Re: 200 apple II clones confirmed

["mdj" <mdj.mdj@gmail.com>]

Michael J. Mahon wrote:
> a2aviator@gmail.com wrote:
> > Heh, wow.
> >
> > 200 clones.
> >
> > Only second to the IBM PC. ColuMBIa.. a mirror image. Columbia Computer
> > Company, that was their ad.
> >
> > Not an easy feat and probably no other computer comes even close. I'm
> > not gonna count CP/M machines as these were no more than use all common
> > platforms, no one was really out to clone anything. Much like x86
> > Wintel has become today.
> >
> > CP/M. The Wintel of yesterday.
>
> No, Wintel machines truly are clones.  There are just lots of
> functionally identical ways of building them.
>
> When everyone implements the bugs along with the features, then
> you know they're cloning.

Well, the PC wasn't much more than Intels reference design after all.

The thing that made it a PC, IBMs firmware was never completely cloned
as far as I know, as the original machines included BASICA in ROM.
However you only really had to clone the Firmwares BIOS interface to
allow MS-DOS to boot.

This is in contrast to the the Apple II where software is dependant on
a *lot* more of the ROM than just the BIOS. If it were that easy,
clones would have been a lot more popular. However to do it 'properly',
you really had to license AppleSoft from Microsoft, which AFAIK only
the Laser and Franklin clones did correctly.

Matt