Do you remember, some years ago, when that brand-new 8086-based laptop hit the shelves? Great for PC lovers, but not so fun for those on the fruitier side of the street. Well, the same Chinese firm that brought us the Book8086 are back, this time with an ‘Apple’ Laptop that is decidedly not a MacBook– the Book II is a dual-processor Apple II clone in a laptop form factor.
Dual processor? On an Apple II? It wasn’t that uncommon, back in the day — that’s what the Z80 softcard was, after all: a second processor that let you run CP/M and associated business applications, and this one has it built-in. It also has the 80-column video card, a second floppy controller, a printer interface, and a 16 kB ROM card for languages. That leaves two of the Apple’s expansion slots available, one of which is broken out externally on the back of the laptop, along with the printer and floppy ports.
Useful? Probably no more so than the NEC V20-based PC version. Still, those did find buyers and we have no doubt that this new laptop will, too. Especially since with the right expansion card, you might get this machine running DOS as well. Of course if you don’t feel like shelling out the quid or running an emulator, you can always roll your own Apple II on an FPGA.
Thanks to [Stephen Walters] for the tip! We usually steer clear of product announcements like this, but [Stephen] figured we’d be interested in this one since we covered the then-new retro PC versions way back in 2023.
Btw, in case someone wonders..
In the 80s, both IBM PC and Apple II were well established PC platforms.
There were models of same looking computers that were PC and Apple II.
Such as Vtech Laser 128 and Vtech Laser XT.
There also were hybrid PCs with 6502 and 8088 CPU that could run both Apple DOS and MS-DOS!
Such as Cordata WPC Bridge or the Gigatronics KAT.
Review Vtech Laser 128/XT
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZX7tjnb9sE
Gigatronics KAT
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zhu9vxEm8Gc
Cordata WPC Bridge
https://forums.atariage.com/topic/282743-this-thing-is-pretty-cool-apple-iie-and-ibm-pc-in-one/
So how did Commodore 64 end up the best selling ever computer? There were no C64 clone anywhere
That’s a good question, really. I don’t understand the success of the C64, either.
My father completely missed the C64’s existance during the 80s, for example.
His world were Z80 computers and IBM PCs. He knew the Apple II, though.
As the article hints, the Apple II not seldomly had an Z80 card installed (Microsoft SoftCard or similar).
It was a notable CP/M platform, thus, rather than “just” being another insignificant 6502 toy computer.
If I had to guess, then perhaps C64 was popular because of games and kids doing piracy at school yard on a large scale.
The topic of missing C64 clones is very interesting, really.
I mean, both ZX Spectrum and ZX81 had numerous clones despite them having custom chips such as ULA.
I guess the C64 was too cheap for being cloned by other manufacturers. So they didn’t bother.
On otherhand, that explanation is a bit too simple minded.
The C64 had a large software library and in former eastern block a C64 wasn’t easily accessible.
That’s why many ZX Spectrum clones and Apple II clones were made over there.
Also, the C64 had a Kernal in ROM, along with a BASIC interpreter.
So there was some hardware abstraction, at least.
A limited C64 clone or C64 compatible was certainly possible by porting the C64 Kernal to a different platform and changing port addresses pointers in memory.
Which would at least have worked fine for text adventures and productivity software.
$562 on Ali Express. Yeah, this is definitely a niche product.
So, about a tenth the price something like that would have cost in the late 80s.
Ok, i was going to look it up, if it’s cheap enough for some fun, but now i don’t need to bother, thanks.
Oh, how I miss the Apple IIc. It had a market lifetime of maybe a week because it came out too late, but it was a nice computer to use, for its time.
If this had been made back in the day it would have been amazing… because of the flat screen!
And they win the most confusing URL award: https://8086cpu.com/Z80/6502/110.html!