Re: APPLE CLONES

[cheer@i.hate.spam (Christopher D. Heer)]

It was 11 Mar 1997 01:48:02 GMT.  I was reading instead of working.  And 
RICHARD PIRONG <rpirong@aztec.asu.edu> said:

>While discussing Apple clones, Chris Heer mentioned the Franklin ACE's.

>| They later introduced an ACE 2000, which was black and sort of PC-ish
>| looking (detached keyboard, two half-height drives installed in the CPU
>| box.| a matching monitor with tilt&swivel base, and the keyboard layout
>| looked a  LOT like a PC keyboard, even so far as to have an Alt key).
>| The popular rumour was that it wasn't as compatible as the old 1000.
>| the only thing that wouldn't run on it without modification was ProDOS).
>| but I have no hands-on with the 2000.

>Chris. A good synopsis of Franklin's Apple clones but I'd like to add a
>few details of the ACE2000 series. After many years of good service, my
>2200 was just retired in favor of a //gs. It is an excellent //e - //c
>workalike. It has some ports like a //c and some slots like a //e.

Do you have any details?  It's been years since I've seen one and I'd love to 
know more.

>came with RGB color 

Really?  The one in the store I saw had a black-cased Franklin green screen.  
How much was this guy, anyway?  :)

>and 512k ram on the motherboard. In spite of rumors
>to the contrary, it is VERY software compatible. It does run all versions
>of ProDOS. (ver 1.0.1 thru to P8 v2.0.3).  

That's one up on the ACE 1000.  I still have my patched 1.1.1 prodos file 
around somewhere. . . 

>Some early rom versions had
>application compatibility problems but not the last ones (level 6).

How many versions were there?  When I saw the box, it had just been released.  
I was kind of drooling over it in a store.

>If things had worked out a little differently, they could have created
>one hell of a //gs clone. Instead of duplicating Apples, they had begun
>improving them.

They did that even with the 1000, which was a substantial improvement over the 
][+.  Unfortunately, that was around the time the PC was starting to take 
serious hold. . . :(

Man, I loved my Franklin.
-- 
          Christopher D. Heer - cheer at us dot oracle dot com
     My opinions are my own and do not reflect those of Oracle Corp.
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