scotth@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (Scott Henderson) (05/04/91)
Article 344 of clari.nb.apple: Path: ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!uunet!lll-winken!looking!newsbytes From: newsbytes@clarinet.com Newsgroups: clari.nb.apple Subject: Apple II Still Going Strong in Soviet Union 05/02/91 Keywords: Bureau-MOW, EXCLUSIVE Message-ID: <NB910502.14@clarinet.com> Date: 2 May 91 22:12:05 GMT Lines: 35 Approved: cn@clarinet.com MOSCOW, U.S.S.R., 1991 MAY 2 (NB) -- While the Apple II series of computers seems destined for the store cupboard in the U.S., as sales of the Mac continue to soar, there is one country at least where the Apple II is selling well -- the Siviet Union. According to Vladimir Federov, the president of the Apple II Soviet user's group, hundreds of thousands of users of the Apple II are crying out for information on their machines. The user group bases this conclusion on the results of a study to discover the main usage of the Apple II in Soviet Union. Federov told Newsbytes that the bulk of the existing Apple II- compatible population of computers were imported into Eastern Europe as a result of joint Bulgarian/Soviet work. The mainstay of the Apple II user population is the Pravets-8 computer, an Apple II clone that was available in Russia for many years at low prices. The Pravets-8 was not the only Apple II-compatible computer to reach into the heartlands of Russia. Another Soviet company called Variant supplied its own Apple II-compatible machine in order to bundle its local area networking system for sale in the Soviet Union. "So now we have more 100,000 (Apple II-compatible) computers installed and operating in the country. But users lack the most important thing -- contact with each other and the possibility to share the information with other users," said Federov. That situation looks set to change very soon, Federov added, thanks to the activities of the user group. It is estimated there could be as many as 1.5 million microcomputers in the Soviet Union. (Kirill Tchashchin/19910502) -- = R. Scott Henderson = "Some people claim that there's a = = University of Illinois = woman to blame, but I know it's = = scotth@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu = my own damned fault. = = Apple II Forever! = -Jimmy Buffet =