Varieties of Apples, bootleg software, etc.

From: Doug Spence <ds_spenc_at_alcor.concordia.ca>
Date: Mon Apr 28 08:21:35 1997

On Sat, 26 Apr 1997, Tim Shoppa wrote:

> > > I just swapped a bare II/E for a Bare II. Going price for a bare IIE is about
> > > $20 on the Apple newsgroups. Apple II's don't seem to be valued very much in
> > > the Apple II newsgroup or for sale group.
> >
> > Well, that's mostly because the machine isn't appreciated yet. Sure a
> > trillion were made, but has anyone actually ever SEEN one? Yeah, sure,
> > maybe a few of us, but I'm sure EVERYONE here can say they've seen a //e,
> > a //c or even a //gs, but not the original, plain old vanilla ][.
>
> Actually, I hadn't seen a //c or //gs until just a year or two ago.
> But I still have my vanilla II.

Just as an extra data point, I've only ever seen a //gs TWICE in my life.
Once was at the home of a BBSer whose GT I was attending, and then a
couple of years ago I saw one in a store that has since gone out of
business. For the //c, I had never actually seen one until a few months
ago, and now I have one of my own.

I have seen plain old vanilla ][s around, but not frequently. Most 8-bit
Apples around here seem to be of the ][+ variety, followed closely by the
//e.

> Much more interesting to me than the original II are some of the
> original Apple II software products. For example, the RAM version of
> Applesoft, or some of the good old Integer Basic games like
> Apple Trek and Pong, on original Apple cassette tapes. Good stuff.
> Unfortunately, lots of these little items got thrown out when users
> upgraded to disk drives.

Actually, this is kind of funny. When my family first got a 'family
computer' (i.e. one for the whole family to have access to, instead of
just my older brother) we bought an Apple ][+ clone. The company was
pretty seedy, and not only did it sell what was basically rip-off hardware
with only a few slight modifications from the real Apple machines, you
also got bound photocopies of Apple's manuals with it, plus a couple of
cassettes with software on them.

I still have the cassettes. They've GOT to be some sort of bad bootleg
job. The cases say "APPLE SOFTWAR" on them (note the missing 'E'), and
apart from the descriptions of the actual keys to press, all other writing
on the cassettes and on the cases are in Chinese (or some oriental
language).

The cassettes I chose from their large supply were Star Blazer and
Sabotage; Apple Panic and Gorgon.

The same company ran a 'software evaluation club' with a huge library of
Apple (and, later, PC) software, whereby one would pay $10/disk (or was
it $5? I never bought any, but a friend did) for whatever software they
had. I think the deal was that you were paying for 99 years rent on the
disk or something.

The company also sold pirate versions of popular Apple expansion boards,
and kits so you could build your own. (I think they had clone Apple
][ motherboards as well.)

Looking back, the place was thoroughly evil. :)

Anyway, the company eventually got shut down by the RCMP, but I've still
got these old tapes. I wonder if oriental bootleg software has any
collectors value? ;)

>
> Tim.
>

Doug Spence
ds_spenc_at_alcor.concordia.ca
Received on Mon Apr 28 1997 - 08:21:35 BST