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A+ June 1986

The well-documented Apple II, its first models assembled from relatively common microchips, had been cloned; Apple had responded with legal force against copying its ROM. Certain people had concluded at the time that this had kept the computer from becoming "a standard," but even with the IBM PC being cloned in ways that IBM couldn't block (with Microsoft quite happy to sell more copies of its DOS) new and hopefully lawsuit-proof efforts were being made to create lower-cost Apple II compatibles. This issue was more impressed with the compatibility of the Laser 128 (sold through a company that also made a utility that could copy "protected" disks of Apple II programs) than of the Franklin Ace 2000.

#computer magazine cover #a+#franklin ace 2000 #laser 128 #apple iie

#laser 128 #reddit #retrocomputer

The local computer recycling place had this beauty:

This is a Laser 128, which was essentially a clone of the Apple IIc, and could supposedly run all the same software. (The 128 refers to the fact that, like a IIc or a IIe with an 80-column card, it has 128k of RAM.) There's a 5¼" floppy drive tucked away on the right side of the case, and a number of ports on the back — for parallel or serial printers, modems, extra floppy drives, and so on. I remember seeing one when I was in elementary school.

The shop also had a Commodore 64 (complete with floppy drives, monitor, and joystick) and a Macintosh SE, and one thing I really wish I'd taken a picture of. See, back in the day, when Apple released the IIgs in its platinum-colored plastic rectangular case, they also offered IIe owners an upgrade path — a setup to put a IIgs motherboard into your IIe case, complete with replacement model badge. And that's what they had on the shelf: a beige IIe wedge case with "IIgs" on the label. (I gave away my last IIgs — my childhood computer — to a friend who, at last report a few years back, still had the thing substantially running; I think he'd technically combined it with another one to have a complete working system.)

#apple ii #laser 128 #retrocomputing #vintage electronics