0086 I can't get enough of these Apple II clones!
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- Опубликовано: 25 июн 2024
- Who doesn't love some Apple clones? With this bunch I have a lot of work ahead of me trying to get them all restored and working again, which is frankly pretty exciting!
-- Video Links
The Museum of Batch and Time-sharing Computer History:
mobat.ch/
VCF Midwest in Chicago:
vcfmw.org/
DiagSoft QA Plus: (I dumped and uploaded the floppy)
archive.org/details/diagsoft-...
Adrian's Digital Basement Merch store:
my-store-c82bd2-2.creator-spr...
Support the channel on Patreon:
/ adriansdigitalbasement
Adrian's Digital Basement (Main Channel)
/ @adriansdigitalbasement
My GitHub repository:
github.com/misterblack1?tab=r...
-- Tools
Deoxit D5:
amzn.to/2VvOKy1
store.caig.com/s.nl/it.A/id.16...
O-Ring Pick Set: (I use these to lift chips off boards)
amzn.to/3a9x54J
Elenco Electronics LP-560 Logic Probe:
amzn.to/2VrT5lW
Hakko FR301 Desoldering Iron:
amzn.to/2ye6xC0
Rigol DS1054Z Four Channel Oscilloscope:
www.rigolna.com/products/digi...
Head Worn Magnifying Goggles / Dual Lens Flip-In Head Magnifier:
amzn.to/3adRbuy
TL866II Plus Chip Tester and EPROM programmer: (The MiniPro)
amzn.to/2wG4tlP
www.aliexpress.com/item/33000...
TS100 Soldering Iron:
amzn.to/2K36dJ5
www.ebay.com/itm/TS100-65W-MI...
EEVBlog 121GW Multimeter:
www.eevblog.com/product/121gw/
DSLogic Basic Logic Analyzer:
amzn.to/2RDSDQw
www.ebay.com/itm/USB-Logic-DS...
Magnetic Screw Holder:
amzn.to/3b8LOhG
www.harborfreight.com/4-inch-...
Universal ZIP sockets: (clones, used on my ZIF-64 test machine)
www.ebay.com/itm/14-16-18-20-...
RetroTink 2X Upconverter: (to hook up something like a C64 to HDMI)
www.retrotink.com/
Plato (Clone) Side Cutters: (order five)
www.ebay.com/itm/1-2-5-10PCS-...
Heat Sinks:
www.aliexpress.com/item/32537...
Little squeezy bottles: (available elsewhere too)
amzn.to/3b8LOOI
--- Instructional videos
My video on damage-free chip removal:
• How to remove chips wi...
--- Music
Intro music and other tracks by:
Nathan Divino
@itsnathandivino 
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Hi Adrian! Ricardo here! I am sooooo glad you liked the computers! I will dig out schematics and documentation for them. The apple ii clones should be easy and I try to get fresh versions of their ROMs. Take a look at the keyboards connectors and boards because they are specific to Brazilian Portuguese which has some extea characteres.
Finally the TK3000IIe has 2 chips that were reverse engineered from Apple. They are not pin compatible with Apple. I sent both, one of them is working but the other one had all legs corroded. I am going to Brazil in July and I have already sourced those chips there so I will bring them and send them to you.
We’ll keep in touch!!! Have fun!!!!!
Can you get me a TK82C? 😊
Muito legal sua atitude, gostaria de agradecer! Nem sabia que existiam esses tipos de computadores por aqui. Eu comecei na época do 486, meu primeiro PC foi um IBM Aptiva 486! Sucesso cara!
Proud to see Brazilian computers here.
What programs were usually used by these Brazilian Apples? Was their a bootleg "Amazon Trail" made a decade before MECC made one? Jajajaja (In your language)
WDC 65C02 CPU processor and Zilog Z80 keyboard processor
Adrian's Digital Living Room
You beat me to it. Well done.
It's a living room, but it's all an illusion because it's digital.
Adrian’s digital living room!
Wife: ok, we gotta have a talk…
LOL
I'm glad that there isn't an Adrian's Digital Bathroom. 😂
Complete with a KITT-enhanced Buddha statue!
After while, Adrian becomes rich and then there is Adrians Digital Penthouse 😁
@@sampoturunen9337 If he invades another room, the wife is going to take half and he'll end up in Adrian's digital studio apartment.
