Apples from Other Orchards: The Apple II Clones

We all know about the early IBM PC clones, such as Compaqs and Dells. And some of us know about the Macintosh clones. But there were clones before the IBM PC existed . . . Apple II clones!

Apple introduced the Apple II at the West Coast Computer Faire in 1977. After VisiCalc was released, Apple II sales skyrocketed in the late 1970s and into the early 1980s.

Others began to see the potential of the Apple market. Many other computer manufacturers from both the United States and abroad attempted to jump onto the Apple bandwagon and also become huge successes. As a result, so many clones were produced that an entire website has been made for them, apple2clones.com.

Apple chose not to license the Apple II software, hardware, or case design, but it was cloned unofficially about 200 times by various manufacturers around the world. Many of the clones look alike, based upon the original Apple II. (Strangely enough, some of the clones resemble the IBM PC more than the Apple II, including the Basis 108 shown here.)

The most popular clones were the Laser and Franklin Ace models. Many of the Apple II clones were not actually manufactured by American companies, but overseas in countries such as Germany, Taiwan, and Brazil. This made it very difficult for Apple to sue them, but it also meant that these computers were less well known.

Franklin Ace

The Franklin Ace clone resulted in a lawsuit against Franklin Computer Corp. It was the first successful attempt in a US court of law to prove that computer software could be protected by copyright.

When the Franklin Ace clone was introduced in 1982, Apple determined that the Franklin ROM and operating system were copied from Apple's versions. The court favored Franklin initially, but in 1983 the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit determined that computer software, including operating systems and system ROMs, could be protected by copyright.

Apple was able to force Franklin to withdraw its clones by 1988.

Steve Wozniak, designer of the Apple II, was infuriated when he found out about the Franklin and saw that they didn't even acknowledge his work. Wozniak actually ran into Franklin at a trade show, and, in front of customers and the press, asked them why they didn't acknowledge him as their chief engineer. The Franklin president responded "yes", Woz was their chief engineer, and Woz left, satisfied with that.

Because of the Apple vs. Franklin case, during the development of the original Macintosh a small icon was hidden in the ROM which said "Stolen!! © Apple". Susan Kare designed the icon, and Steve Capps and Andy Hertzfeld worked on implementing it, so that when the ROM was copied, the icon would appear.

Some Other Clones

The late model Laser 128 clone was the only legal clone of the Apple II (the company "clean roomed" the Monitor ROM, making the Laser ROM legal). The Laser 128 was compatible with the Apple IIc. It was originally released in 1982 in the United states by Video Technologies, Inc. VTech even contacted Microsoft for a license to Applesoft BASIC, and Microsoft sold it to them.

Another clone, named "craft II plus", was manufactured by Microcraft. The company used the Apple logo and the Motter Tekkura font in its advertisements. Another advertisement, for a clone made by Basis Incorporated, used a rough copy of the Apple logo in their advertisement in BYTE magazine April 1981. And many other clones illegally used Apple's logo, such as the Micro II+.

The Apples from Brazil

Another clone was made of the Apple IIc, the portable model of the Apple II. The Milmar Laser IIc had a case resembling the official IIc - even including Apple's logo. It's no surprise that the Milmar was produced in Brazil, which had a "reserved market" policy that required all minicomputers and microcomputers be built only by companies 100% owned by Brazilians. (Software piracy was also rampant in Brazil in this era.)

Another notable clone is the Unitron, made in Germany. The Unitron U-2200 Apple II clone was introduced in 1983, was known for being reliable and had a separate keyboard rather than a built-in like the original Apple II. The U-2200 used a 1 MHz 6502A and 2 MHz Zilog 80 processor, and had 64k RAM expandable to 128k. Unitron also made a clone of the Macintosh 512k in Brazil.

Apple Cloned Itself

Although not a clone, the Bell & Howell Apple II Plus was a limited edition Apple II Plus manufactured by Apple for Bell & Howell. Featuring a dark battleship grey case, it is much the same as the normal beige Apple II Plus, but it includes more ports on the back. The Bell & Howell Apple IIs were made primarily for education, where Bell & Howell had a strong presence with AV equipment.

Today most of the Apple II clones are very rare. Most of them sold poorly when they were released and subsequently disappeared from the market quickly. 

References

• Apple 2 Clones.com
• Apple II History
• Apple II Series, Wikipedia
• Apple v. Franklin, Wikipedia
• Letters-General Questions Answered, Woz.org
• Stolen from Apple, Folklore.com