{"id":1071,"date":"2014-08-25T13:34:14","date_gmt":"2014-08-25T18:34:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/?p=1071"},"modified":"2014-08-27T13:42:55","modified_gmt":"2014-08-27T18:42:55","slug":"retro-scan-of-the-week-apple-ii-clone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/archives\/1071\/retro-scan-of-the-week-apple-ii-clone","title":{"rendered":"<span id=\"retro_color\">[ Retro Scan of the Week ]<\/span> Aplus 3000 Apple II Clone"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"\/wp-content\/images\/retroscan\/aplus_3000_large.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/wp-content\/images\/retroscan\/aplus_3000_small.jpg\" alt=\"Aplus 3000 Apple II clone advertisement - 1985\" class=\"retroscan\"\/><\/a><span class=\"freecaption\"><em>Everything looks cheaper in black and white print.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The IBM PC wasn&#8217;t the only American microcomputer that got cloned in the 1980s.  The Apple II also inspired its fair share of software-compatible copycats, such as the Aplus 3000 system seen here.<\/p>\n<p>This appears to be a grey market <a href=\"http:\/\/home.total.net\/~hrothgar\/museum\/L3K\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\">VTech Laser 3000<\/a> computer with the name plate removed &#8212; possibly to avoid any trade import bans on Apple II clones that may have existed at the time.<\/p>\n<p>Clones like this were popular in certain underground circles, and for good reason.  Take a look at the price list in the ad.  The Aplus 3000 retailed for US $499 (about $1,104 today when adjusted for inflation) verses $1745 for a bona fide Apple IIe (about $3,863 today).  And on top of that, the Aplus 3000 contained integrated peripheral cards that would cost thousands of extra dollars if purchased separately for use in a real Apple IIe.<\/p>\n<p>As I&#8217;ve <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/archives\/1030\/retro-scan-of-the-week-visual-1050\" target=\"_blank\">mentioned before<\/a>, peripheral integration was a great way to undercut official products.  It happened quite a bit in the IBM PC universe.<\/p>\n<p><center><em>[ From Compute! &#8211; November 1985, p.85]<\/em><\/center><\/p>\n<p><strong>Discussion Topic of the Week:<\/strong> If you could buy an unauthorized clone of an iPad or iPhone that ran iOS and had better specs for less price, would you do it?<\/p>\n<p>&#8212;<br \/>\n<strong>See Also:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/archives\/664\/retro-scan-of-the-week-orangetwo-apple-ii-clone\">Orange+Two Apple II Clone<\/a> (RSOTW, 2010)<br \/>\n<strong>See Also:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/archives\/968\/retro-scan-of-the-week-apple-ii-box-for-c64\">Apple II Box for C64<\/a> (RSOTW, 2013<br \/>\n<strong>See Also:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/archives\/116\">How I Got My First Computer, and How I Got My First Computer Back<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Everything looks cheaper in black and white print. The IBM PC wasn&#8217;t the only American microcomputer that got cloned in the 1980s. The Apple II also inspired its fair share of software-compatible copycats, such as the Aplus 3000 system seen here. This appears to be a grey market VTech Laser 3000 computer with the name [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,27,26,10],"tags":[72,150,872,101,61,873,876,288,877,875,60,874],"class_list":["post-1071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-computer-info-and-history","category-regular_features","category-retro-scan-of-the-week","category-computers","tag-72","tag-advertisement","tag-aplus-3000","tag-apple","tag-apple-ii","tag-apple-ii-clone","tag-clones","tag-compute","tag-computer-direct","tag-laser-3000","tag-retro-scan","tag-vtech"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1071"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1071\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}