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January 18, 1983: Pc producer Franklin Digital Publishers takes the wraps off its Franklin Ace 1200 laptop, an unauthorized Apple II clone that triggers an vital authorized battle.
Cupertino will quickly goal Franklin’s line of unlicensed Apple clones with a lawsuit. Within the ensuing trial, a U.S. court docket will resolve whether or not an organization can shield its working system by copyright.
Right here come the Apple clones
When the Apple II shipped in 1977, the tech world paid consideration. Whereas the pc didn’t flip Apple right into a billion-dollar large in a single day, it raked in a large sum of money: $770,000 in income the 12 months it debuted, $7.9 million the 12 months after that, and a whopping $49 million the 12 months after that.
Unsurprisingly, different corporations sprang into motion to comply with swimsuit. Some opponents, as seen with the IBM PC, developed private computer systems that resembled Apple’s machines solely within the sense that they each fell into the identical product class. In IBM’s case, its computer systems clearly focused the enterprise market.
Different laptop corporations — significantly these with out IBM’s sources — took a extra apparent route: ripping off Apple’s revolutionary machine geared toward shoppers.
Franklin Digital Publishers fell into this second group. Its $2,200 Franklin Ace 1200 laptop adopted the corporate’s earlier Apple clones (the Franklin 1000 collection). The Ace 1200 was a solidly constructed machine, boasting a 1 MHz MOS/Commodore 6502 microprocessor, 48KB of RAM, 16KB of ROM and twin 5-1/4-inch floppy drives.
The important thing factor it didn’t have? Apple’s blessing.
Contained in the Franklin Ace 1200
Photograph: Franklin
The contentious a part of Franklin’s providing was the corporate’s choice to repeat Apple’s ROM and working system code. This made the pc appropriate with Apple’s DOS 3. It additionally upset Cupertino.
A Might 1982 lawsuit filed by Apple identified that Franklin’s system included embedded strings containing Easter eggs put there by Apple’s programmers — just like the identify of Apple coder James Huston.
Franklin’s legal professionals admitted to copying Apple’s software program. Nonetheless, they stated that as a result of Apple’s software program was readable solely by machines, and never one thing in printed kind like a novel, it couldn’t be protected by copyright.
Regardless of an preliminary ruling in Franklin’s favor, Apple finally triumphed within the U.S. Court docket of Appeals. Franklin was compelled to take away its clones from the market by 1988. Apple additionally added two additional keys to the Apple IIe, so customers may simply inform the distinction between official Apple computer systems and clones.
Do you keep in mind the Apple II clones of the early Eighties? Depart your feedback beneath.
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