Apple Computer Inc has always made it quite clear that it will not tolerate clones of its machines, and has come down from such a great height on the likes of Franklin Computer Corp, which cloned the Apple II, that the company has moved on to quite other things that involve less hassle. But there has been a rising tide of gossip about Macintosh clones being concealed behind curtains at exhibitions and shown to a favoured few, and also talk of a Macintosh clone doing the rounds in Brazil. It’s now thought that all the sightings lead back to one source, a consortium of six Far Eastern computer manufacturers who do business in the US under the collective name of UCM Inc in Cerritos, California. According to the Newsbytes newswire, UCM is applying for a patent on its Macintosh-compatible BIOS, which was written by an unidentified Australian software developer. And while UCM waits for a go-ahead for its Maclone, it is using some of the Macintosh SE-like cabinets it has ordered, which are piling up in the warehouse, to create sheep in wolves’ clothing sticking 8088 and 80286 CPUs into them and offering them to MS DOS addicts who are ashamed of their habit and would like their friends to believe that they are users of the sexy and hip Apple Macintosh machine.
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