binder@dosadi.DEC (Do not adjust your set...) (04/12/84)
The older Apple ][ and ][+ contain no custom chips beyond the ROMs and the character generator, which are easily cracked and converted to off-the-shelf parts. On the other hand, the Apple //e is almost entirely custom chips; there are only 31 ICs on the board, whereas the ][ amd ][+ have more than twice that number. The C64 is also almost entirely custom chips, probably because Commodore is the owner of at least one chip house, and because it'e easier to make it cheap if the function is crammed into custom stuff, assuming that enough can be sold. We'll see Apple ][ copies for a long time yet, and I'd guess that it's partly because there are many people willing to put up with the hassles of no lower- case and so on, especially when they think they're beating Apple by buying someone else's pirated copy. Pirating software is easier, but the hardware pirates are alive and well and selling Eastasian Apple ripoffs for $500. Dick Binder decvax!decwrl!rhea!dosadi!binder Posted Thursday 12th April 1984, 8:49 Eastern time by DOSADI::BINDER