Sam Ismail <dastar(a)crl.com> writes: Yep, a Basis 108. They are something like the Apple ][+ with integrated language card, Microsoft Softcard and some sort of 80-column display on the motherboard, all housed in a big brown cast metal case with a detachable keyboard. Um...there are also integrated serial and parallel I/O, but I think there was something not-quite-compatible about the way they were decoded so one or the other or maybe both did not appear to be at the canonical slot addresses. They were made in Germany and imported into the US. I can't remember all the details, but I think Apple tried to restrict their import for a while (maybe due to ROM copyright issues?) and the distributor changed hands and/or locations a couple of times. For a while it was in Scotts Valley, CA, then I think went to somewhere in New England. Maybe I have it backwards. I bought one used (via the net) for ~$500 ca. 1991 because I missed my Apple ][+ (had left it with Mom, who just did not get the hang of Wordstar under CP/M and now has a Mac Plus, and yes I got my ][+ back). And the posted ad was for a dream system: Basis 108, PCPI Applicard, Vista 8" disk controller, Videx Ultraterm with a good monitor that could really show the lotsa-text you could get with one of those. All the stuff I had had in my ][+ and, more importantly, *all the stuff I had lusted after*. The only problems were due to some carelessness in packing, and the system was shipped from Connecticut to California. Mistakes submitted for your educational experience: The floppy drives are mounted by way of having brackets screwed to them which are then screwed to the base. The end result is that for each of two floppy drives there are these two brackets holding a floppy drive some distance above the base. Well, the shipper left them in, and UPS threw the package around enough that the brackets deformed and broke loose from the base. So the floppy drives with brackets could rattle around inside. (To be fair, I'm not sure I'd have caught this either, but I certainly won't ship things where two solid objects are connected quite like that -- not without dismantling them first.) He had also left the peripheral cards installed. Apple ][ peripheral cards just sit in their slots, there are no card guides or screws or anything like that. Well, guess what the floppy drives whacked into as they rattled around, not that I really think they would have stayed in place anyway. The boards weren't broken, but some of the ICs had been popped out and mashed. Between loose bits and spares that came with the system and other bits I had around I was able to get it working again, but still haven't replaced the floppy-drive brackets to my satisfaction. So it has a couple of gaping holes up front with half-height floppies showing where there should be full-height units. ... I don't have room to set the system up at present, so it is in storage. Except for its manuals, some of which are on loan to a friend of mine over the hill in Santa Cruz (who had one when he lived in Buffalo, NY and picked up another one at Weird Stuff a few years ago). If y'all have particular questions about this send e-mail and I will ask for them back and try to find the other bits in storage. It is a fairly thorough set of documentation, including user group newsletters, and would probably shed a little light on things I can't remember about it and Basis and the moves in distributorship and so forth. One other thing I remember about this system is that the previous owner had bought a set of Apple ROMs, then copied them *and* the Basis ROMs into 2732?s with a switch on the back to select one bank or the other. So he could boot with Basis or Apple personalities depending on what he needed to be compatible with. There were some things that depended on each, but I can't remember specifics. I remember seeing slicks somewhere in there for another Basis system that had two half-height 8" floppy drives in a similar case (different cutout up front for the floppies), and have the impression that that was a pure CP/M machine. Never saw one up close, though. Anyone know anything about that? -Frank McConnell