Low End Mac Reader Specials

TypeStyler For Mac OS X is Now Shipping! Download The Free Fully Functional 60 Day Tryout at www.typestyler.com

Poker Mac Don't install Parallels to play poker online! Poker Mac will show you how to download and install a native Mac poker application such as Full Tilt Poker Mac.

Laptop Hardware Provided by TechRestore - Overnight Mac & iPod Repairs.

Compare products like desktop computers, apple laptops, apple macs, and LCD Monitors side by side! All the information and reviews to make the best purchasing decision for new mobile phones, sat nav systems, or MP3 players. The Ciao online shopping community makes searching products easy for you.

Before the Macintosh

Cortland

Apples from Other Orchards: Apple II Clones

- 2006.12.05

Popularity: LEMLEMLEMLEMLEM

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!

The Apple II

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.

Basis 108Apple 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

Franklin Ace 1000

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."

Stolen iconBecause of the Apple vs. Franklin case, a small icon that said "Stolen!! © Apple" was hidden in the ROM during the development of the original Macintosh. 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.

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

The Apples from Brazil

Laser 128Another 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 was 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 by Apple

back of Bell and Howell Apple II PlusAlthough not technically 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. LEM

References

Joshua Coventry's writing can also be found on Silicon User.

Recent Cortland articles

Links for the Day

Recent Content on Low End Mac

Recent Deals

About LEM | Support | Usage | Privacy | Contacts

This article copyright ©2006 by Joshua Coventry. Entire Low End Mac website copyright ©1997-2009 by Cobweb Publishing, Inc., unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved. Advice presented in good faith, but what works for one may not work for all. Please report errors to .
  LINKS: We allow and encourage links to any public page as long as the linked page does not appear within a frame that prevents bookmarking it.
  Access our RSS news feed at http://lowendmac.com/feed.xml.
  Email may be published at our discretion; email addresses will not be published without permission, and we will encrypt them in hopes of avoiding spammers. If you prefer your message not be published, mark it "not for publication." Letters may be edited for length, context, and to match house style.
  PRIVACY: We don't collect personal information unless you explicitly provide it. For more details, see our Terms of Use.
  Low End Mac is an independent publication and has not been authorized, sponsored, or otherwise approved by Apple Inc. Apple, the Apple logo, Macintosh, iBook, iMac, eMac, iPod, iPhone, PowerBook, MacBook, MagSafe, Mac Pro, Apple TV, and AirPort are registered trademarks of Apple Inc. Additional company and product names may be trademarks or registered trademarks and are hereby acknowledged.

Custom Search

Amazon.com

Navigation

Used Mac Dealers
Apple History
Video Cards
Email Lists

Favorite Sites

MacSurfer
MacMinute
MacInTouch
MyAppleMenu
InfoMac
Macs Only!
The Mac Observer
Accelerate Your Mac
RetroMacCast
PB Central
MacWindows
The Vintage Mac
   Museum
DealMac
DealsOnTheWeb
Mac2Sell
ramseeker
Mac Driver Museum
JAG's House
System 6 Heaven
System 7 Today
the pickle's Low-End
   Mac FAQ
Abandonware
   Petition
Mac vs. PC Info

Affiliates

The Apple Store
Mac Connection
B&H
MacMall
TechRestore
ExperCom
Crucial Memory
batteries.com

Advertise

All of our advertising is handled by BackBeat Media. For price quotes and advertising information, please contact at BackBeat Media (646-546-5194). This number is for advertising only.

Open Link

Problems viewing this page with Internet Explorer 5.5 or 6? It works fine in other browsers, including IE 7. We recommend Firefox for those using Windows, as it is standards based and more secure than IE 6 (and earlier). More LEM visitors use Firefox than any other browser.