. lol. Instead, we just played Rescue Raiders, spy vs spy and whatever other bootleg games we could get our hands on at the time. Good times ;-)
  - speedgoose 3y ago
    Because you post on HN, I guess it wasn’t a bad investment for your parents. You may not have learned BASIC but you developed an interest in the technology.
orionblastar 3y ago
I recall they had some IBM PC counterfeit clones as well. I remember the Laser 128 being an Apple II clone. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_128 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_128 My family was too poor to afford an Apple II or IBM PC so we got the Commodore 64 for $199 and added things ala cart to it later to turn it into a full system with a floppy disk, modem, and printer.
- actionfromafar 3y ago
  The C64 is way better than an Apple 2 so maybe a blessing in disguise.
rahen 3y ago
What shortsightedness from Apple. By aiming to be the sole player in the market and charging exorbitant prices, they paved the way for the IBM PC where the market was wide open and the ecosystem thriving. After the threats and harassing from Apple, all those manufacturers quickly started producing PC compatibles instead of Apple II compatibles, thereby reducing the Apple II market presence compared to the PC. Classic case of greed at work.
- flohofwoe 3y ago
  IBM losing control over the PC platform was more like a happy historical accident though, if the IBM beancounters would have taken the PC platform any serious, they wouldn't have allowed that to happen.
  - sixothree 3y ago
    Did they really expect the industry to follow them into the EISA venture?
    - p1mrx 3y ago
      EISA was the open alternative to IBM's MCA: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_Industry_Standard_Architecture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_Industry_Standard_Arc...
- vikramkr 3y ago
  In the long term though it accidentally worked out since now they have complete integration and control and don't have to worry about the mess of dealing with other manufacturers. History is weird sometimes, and by sometimes I mean all the time.
- snorkel 3y ago
  What really turned developers away from Apple after the Apple II was not only the price but that you couldn’t sit down at a Macintosh and start programming it like you could with an Apple II. You couldn’t really do that sitting in front of a PC either unless you were happy with GW BASiC, or you bought a Borland compiler, but at least there were less obstructions in your path if you wanted to develop a PC application versus an Apple application. The Macintosh felt like a locked down black box, like you bought a car with the hood welded shut. Overall, PCs were just much more accommodating to developers than the Apple products until Steve Jobs came back and switched everything over to UNIX-based operating system.
Jemm 3y ago
Had an Apple II+ clone that was in a PC style case which made the whole thing more convenient as the drives were in the chassis. The Apple II+ clone had a CPM card made by Microsoft.
- js2 3y ago
  Was it a Trackstar Apple clone on an ISA card maybe? https://www.diskman.com/presents/trackstar/ https://www.diskman.com/presents/trackstar/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhRaTI76S7Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhRaTI76S7Q The CPM card from Microsoft was the Z80 SoftCard: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z-80_SoftCard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z-80_SoftCard
TomMasz 3y ago
I remember some of the folks in the company I was working at "repurposing" DRAM chips intended for prototyping to use in their homebrew Apple II clones. They had done a group buy of bare boards and DRAM was pretty expensive, so...
IMSAI8080 3y ago
There were huge numbers of Sinclair ZX Spectrum clones too in the 80s from all kinds of manufacturers. Pirate Spectrums were widely popular in the Soviet Union: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ZX_Spectrum_clones https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ZX_Spectrum_clones
NittLion78 3y ago
Anyone remember the Albert Apple ][ clone? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_(computer) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_(computer) My dad had one of these and I thought it was the coolest because it had the text-to-audio synthesizer. Because it was such nascent tech, it said a lot of hilarious pronunciations which was infinitely entertaining when you're like 7 years old.

42 points by hggh 3y ago

My first computer was an Apple 2 plus clone from Hong Kong. My dad was a teacher on a military base in Okinawa and a pilot friend offered to get one for us. It was $1000 for the computer, two floppy drives, green monitor, dot matrix printer, 80 column card, z80 card, joystick, paddles, and a pack of 10 games. At that time an Apple 2 alone cost $1200, IIRC. The computer itself was superior to an Apple in many ways: it had built in keyboard shortcuts (e.g. ctrl-6 for “PR#6” to reboot from floppy), lower case letters, and 64k on the motherboard. I’m torn: Then at 8 years old I didn’t understand that it was contraband, but OTOH there’s no way my family could have afforded such a system on my dad’s salary as a fifth grade teacher. It gave me a head start on programming that only rich kids my age had.

