24 Jan
2004
24 Jan
'04
1:02 p.m.
On Sat, 2004-01-24 at 11:20, Curt vendel wrote:
Is Pheonix really first? What about Compaq??? Did
they produce the first
PC clones? What BIOS did they use, is it what Pheonix became?
I had always thought Lazer was the first Apple Clone??? We used to have
more of those then real Apple ]['s in college back in 84-88.
According to Stan Veit's "History of the Personal Computer:"
"A software company called Phoenix, which had been a division of the
ill-fated Technical Design Labs, was the first to develop a legal MS-DOS
BIOS that did not infringe on IBM's copyrights. They did this by a
process called reverse engineering."
However, he doesn't give a date for when it was done. He also mentions
that "several early clone manufacturers, including Columbia Computer
Company, were successfully sued by IBM for copying their BIOS."
I can't get a solid fix on when V-tech copied Apple's ROMS, either. Both
the Laser 3000 and the Compaq Portable were introduced in late 1982. I
guess that probably neither followed the proceedure of the other, in
terms of avoiding lawsuits. They both happened so close together, in
terms of dating that it's hard to know.