Re: Those Apple ][ clones...

[supertimer@aol.com (Supertimer)]

mjmahon@aol.com (Michael J. Mahon) wrote:

>Supertimer wrote:
>
>>6. ROM:
>>     192K -- This includes the only legal Apple compatible
>>     ROM by 1988 (Apple lost a lawsuit challenging it) and
>>     Microsoft BASIC (the Applesoft compatible version)
>>     licensed from Microsoft.
>
>This is fascinating.  Is the BASIC a carbon copy of Applesoft
>(including its bugs and omissions), or have some bugs been
>fixed and, maybe, XPLOT added (it apparently lost out in a
>ROM space war ;-).

I was a light Applesoft user but to me it seemed identical
to Applesoft BASIC.  I suppose Applesoft is just Microsoft
BASIC of a certain flavor licensed to Apple.  You can,
after all, see the Microsoft copyright on the ROM chip of
Apple IIs.

>>11. Audio:
>>     Simple beeper driven by the CPU.  Because the Laser's
>>     motherboard operates at 3.6Mhz (notice that it requires
>>     120ns or faster RAM), sound in programs designed for
>>     earlier Apple IIs is often distorted.
>
>Do you know the source of the CPU acceleration technology?
>Was it Zip Technology or AE?  The reason I ask, is that if it is
>Zip-derived (like the //c+), then the standard Zip utilities can be
>used to configure a "slowdown" on speaker accesses, restoring
>normal sound.

I would say it is more similar to AE.  The AE Transwarp took
basically the entire memory space of the Apple II and put it
on the card rather than a caching technology like the Zip.

The difference is that the Laser's acceleration is better than
the Transwarp.  Because the computer was built from the
ground up, it actually ran at 3.6Mhz.  I'm sure parts of it were
slow for compatibility but it had a true fast mode.  As true
as the "fast" mode of the IIGS in IIe emulation at least.