13of40 3y ago
Illicit Apple II knockoffs were an occasional find in thrift shops in the US in the early 90s. One of the many things I wish I'd paid the $10 for at the time and kept somewhere safe.
kencausey 3y ago
Did it look like this one? https://youtu.be/vYMiSz-WlEY?si=Mk8Bua_2xGkgLDeR https://youtu.be/vYMiSz-WlEY?si=Mk8Bua_2xGkgLDeR
- wanderingstan 3y ago
  Almost, though mine looked closer to a normal Apple 2: no number keypad but did have an extra button for toggling upper/lower case. Didn’t have anything where the Apple logo should have been.
flohofwoe 3y ago
> Then at 8 years old I didn’t understand that it was contraband As an adult I still don't understand what's the problem ;) It was a working computer, and apparently a nice one (offering a lot more bang for the buck than an original Apple). Why does it matter that someone slapped a fake Apple logo on it?
- tonyedgecombe 3y ago
  >Why does it matter that someone slapped a fake Apple logo on it? It's a dis-incentive to investment. If society allowed the fakes then the market would be overrun by copies and in this instance Apple wouldn't have had the resources to create the Mac.
  - jeroenhd 3y ago
    On the other hand, the fact almost anyone can buy a PC that runs almost any program is the result of blatant copying of IBM's machines. Even Apple caved and started selling PCs, because it turned out a unified platform has many advantages that isolated architectures don't have. We're still stuck with the "everybody has their own designs and specifications" problem on (ARM) phones and tablets and it's affecting both operating system choice and operating system maintainability in major ways. I dread to think of a world where software written for HP computers wouldn't work on Dells, and where Lenovo's wouldn't be able to run Microsoft software. Developing software would just be needlessly expensive and annoying.
    - flohofwoe 3y ago
      Exactly, if IBM hadn't lost control over the PC, the world would look very different today. We'd probably be stuck with very expensive "professional workstations", Linux probably wouldn't have been created, everything would be closed and tightly controlled platforms like game consoles or mobile phones are today, hardware as a whole would most likely be behind 10..15 years because of lack of competitive pressure (see the messed up PS3 design which was a result of the old "closed platforms" thinking). I think there's a very solid case to be made that "illegal clones" are actually good for progress. PS: there's also this interesting take that Germany's quick industrialization in the 19th century was mainly driven by ignoring British copyright law: https://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/no-copyright-law-the-real-reason-for-germany-s-industrial-expansion-a-710976.html https://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/no-copyright-...
    - tonyedgecombe 3y ago
      >I dread to think of a world where software written for HP computers wouldn't work on Dells, and where Lenovo's wouldn't be able to run Microsoft software. Developing software would just be needlessly expensive and annoying. Having a Wintel monopoly hasn't been great for customers though. I've always thought that one of HP's biggest failures was ceding control of their platform to Microsoft.
pcurve 3y ago
My first computer was an Apple 2 clone too, but there really was no visibile Apple logo or branding on it. My parents bought it for a helfty sum of my Dad's 1 month pay at the time thinking their two kids would learn BASIC programming. lol. Instead, we just played Rescue Raiders, spy vs spy and whatever other bootleg games we could get our hands on at the time. Good times ;-)
- speedgoose 3y ago
  Because you post on HN, I guess it wasn’t a bad investment for your parents. You may not have learned BASIC but you developed an interest in the technology.

orionblastar 3y ago

I recall they had some IBM PC counterfeit clones as well. I remember the Laser 128 being an Apple II clone. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_128 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_128 My family was too poor to afford an Apple II or IBM PC so we got the Commodore 64 for $199 and added things ala cart to it later to turn it into a full system with a floppy disk, modem, and printer.

actionfromafar 3y ago
The C64 is way better than an Apple 2 so maybe a blessing in disguise.

rahen 3y ago

What shortsightedness from Apple. By aiming to be the sole player in the market and charging exorbitant prices, they paved the way for the IBM PC where the market was wide open and the ecosystem thriving. After the threats and harassing from Apple, all those manufacturers quickly started producing PC compatibles instead of Apple II compatibles, thereby reducing the Apple II market presence compared to the PC. Classic case of greed at work.

flohofwoe 3y ago
IBM losing control over the PC platform was more like a happy historical accident though, if the IBM beancounters would have taken the PC platform any serious, they wouldn't have allowed that to happen.
- sixothree 3y ago
  Did they really expect the industry to follow them into the EISA venture?
  - p1mrx 3y ago
    EISA was the open alternative to IBM's MCA: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_Industry_Standard_Architecture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_Industry_Standard_Arc...
vikramkr 3y ago
In the long term though it accidentally worked out since now they have complete integration and control and don't have to worry about the mess of dealing with other manufacturers. History is weird sometimes, and by sometimes I mean all the time.
snorkel 3y ago
What really turned developers away from Apple after the Apple II was not only the price but that you couldn’t sit down at a Macintosh and start programming it like you could with an Apple II. You couldn’t really do that sitting in front of a PC either unless you were happy with GW BASiC, or you bought a Borland compiler, but at least there were less obstructions in your path if you wanted to develop a PC application versus an Apple application. The Macintosh felt like a locked down black box, like you bought a car with the hood welded shut. Overall, PCs were just much more accommodating to developers than the Apple products until Steve Jobs came back and switched everything over to UNIX-based operating system.

Jemm 3y ago

Had an Apple II+ clone that was in a PC style case which made the whole thing more convenient as the drives were in the chassis. The Apple II+ clone had a CPM card made by Microsoft.

js2 3y ago
Was it a Trackstar Apple clone on an ISA card maybe? https://www.diskman.com/presents/trackstar/ https://www.diskman.com/presents/trackstar/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhRaTI76S7Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhRaTI76S7Q The CPM card from Microsoft was the Z80 SoftCard: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z-80_SoftCard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z-80_SoftCard

TomMasz 3y ago

I remember some of the folks in the company I was working at "repurposing" DRAM chips intended for prototyping to use in their homebrew Apple II clones. They had done a group buy of bare boards and DRAM was pretty expensive, so...

IMSAI8080 3y ago

There were huge numbers of Sinclair ZX Spectrum clones too in the 80s from all kinds of manufacturers. Pirate Spectrums were widely popular in the Soviet Union: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ZX_Spectrum_clones https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ZX_Spectrum_clones

NittLion78 3y ago

Anyone remember the Albert Apple ][ clone? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_(computer) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_(computer) My dad had one of these and I thought it was the coolest because it had the text-to-audio synthesizer. Because it was such nascent tech, it said a lot of hilarious pronunciations which was infinitely entertaining when you're like 7 years old.