Brazilian old man here, I remember these clones from my teen years. What always impressed me was the great lengths Brazilian companies went cloning Apples and Sinclairs, instead of just creating their own original products. Even at that time, designing and building 8-bit machines were fairly easy, and most likely easier than reverse-engineering a 3rd party's product.
Cloning Apple and Sinclair machines allowed them to use substantial software libraries.
I like the Microcraft logo looking like a Microsoft logo from the same era. Imitating two companies at once! xD
The reserved market policy did not allow partnerships with foreign companies. It started informally in 1977 to protect local minicomputers, was extended to microcomputers in 1980, became a law in 1984 and lasted until 1992. People wrongly remember it as forbidding imported computers, but back then no imports were allowed to deal with the foreign debt crises. The reserved market prevented foreign companies from making and selling mini and microcomputers (IBM and Burroughs had local mainframe factories) in the country. People also wrongly remember the policy extending to videogames, but Philips was allowed to make its Odyssey 2, Polyvox partnered with Atari to bring the 2600 and Digimed (Sharp) partnered with Mattel to bring the Intellivision.
And of course, Sega and TecToy.
Adrian, now you have more Brazilian Apple clones than me, a brazilian!
Pensei o mesmo, haha
@@LocKeSP Hahaha
The TK2000 was a clone of the Microprofessor II from Multitech (currently Acer). The main differences relative to the Apple II are that it is high res only and emulates the text and low res modes in software and the keyboard is mapped into the address space like the in the TRS-80 model I or the Sinclair machines.
People please like this comment so it can be seen by Adrian. This info is important. Thanks!
Mains voltage in Brazil is either 127 V or 220 V, depending on the region. Mains frequency is 60 Hz.
Oh, one other thing: the Atari designs were pretty popular here. Gradiente (the biggest electronics company at the time) had a NES clone called the Phantom System, which uses basically the case of the Atari 7800. And the controllers are clones of the Genesis ones! 😅
They tried to legally being the NES to Brazil. Nintendo was not interested because of a misunderstanding about the functioning of PAL-M system. So Gradiente brought a Famicom, converted them to PAL-M and presented to the japanese people of Nintendo but they were not interested. So Gradiente had entered into a partnership with Atari to launch the 7800 here, but because of the failure of the console, they step back and launched a NES clone instead. They keep the 7800 case because they already had the molds to do it so.
Ahh Phantom System... Meu pai comprou um desses no inicio dos anos 90, mas teve que vender pq tinha filho pra criar, queria achar um pra causar aquela nostalgia pro meu velho mas tá bem caro e dificil de achar.
I instantly recognized that Atari 1200XL before the bubble wrap even came off, being that the 1200XL was my computer growing up. Imagine my shock at what it turned out to be.
Adrian, Microdigital's TK3000 is the best clone of the Apple IIe, a very well made and robust machine, fully compatible with hardware and software with the IIe (it is based on the IIe Enhanced), including current hardware (for example Richard Dreher's CFFA boards, A2VGA etc. all work perfectly, I myself have the CFFA 1.4 and 3000 and they all work on my TK3000). The two custom chips were Reverse Engineered by Microdigital, but the chips are not pin-compatible with the originals (they are the chips marked MC168310 and MC168300, which appear in the video at 28:29). Another interesting thing is the keyboard, it is programmable. Microdigital, instead of using the keyboard encoder normally used in the Apple II, the AY-5-3600-PRO, it implemented a microprocessor circuit, with nothing more, nothing less than a Z-80 dedicated just for that (with its respective ROM and RAM, the EPROM that is on the right side of the board and the two 2114 static RAM chips), so the keyboard is programmable, it's really cool: you can program any key to reproduce a sequence that has been typed and pre-written. recorded. The extra LEDs on the right side of the keyboard are for this, and to activate accent mode (accents are used in Portuguese). Very cool! Well, if you need more information I'm at your disposal, here in Brazil there is a good Apple II fan base! Hug!
Question from a Yank. What were the "Killer Apps" for your Apple IIs?
That TK2000 is bonkers. (SEGA definitely did the "local partnership" thing in Brazil - the Genesis was a huge deal over there, and Tectoy only discontinued manufacture of it last year!)
