Apple clones

[Louis Cornelio <cornelio@crl4.crl.com>]

I received this msg. in a private email, but sender said it was ok to post
& I thought someone might find it of interest!

- louis cornelio

ps. sorry for the formatting, no time to clean it up..

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 I have perhaps the only Apple][+ in a custom case with a detachable
 Volker-Craig 401 terminal keyboard.   Its on a coil cord with a DB 25
Connector to plug into the box which it made from two aluminum chassis pans
convered with cream Vinyl.  The end pieces are varnished walnut particle 
board.
Building Apple clones was a fad in Canada from 1980 to 84.  When someone
introdu ced a //e clone and then Kits for it Apple woke up and the RCMP shut
everybody down within days Just a little bit of nostalgia from the great 
white north I also have a //e and a IIGS and currently a Motorola Starmax 
3000 which is networked to the IIGS
 
There are/were 2 of these Apple][+'s in the area but the other person 
sold his
( and now regrets it) and I think it has probably vanished. The history 
of the
clones is interesting and much of the following is probably urban legend It
seems that Apple USA had a surplus of Apple Euro Boards and decided to 
dump t hem in the Canadian Market for some obscure reason because we use the 
systen of video just as you do and not the PAL which the EuroApple does.  
Well
it seem that somebody sent the board offshoreand had it reversed engineered
and back they came by the thousands.  The roms became eproms as did the video
chips Cases and powersupplies appeared over night  For 600-700 dollarsyou 
could buy a kit with every  component just like a Heathkit.   The manual was 
one page
listin g the parts and their location on the motherboard.  Kids financed the
university education by building these kit and selling them out of their 
trunks
on street corners.  This was common knowledge in Toronto and VAncouver but
Apple seemed to turn a blind eye  There was even finished machines of all
descriptions being imp orted some with Z80 as well as 6502 and all had upper
and lowercase shift lock k eyboards Disk ][ clone drives using a Shuggart 400
modified board instead of the Apple 39 0 mechanism appears as well  Clone
Disk][ controller cards as well.  Clone SSC a s well as Grappler+ clones
anything you could think of was on the market either built or in kit 
form.  It
was amazing that Apple never moved a finger.  This wen t on for well over 2
years.  Then the //e clones came on the market with reverse d engineered MMU
and IOU custom pals which were not the same a Apples. the CD an d EF roms 
were
emproms and the asians left the code exactly as the original incl uding the
programmers names that were built into the code..   Bingo somebody at Apple
turned the lights on and went to the RCMP and raids were made charges laid
 and $10,000 dollar fine/s were levied.  Within 24 hours you could not 
find a dealer who knew anything about clones or chips or anything else.