APPLE CLONES

[rpirong@aztec.asu.edu (RICHARD PIRONG)]

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.
came with RGB color 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).  Some early rom versions had
application compatibility problems but not the last ones (level 6).
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.
 
rpirong@aztec.asu.edu  (Richard Pirong)
-- 
###