Re: Those Apple ][ clones...

[steve@dosius.zzn.com (Dosius)]

supertimer@aol.com (Supertimer) wrote in message news:<20030312004126.09624.00000202@mb-cf.aol.com>...
> mjmahon@aol.com (Michael J. Mahon) wrote:
> 
> >supertimer@aol.com (Supertimer) writes:
> >
> >>Didn't the later legal Franklins have to boot some kind of
> >>special ProDOS to use to circumvent the copyring issue?
> >>On a Laser, this isn't necessary.  Software actually thinks
> >>it is running on an Apple IIe/IIc.
> >
> >Interesting.  I thought that ProDOS looked at characters in
> >the ROM which contain the Apple copyright message.
> 
> I don't doubt it.  But the programmers of the Laser ROM
> probably encountered that and worked around it.  I
> figure when a company actually puts the resources into
> such reverse-engineering, they could work at it until the
> Laser works around all the obstacles.
> 
> My programming experience is limited to the scripting
> languages like HyperTalk and of course Applesoft but
> I surmise that since they can't copy Apple's copyright
> message, they probably trap ProDOS when it tries to
> stop upon not finding that message and then forces
> it to continue.

It might be something else they look for (I don't know - checksum
maybe?).  Certainly SimSystem IIe is very Laser 128-like from a ROM
perspective and runs ProDOS 2.03 fine.

-uso.