200 apple II clones confirmed

["The Collector" <x@xnoarchiveyes.com>]

Hello



I began my website on Apple II clones ( http://www.apple2clones.com ) a few 
years ago (2003) and I suspected that there were probably 200 or more 
different clones produced, but I was not able to confirm this until now. The 
list actually stands at 201 but I am waiting on pictures of the last one 
(the Susy II from Italy.) The website opened with 122 confirmed clones, and 
it took about three years to find pictures of the other 78. Many of  those 
were sent in by folks who found the site and saw that their clones were not 
on the list.



There are a couple of things that I've noticed after building this list. 
First, there were quite a few quality clones produced openly in Brazil, and 
the collector community there has done a fantastic job of documenting their 
clones by saving advertisements, pictures, software, etc. The most common 
clone there seems to be the Microdigital TK 2000/3000 models, followed by 
models produced by Milmar and Unitron. Over time, I hope to find better 
pictures of the rarer models by other companies.



Secondly, I suspect that there are several more clones from Eastern Europe, 
Italy, and East Asia that are not on my list. People from those areas have 
sent me vague information about clones that were produced there, but finding 
concrete evidence (such as pictures) is difficult. The language barrier is a 
bit of problem, but I hope that over time, people from those areas will send 
in pictures and other information about clones that aren't listed yet. Other 
areas of interest are Germany and Australia because clones keep popping up 
from those places -particularly on eBay. The Germans seemed to like 
industrial type clones. By that I mean that they liked to house their clone 
motherboards in heavy-duty, often rack-mounted cases that looked like they 
were designed for industrial purposes rather than for the desktop. I have 
scores of misc. photos of industrial type clones from Germany that I will 
eventually add to the site.



Another interesting thing is that the Basis 108 was a popular target for 
cloners, but I'm not exactly sure why. The Basis is a clone of the Apple II, 
but it was not entirely compatible, so why clone makers would choose to 
clone it rather than the real Apple II is not clear. Clones of the Basis 108 
include the Precision Echo Phase II, Medfly, Cal-400, Lingo, and unconfirmed 
reports of others. According to information in my Basis User Group letters, 
only the Medfly was authorized to produce clones of the Basis because they 
initially did such a bad job that Basis was concerned about its reputation 
and so decided to work with them and make a little money. The Precision Echo 
is probably just rebadged Basis inventory that was left over after Basis 
went out of business.



The clone that I was most pleased to track down was the Albert. I was 
contacted by Dave over at www.wormfood.org and he had a complete system, 
with manuals and software. The Albert was listed over at 
www.applefritter.com and for some reason, I thought I would never be able to 
find even a fuzzy photograph of it. So I was excited when Dave sent me 
photographs and even a disk image of his Albert boot disk. The Franklin Red 
Lightning was a close second in the area of exciting finds. I had never 
heard of this computer until Bob Applegate told me about it.



New additions for the list are becoming more difficult to find, and I cannot 
even begin to guess how many more there might be. What I hope to do now is 
find better pictures of some of the clones, continue to add proprietary boot 
disk images, and find contacts in East Asia who can look for clones on the 
Asian eBay sites (I can't read them.) I also hope to find someone with an 
Agat 9 in good condition -right now, I only have drawings and pictures of 
one that is bashed and broken.



Anyway, I hope that you all enjoy the site, and please contact me if you 
have something that you think should be on the webpage (pictures, software, 
or whatever.)



Ernest