Path: utzoo!censor!geac!torsqnt!hybrid!scifi!bywater!uunet!gsm001!gsm From: gsm@gsm001.uucp (Geoffrey S. Mendelson) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.misc Subject: Re: Mac Clones.. just wondering. Message-ID: <1991Jan9.040824.5364@gsm001.uucp> Date: 9 Jan 91 04:08:24 GMT References: <53576@eerie.acsu.Buffalo.EDU> <1991Jan7.025124.11924@gsm001.uucp> <1991Jan8.010357.4297@eng.umd.edu> Organization: Geoffrey S. Mendelson -- Software Consulting Lines: 57 francis@uchicago.edu (Francis Stracke) writes: > In article <1991Jan7.025124.11924@gsm001.uucp> gsm@gsm001.uucp (Geoffrey S. Mendelson) writes: > [...] > > Inside Mac I-V documents the software pretty completely-- at least what you > would need to make a ROM code. Sorry, I never said anything about Inside Mac. I own one, I use one, but I ain't gonna program one. > > >They ended up selling some of their technology to Apple, pulled themselves > >out of chapter 11 and are happliy making IBM clones. Apple Prodos contains > >many features Apple bought from Franklin's FDOS. > > Like what? Prodos is based pretty strongly on SOS from the Apple /// > >First of all, I believe I saw a (new) Franklin Apple II clone sometime after >the suit (about Fall '86). Secondly, I'm not sure there ever was such >a thing as FDOS--the Franklin we had came with Apple's DOS 3.3. (Or >as near as makes no difference--the RWTS subroutine worked the same, >and all the formatting was the same, so it can't be that different.) The Franklin I bought used in 1985 had Franklin ROMs in it. They were Apple compatible, but not direct copies of the Apple Roms. I have no idea how much they changed, but they were not BIT FOR BIT copies. My machine came with FDOS. I may even have a copy of it around, but I doubt it. I lent my archive copies of all the good Apple II stuff out to somebody who moved away with them and left no forwarding address....... If your dealer sold a Franklin with Apple dos, FDOS, or PC dos was up to him. Though I doubt they would have sold it with PC dos or PRODOS. PRODOS checked the ROMS to prevent it from running on Franklins. There was a patch that was published in an Apple II magazine (not related to Apple Computer) to allow it to work. Apple DOS did not check and ran fine on Franklins. The machine I bought came with Apple DOS, FDOS, diagnostics and lots of software of dubious origin. I never used it much because I ran CPM on the machine and almost never ran anything else. But my Franklin days were short. I bought an AMPRO CPM system, and my girfriend got the Franklin. The AMPRO was replaced in about 2 months by a Zenith 286 machine and an AMIGA 1000. But I digress................... and if you don't know, PC dos did not run on Franklins, but after "THE SUIT" there was a lot of Franklin stuff floating around. It was packaged in some of the most bizzare ways.......................... -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Geoffrey S. Mendelson | Computer Software Consulting | Dr. | | (215) 242-8712 | IBM Mainframes, Unix, PCs, Macs | Who | | uunet!gsm001!gsm | | Fan too!|