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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

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.

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.