Re: Apple II clones?

[spec@vax2.concordia.ca (Mitchell Spector)]

In article GUDATH@EZINFO.VMSMAIL.ETHZ.CH (Henrik 'Ratte' Gudat) writes...

>In <noemail-0601040045550001@dial4.pli.mb.ca> noemail@no.email.edu writes:
> 
>> Which companies cloned the Apple II (any given model of II) ?
> 
>My first "Apple II" (which first belonged to my Dad but suddenly was under my
>total control) was a "Golden II", a clone with Apple II+ ROMz . Made in Taiwan.

    Interesting, I never knew they were available outside of Canada. The 
Golden II was my first computer as well, purchased back in the summer of 
1984, and served me until I replaced it with an Apple IIgs. :)

    The ROM was more or less identical to a real Apple II, expect for the
words "GOLDEN64" replacing "APPLE ][" when you powered it up (fine, unless
you wanted to run ProDOS 8 ;). I believe I had the last model before Apple
sued the company and forced them into bankruptcy.  Some nice features it 
offered over a real Apple II Plus:  Built-in numeric keypad, 64K RAM on 
motherboard, auto-repeat keys (like a IIe), Lowercase character set and 
ROM based keyboard macros. The latter feature was nice, on the back of 
each key was a commonly used DOS or Applesoft command, by holding down 
that key and Caps-Lock, the command would be typed for you (i.e. caps + 
6 = "PR#6", caps + right-arrow = "CATALOG", caps + c = "PRINT CHR$("). 
I must admit, when I later upgraded to my GS, I missed having that and 
hated having to type out full commands after having being spoiled. ;)

>The only problem: it could not display inverse characters - they would flash.
>This was particularly fun to work with in visicalc :-)))))

    I think that was fixed in my revision. Actually I still have the G2, 
even a full-color booklet promoting the features of the machine, though it 
lacks any kind of copyrights anywhere...obviously. :) Guess it was one of 
several dozen Taiwanise clones made during the early to mid 80's. I recall
Apple doing a major crack-down on Apple II clones back then.

    I've also heard of a "Pineapple" and "Banana" Apple II clone, seriously.
All sorts of illegal clones were floating around back then, using every name
under the sun. Another popular clone around here was the "Microcom" and even
one called "Mackintosh" (before the 68000 Macintosh was introduced).

Mitchell Spector
spec@vax2.concordia.ca