I do wonder why Tectoy keep making Master Systems when the Genesis is (nearly) 100% backwards compatible?
they finally stopped? I figured someone on here would mention Brazil and Sega.
In Brazil there are voltages between 110 and 240 volts. It is inconsistent across the country.
Both 110 and 220V are standard. In most of the state of São Paulo (though the city of São Paulo is 110V only) you can find both in the same room! If you are luck they will be labeled or the current convention of using red to indicate 220V will be followed.
Is the 110 just 220 split like the US?
And all voltages, both 110/127V and 220V are 60Hz.
@@EduardoLuccas This comment answered my question. Your shirt in your profile picture has microcomputers in the Portuguese version (ES has it as fem in plural form), so that tips my notion that Brazil has split phase to 'yes'
@@No-mq5lw The t-shirt I'm wearing in this photo was made by a friend, who used to make t-shirts with "retro" themes... it has the logo of "Prologica", a Brazilian company that, at the time, produced the CP-200 (clone of the Sinclair ZX81), CP-300 and CP-500 (TRS-80 Model III clones) and the CP-400 (TRS Color Computer clone). The photo was actually taken at a meeting of retro microcomputers, a few years ago, in the city of Sao Paulo/Brazil.
Same happened to the Sinclair machines, they were cloned as well: the TK82C and TK85 were ZX81/ Timex Sinclair 1000 clones and the TK90X and TK95 (which looked like a Commodore Plus/4!) were ZX Spectrum clones. I have them all except for the TK82C. I'm still searching ..!
Tk82c isn't that difficult to find one. Try find a TK83 instead. Almost impossible to find one.
The TK2000 is a super interesting machine. It's actually a clone of the MicroProfessor II which is a (Sort of) clone of the II+. The strange thing is the lack of a true text mode with everything done in graphics mode. Scrolling is super slow! Machine was originally designed for the Chinese market by Multitech (Now Acer!)
So, TK2000 is a brazillian clone of a chinese Acer clone of an Apple II+, that uses a case cloned from an Atari xl1200. :)
A cloned clone?! Who knew that existed?!
@@mtrivelin No, is a clone from Taiwan
these new biodegradable peanuts are so nice. i worked at a workshop and we had a large barrel with about a gallon of gasoline outside to dispose of all styrofoam that came with new parts (bumpers were the worst offender). when it was all a very thick paste, it was left open to dry and sold to a local recycling company
I remember an ITT 2020 Apple II Clone, aka the silver Apple, from school. Strangely, it was unreliable for some people, but not me, and then the answer was found... Some people carried it out of the cupboard with the monitor on top, me being a bit of a weakling, disconnected the monitor and carried it separately - and you could see how badly it flexed with the heavy monitor on top, causing ICs to shift in the sockets. It was put on a trolley from then on
Fun fact, the biodegradable packing peanuts are made from potato starch and you can eat them
You _can_, but you shouldn't. They are often treated with fungicides or other preservative agents to stop them going mouldy.
Yeah, there's corn ones too. I used to eat them back in 2000. Didn't taste the best.
So basically they’re a Cheeto without any flavouring. (And goodness knows what chemicals added)
@@michelleshaw337 i always wondered if Cheeto's were the same thing...
@@michelleshaw337 Add a bit of Red 40 and you are golden. 😁
Very interesting video! Two things to keep an eye for, and I believe the other commenters haven't said that yet:
1. Brazilian mains is 110V/127V or 220V at 60Hz, as other commenters said, but in the 80s 110V/127V was more common in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo (the largest Brazilian cities), and some computer and appliance makers didn't even bother to include a voltage selection switch, defaulting to 110V/127V. Since I lived in Brasília, which is 220V, transformers were a common sight.
2. Brazilian analog TV standard is PAL-M (60 Hz, unlike European PAL, which is 50Hz), but some Apple II clones (not all!) had NTSC, because the video circuit was cloned just as it was. We had to use transcoders in order to get color video out of some of these machines. The one I had access to, an "Apple Senior" made by Milmar (actually a slightly enhanced Apple II+ clone), had NTSC video, but I didn't mind since it was connected to a monochrome monitor.
Yeah, Pal-M and NTSC are BW compatible, but not color compatible.
