22 Apr
1998
22 Apr
'98
10:21 a.m.
On Wed, 22 Apr 1998, Doug Spence wrote:
There were all kinds of small Apple cloners around,
with various Apple
variety and fruit names ("Granny Smith", "McIntosh",
"Pear", etc.). The
only obvious differences between most of these machines and an actual
Apple ][+ was the lack of the Apple logo, and usually the presence of
lower case display (though not necessarily the shift-key mod, which my
machine lacks). Some had additional stuff, though, like function keys and
slightly differently shaped cases. Or maybe a different colour of
plastic.
Maybe I should start collecting Apple clones, seeing as I see them more
frequently than actual Apples (clones were more affordable).
I think the clones are more interesting than the real Apples at this
point. They are more varied and in most areas are less common. More
importantly they do have a historical significance.
So the Soviets pirated the Apple ][, who didn't?
A shame about the price, though. Why pirate the Apple if your clone is
going to be even MORE expensive than the real thing?
I think the reason they were so expensive is because the parts required to
build them (chips & stuff) were so hard to obtain that they demanded a
premium price.
BTW, my clone fell ill a while ago, and I've
replaced it with a genuine
Apple //e (the clone is back in its original box). Thanks to
depreciation, the //e was *much* less expensive than the clone was. And
it even had an additional 256K RAM card in it (now populated up to 512K).
:)
Too bad the //e won't work with any of my Z80 cards. :/
Hmmm...why is that? What do you get when you boot it up? I guess it
could be your Z-80 card. I used to have problems running my Microsoft
Softcard //e with my Transwarp II because of some bus conflict I imagine.
Sam Alternate e-mail: dastar(a)siconic.com
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