At 17:59 11/1/97 -0800, you wrote:
>I am not an expert but there were RF modulators (the thing you use to
>connect a computer to a TV) for the Apple, from my historical research
>Apple could not get FCC certification for an RF adapter for the ][s so
>they did not sell any but routed customers to their supplier. I think
>the product name was SupRMod or SupRMod ][ or something like that....
If you want to be Captain-Nitpickily accurate, it was called Sup'r Mod, and
the supplier's name was Marty Spergel -- the guy who first made himself
famous at the Homebrew Computer Club by GIVING away an Intel 8080 chip.
("*gee!*")
It wasn't that "Apple could not get FCC certification for an RF adapter,"
but that they knew darn well they didn't want to, because it would have
slowed things up, cost a lot, and maybe forced design changes. Independent
certification for a third-party RF modulator was much easier and cheaper.
So the ]['s went out with advice to the customer that they did NOT meet FCC
spec, and that if interference was encountered, it was the customer's
responsibility to interpolate a proper device. I suspect Apple actually
subsidized the certification of the Sup'r Mod, and everything after that
was gravy -- Apple got off the FCC hook, the ][ stayed cheap to build, and
Marty sold a g'zillion Sup'r Mods and got modulatedly rich.
__________________________________________
Kip Crosby engine_at_chac.org
http://www.chac.org/index.html
Computer History Association of California
Received on Sun Nov 02 1997 - 19:24:42 GMT