Those 40 pin ICs on the tubes labeled MC168310 and MC168300 are for the TK3000. The 168300 goes on H4 on the PCB and the 168310 goes on H6. If you need any help I have a working tk3000 and can take measurements if needed.
Re: Brazill. The law required computers be assembled in Brazil. This essentially would turn Apple into a parts supplier. Additionally, no preventing the Brazilian companies sourcing parts from other suppliers than Apple. Power supplies would likely be the first to be substituted.
Looks like one of your first video, many years ago, in the living room.
There are a ton of AS-400 systems still around. I worked at a steel mill, and all our order processing, inventory, material tracking, etc. was done on an RS-400 system, running the AS-400 OS. Very nice system, even in the 2000's. While i no longer work there, i keep in contact. They are still running that system 400 system today, because it just works, and even having to use terminal programs on PC's to access it, it is WAY faster than systems running on PC's.z
My second steel mill ran an oracle system on windows based servers, and it was a miserable system to use. Slow and terrible. But the GUI looked nice.
Don't care about a GUI, i need to get work done. The AS-400 system was an absolute beast, and still is today. Which is why it hasn't been replaced.
Love the "Microcraft" on the first clone motherboard, so Microsoft didn't feel left out😂
Impressora is printer, so that is a printer port in the TK2000. Reading the Brazilian Wikipedia page it was launched in 1984 and was actually a clone of the Multitech Microprofessor II and Apple II Taiwanese clone. So essentially is a clone of a clone. The remote in the back next to the ear and mic is to use the remote input of the old cassette decks so the computer can control the play and stop. The printer port is Centronics and serial so finding that pin out will be fun. It has 64k of RAM and a 16KB rom with basic, TKDos 3.3 ( compatible with Apple dos 3.3) and a machine language monitor. Microdigital did a lot of unofficial clones back in the 80s the TK82 was a clone of the Sinclair ZX81 and the TK90 was Spectrum clone and they had another Spectrum clone but in a Commodore Plus/4 case, if I remember correctly it was the TK95x. This computers were sold in Argentina in the 80s. I was a Commodore guy so never had one but payed with a few of the Speccy clones in my friends house. Good memories 😊
Microdigital also cloned the Spectrum as the TK 90, which was quite popular both in Brazil and here in Argentina. And speaking of Argentina I'm actually surprised that no one sent you a Drean Commodore 64, it's an official clone made here, pretty much a standard C64 but with a VIC-II chip specially made for our PAL-N TV system.
About packing: I have a few Apple display's that were shipped from the US by USPS and the Brazilian Mail and Telegraph Company - and they all got here in perfect shape!
Some cassette players had remote inputs so a telephone answering device could turn them on to take a message. That computer may have the same idea for saving data.
Awesome machines! Some of them look like they were ripped apart by Michael Bolton and the boys in Office Space like THE PC LOAD LETTER printer but the TK2000 in the Atari 1200 case is a thing of beauty.
Yes please do repairs and testing of these great machines
Couple of tips:
AC in Brazil is 60Hz.
RF will output in PAL-M.
Microdigital was famous for the TK82/83/85 clones of the ZX80 and 81, and of course the TK90X and TK95 clones of the ZX Spectrum. They were suuuper popular.
Eager to see these coming back to life!
Man, I grew up with those machines :) This brings me a lot of feelings from my past....
I wish some day you can get a Unitron Mac 512K clone...
I am working on that. Already found one but I am convincing the owner to sell it.
My brother's first Apple II was an Unitron II+. That company sold Apple II and even sold some early Mac clones - unlicensed clones ...
After they borrowed from Apple the idea of putting a pirate's eye patch on the multicolor apple ... then Apple decided to sue them. Unitron machines are sturdy and well built - my brother's II+ still works with all the original chips.
It's like Christmas back then, unpacking packages !
Impressora port is probably a printer port...
Impressora is printer, cassete is tape.
The 'Remote' plug on the same machine... back in the day in europe it was a way to control the cassette deck for multi load programmes. Literally just computer signals to start and stop playing. I think it was a function repurposed from dictation microphones.
Impressora means printer in Portuguese
As a Brazilian I confirm, it is printer.
Don't worry about the reverb of the living room. With such a close miking, it doesn't cause problems, it just makes it sound authentic :)
More fascinating stuff!
