Re: 200 apple II clones confirmed

[pausch@saaf.se (Paul Schlyter)]

In article <1157488637.418349.125180@b28g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>,
 <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!

CP/M machines came in a wide variety of hardware platforms, which only
had one thing in common: an 8080 compatible CPU.  But the rest of the
hardware had no common denominator at all.  The hardware differences
were taken care of by the CP/M BIOS (for the disk drives, the text
based console, the printer port, and to some extent an auxiliary
output which often was a serial port), or was not taken care of at all
(for in particular graphics based consoles - that's why there were so
few graphics oriented programs on CP/M: there simple was no standard
graphics capabilities under CP/M).  The disk formats varied widely -
there was one standard disk format for CP/M: the 8" SSSD (Single Sided
Single Density) disks which could store some 250 kB.  But when 5.25"
disks came into widespred use, the various disk format flourished, and
a common problem in the CP/M world was to transfer software or data
from CP/M machine of brand A to CP/M machine of brand B.  The company
Lifeboat (a major dealer or CP/M software at that time) offered to
ship its CP/M software in any one of almost 100 different CP/M
formats.  However, even for different CP/M machines which could read
the same disk format, it was common that CP/M for machine A would not
boot on machine B, and vice versa - but once CP/M was booted, they
could easily read/write files from each other's disks.

The early 8086/80888-based machines had a similar situation.  There
was the IBM PC of course.  And there were also other 8088 machines,
with hardware which was incompatible to the IBM PC, such as the Sirius
and the DEC Rainbow.  There was even an 8088 card for the Apple II -
it had 8K of RAM, expandable to 256K, and the 8088 could also access
the RAM of the Apple II.  And one could buy MS-DOS 1 for the Apple II,
delivered on Apple II floppies!

The 8086/8088 based machines of the early 1980's had three OS'es to
choose among: Microsoft's MS-DOS (the flavor for the IBM PC was called
PC-DOS), Digital Research's CP/M-86, and UCSD Pascal (which probably
ran most Apple Pascal programs fine).

As the years passed, CP/M-86 and UCSD Pascal vanished from the scene,
as did those 8086/8088 machines which weren't hardware compatible with
the IBM PC.  And with MS-DOS 3.3, the difference between MS-DOS and
PC-DOS had vanished.  The x86 machines were now true clones of the
IBM PC.  Windows also appeared, and the Wintel platform was created.

The x86 platform has been developed of course, and interestingly
IBM hardly participates in it anymore.  IBM tried to break away
from it, creating its own PS/2 platform (which was more closed than
the PC platform), but that has now vanished.


You may call CP/M "the PC of yesterday" or "the MS-DOS of yesterday"
but it's definitely *not* "the Wintel of yesterday": CP/M never had
any Windows since it didn't have any graphics.  And CP/M wasn't
completely dependent on Intel either -- Zilog's Z80 was quite often
used in CP/M machines (e.g. in the various CP/M cards for the Apple II)
and some CP/M software (such as Borland's Turbo Pascal) even required
a Z80 and didn't even work on an Intel CPU.

 
> I've had an Albert for many many years. All stacked next to a pile of
> NeXTCubes and a Hammarlund receiver. Giant heavy Hammarlund, too. I
> could probably sink a ship with it.
> 
> I believe DV-ROMulan A2 has pictures of the Albert on it too.
> 
> I also have a Dragon A2 clone thats pretty unique. I  think in all I
> probably have about 30 variations of A2 in some form, not all complete
> systems. From the Franklin portable (Osborn style, also on DV-ROMulan
> A2), to the Basis 108. The Apple II clone answer to the Apple ///...
> 
> I have good stash of clone //e motherboards too...
> 
> ..and then there are the prototypes.
> 
> .... and if my FileMaker database did what I wanted I'd be thrilled.
> 
> Anyone really good with FileMaker? There may be rewards in it.

-- 
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