Re: 200 apple II clones confirmed

["Michael J. Mahon" <mjmahon@aol.com>]

The Collector wrote:
> 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.

Great site, Ernest!

> 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.

I suspect the motivation was the same that led to the Basis 108 being
designed in the first place--it was seen as an extension, and therefore
an improvement, on the Apple II+.

Until the mid-1980s, when it was clear that the mass of software for
the Apple II line made it a solid value, people thought that making
an incompatible improvement was a good way to go.

Come to think of it, some kept doing that with the Apple II long after
the "chicken and egg" problem of introducing new capabilities should
have been obvious.  Either they were very optimistic about a fast and
broad market acceptance of their extension, or they just didn't "get"
it.

By the time that PC clones came along--perfect functional copies to the
last detail--essentially everyone in the computer business had figured
out that "being standard is better than being better".

FWIW, I found the media, and particularly the Asian media, to be
especially unaware of why a huge, ready software base is required
for a personal computing platform to be successful in the market.

-michael

New, faster SUDOKU v2.0 solver for Apple II's!
Home page:  http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/

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