Brazil has had a somewhat troubled relationship with computer technology. We lived for decades under a military government which, among other things aimed at our technological "development", instituted a market reserve. No equipment could be imported. Everything sold here, with rare exceptions, would need to be "developed" here. That's why reverse engineering and cloning were tolerated, for the "greater good".
This gave rise to an endless industry of copying foreign hardware, which gave rise to mutants like the TK2000, a creature with the appearance of an Atari xl1200 and innards similar to those of an Apple II, but ultimately incompatible with the original. Which must have caused a lot of frustration for fans of both Steves.
If anyone is interested, here is a documentary about Microdigital, developer of the TK line of computers (which, by the way, comes from Tomas Kovari, one of the owners)
ruclips.net/video/TBPil_Lqwic/видео.html
Oh my, the irony. So even though they were anti-communist, they acted exactly the same as communist East Germany (German "Democratic" Republic). But the GDR actually didn't manage to copy much due to extremely limited resources - the war reparations for the Soviets were absolutely gigantic in comparison to what West Germany had to pay, some call it plundering, and they took an additional ca. 300,000 forced laborers.
That was WAY too short for a SMMC!! 🙂 Great stuff! I need people to send me boxes of random computer stuff! My wife would be FURIOUS!
Some companies did partner with brazilian companies to sell products here, such as Atari (Polivox), Sega (Tec Toy) and later Nintendo (Gradiente)
Also, whether it runs 120V or 220V depends on where you are. I live at São Paulo's metro region and everything here is 120V, but I know that on other capitals and countryside, things tend to be 220V.
Also, impressora means "Printer"
Patrick has not one, but TWO VAX 9000/440s- the biggest computers DEC made.
18:04
I don't speak Portuguese, but it says "Printer". Very similar to the Spanish for printer, "Impresor".
Very interesting devices and video.
Dude, that TK2000 is from a Brazilian company that used to sell Apple II and ZX Specrum clones (licensed clones, btw). Nice stuff!
That's a lot of stuff. Nice one.
I love the TV on that stand!
.. oh and the clones are amazing too!
Sorry, was too busy looking at the buddha with the sound meter
@adrian nice computers and goodies. i love your content. greetings from Steven from the Netherlands
His digital world has spilled into his real world.
I worked on a ton of Apple IIe clones back in 1983 - 1987. Wordstar->WordPerfect, Visicalc ->SuperCalc, ashton tate dbase 3. Had to do the CP/M upgrade.
I am loving those Brazilian made clones.
about our Apple II clones. They were around here during the end of the 70s and 80s. Just like in the U.S., We had a lot of software developed and great games also. Because of a US-baked military coup-d-state, during that period, the military government imposed us with the market reserve law, which didn't allow us to import IT-related stuff, Just a few companies, like IBM, were allowed to market here. Other foreign companies like Apple or Commodore weren't allowed to, so we had many clones. Not only Apple II, but Ataris and ZX Spectrum, which we know as CP-500, TK-80, and so on.
I didn't know these were a thing. And I grew up in Cuiabá Mato Grosso Brasil. Now, I am definitely want to find one to restore.
Hmm, Time to rename this channel to Adrian's Digital Living room. Now that you do this for a living, it makes sense you dedicate larger portion of the house to this.
I have a few Apple ii clones to repair myself so looking forward to your videos to get me started, they are Taiwanese ones from Australia. Agree that there is just something cool about Apple Ii clones
I love that brown leather chair.. Want one!
18:14 that's the printer port (impressora=printer).
I have an Apple II clone from Hong Kong. It is almost a prefect chip-to-chip clone of the plus, except it uses EEPROMs. I got it with a bunch of cloned IO boards inc a PAL video card.. The case is not a clone. It looks like the same case but the dimensions are different for the top door. MY friend's father bought it in HK for himself, then when they moved to Canada it came here.
Nice Buddha, nice socks!
The board on the back of the TV is a HDMI converter. Not sure on the brand, but I have several as those are require to take Component or RCA into HDMI for the modern TVs of today. I am too lazy google all the standards, but those boards are nice. Mine are a bit flakey sometimes, and need a power cycle after a couple of months of use. My kids love the Gamecube and the Dreamcast, but you gotta get the RCA working first.
Brazil does actually have 60 Hz electricity, which is why they went with television system M, though uniquely they went with PAL color encoding, hence PAL-M.
Send in the clones!
Neither can I. I love Apple II clones. So many interesting varieties.
Ohhh yeah! I confess I almost bought one of those Milmar Apple II's (the blatant one with the 'Apple II Plus' logo right up front), but I didn't do it because it seemed to have the ROM's all messed up. And at the time I thought 'damn, it would be nice if Adrian made a video with one of those clones and swapping the ROM's with the originals to see if they'd work!' Maybe I'll get my answer after all! In any case, I'm still searching for another clone, this one made by a company called 'CCE' and called 'Exato Pro.' That was my first real computer and I loved it. All the Apple II software ran quite smoothly in it and they should run on those computers as well (with the possible exception of the TK-2000 as Microdigital had some funky stuff going on under the hood - A Microdigital was the first computer I ever saw when dad bought a TK-85, IIRC. A Sinclair ZX-80 clone). And yeah, never saw an original Apple computer around these parts (Macs) well into the 90's. The law of the land (revoked in 1989/1990 or so) was meant to boost local computer industry, so the clones were legal. Of the big companies, I think only IBM decided to compete because... well... there was already a huge business IBM market in Brazil due to their mainframes and most IBM PC's were sold to companies as well so we got to see a few here and there. To this day I've never seen a Commodore 64. I was able to see a few Amigas only on retrocomputing shows (there's one scheduled for early August here in Rio). Back in the day, most of us saw what was going on in other places through Magazines. Sorry for the long comment. This one touched my heart. Will keep an eye out for any specs/schematics I can come across for those machines.
PS.: I think you can just use FloppyEmu to load software onto the TK-2000. I seem to remember looking at an ad around here with a TK-2000 using one. You can also load audio via cell phone through the tape thing. Will try to look for the software for that. Shouldn't be too difficult.
nice! some stuff from my home here
It's quite amazing how far some people would go to clone a popular product, and of course it still goes on to this day with things like smartphones and their accessories... :S
24:07 „Oh, hey. Nice virtual presence device.“ - Steve Wozniak (kinda fitting this video too) 😉
I love me some Apple clones too
AMAZING to see you with some Brazilian computers! My first computer was a TK3000 IIe just like yours, with a Unitron floppy drive.
Microdigital was one of the most prolific clone makers in Brazil. They had Apple II and Sinclair machines, an Atari VCS clone, and even considered (but never released) Colecovision and MSX clones. Fun fact: they used the name Microsoft for their software publishing arm.
A few years after the TK300IIe they released a "compact" version similar to the Laser clones, the TK3000 IIc.
They even tried some PC Clones, but could not survive the opening of the market to imports, when we were flooded with cheap machines brought in from the US and Asia.
Now you are missing some of our MSX clones. Sadly, the Expert has an all metal chassis and weighs half a metric ton. And it is hard to find one with a fully working keyboard (though there is an adapter that allows the use of PC USB keyboards)
The Hotbit is a smaller and much lighter, but less sturdy, machine.
Brazilian apple II? I'm living here and never heard something about! Nice to know (i hope because in 70"s there was a law that allow the local producers (companies) to copy any electronic without any problem with copyright or patent, really)
Adrian's Buddhist Basement? I love the TK2000, I imagine it can use a Booti device?
Cylon Buddha
Really cool to see Vax opening that place up in Indiana. Indiana is highly slept on. I might be incredibly biased though.
5:25 - Oh man, that screen brings back memories... I miss Q-Link.
Impressora (portuguese) = Printer (english). Most probably a Centronics parallel port, but, less probably, can be a serial RS-232.
Remoto (portuguese) = Remote (english). If it's a 2.5mm female mono jack plug, is no doubt the cassette deck remote control signal to start or stop the tape play/record motor.
I suppose "impressora" is "printer" ?
Impressora is printer, cassete is tape.
"Cassete" is Portuguese for cassette. A curious thing is that it's sometimes written as "K7", that in Portuguese sounds exactly the same, in a rebus fashion like "4U" or "L8R" from English.
17:25 - Microdigital TK 2000: I'm Brazilian and TK 2000 like that is one of the first computers I met, mid 1980's, thanks to a neighbor and... it's mind-blowing to know it is an Apple II clone! 🤯
But, as I only met MSX users (Hotbit/Expert), I decided to stick with MSX ecosystem.
Soon, Adrian will be able to open an Apple II clone museum.
What was the cry terminal seen in the back, beside your hat? Looks interesting.😅
This is the wikipedia page for the TK2000: pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/TK2000
The TK3000 is fully compatible with the IIe but with added support for the Brazilian keyboard layout - it uses a Z80 just to deal with the keyboard and special carachters. BTW, afaik, the TK3000 keyboard was pretty good the one you got is probably dirty.
The only down side to the biodegradable peanuts, is that they are made of starch. So mice and rats will eat them if you leave them around. Toss them quickly, or you will have a rodent explosion. Ask me how i know.... -_-'
I am looking forward to the videos of some of these working again 👍
In Brazil we have both 120 and 220 volts, 60hz
127 volts
The first Apple II clones in Brazil looked very different since everybody was still afraid of Apple. If you find pictures of the Microengenho I (not the II, which looks like a PC despite being an Apple //e clone) or the Maxxi from Polymax you will see what I mean. The Unitron machine you got was the first one to look like the original. As nothing happened to them people got bolder and bolder. There was the Elppa II and later just the Apple II like you got. The Microcraft clone was optionally sold as a kit and I bought just the bare board from them in 1984 and slowly put together my own clone buying a few chips each month and borrowing chips from my older projects. The TK3000 came out long after all other Apple II cloners had left the market (which was just PC clones and MSX at that point) and was actually cheaper to buy in Brazil than what an original Apple //e cost in the USA.
The Microcraft logo is interesting. The font appears to be the same used by Microsoft in that era.
The "Elppa II" clone was produced by a manufacturer called "Victor do Brasil"; the interesting and funny, Elppa II is actually "Apple II" spelled backwards. rss
@@gasmice Several people commented on that. Microdigital (of the TK2000 and TK3000 machines) had a software arm that was called "Microsoft" with the exact same logo as the original.
You'll need to have PAL-M capable sets to run those machines in color, but will be easy to use an NTSC set without hassle, apart from being black and white.
I recently bought some of those DB9 to RJ45 adapters from Amazon. They came in handy for easy connections... Just a heads up... =)
you have crossed the Rubicon! no computers in the up stairs!🤣
Super Mega mail call!
That is wild with those Apple ][ clones! Pretty cool you've got a chance to save them and hopefully restore them!
And I gotta ask... is that a Rasberry Pi hanging off the back of your TV?
7:34 don’t feel bad, I did too… Also zillions of 15pin to vga Mac video adapters with DIP switches 😢
Brazil also had a huge (HUGE) Sega Genesis (Mega Drive) market, that went into the 2000's, if i recall they were the final market to sell those systems brand new
It would really be great if you get one machine built and working from all the parts and pieces you got in the shipment !!
15:00 Brazil has both 127v and 220v dependig of the region.
I never knew there were Brazilian made Unitron Apple II clone computers. Not to be confused with the Taiwanese computer company of the same name that made the Unitron U2000 and U2200 line of Apple II clone computer that looked more like IBM PC desktop compatibles with there detachable keyboards.
The craft ii plus also looks like the motherboard has a Microsoft logo ripoff as well. Microcraft?
I have a Brazilian ZX Spectrum clone (TK90X) that also uses the Microdigital brand. From above, it looks very similar to a rubber-keyed Spectrum, but it's about twice as thick.
Those are really cool Machines
Hey Adrian. If you need help figuring out the board layout or rom dumps for the Unitron apII or the Milmar machine, I think I have the same machines to cross-reference. I do hope to see more of these clones working.
I'm waiting on a keyboard in the post from ebay, it was 48hr postage and today is day 3. hope its not destroyed.
Only person I've seen with a computer in a fireplace 😂
probably heats better too
It's very interesting to me that people went through the effort to copy a manufacturers chip and didn't add any extra features, refinements, or anything else like that... I wasn't even born yet when most of this stuff came out or was still being used, I was born in 90, I have heard that some systems rely on processor speed to control speed in programs and games so I could understand not speeding up clock speeds, I just had an awesome idea, in not sure if it's actually possible, but I'm now about to go down the rabbit hole and get deep into the architecture of some systems, me personally, if I know how it works I can not just fix it but make it better lol. Down the rabbit hole i go,