Laser 128EX: An Apple //c clone that is better than the real thing

[@mikaelmrup3196]

You are fortunate to have parents that were able to see the importance of technology and actually spend what was probably a lot of money in those days on equipping you with decent hard ware. Thumbs up to them.

[@smanzoli]

In 1984 (I was 11yo) my parents got me a pre-owned (used but brand-new-like) 64KB Apple Laser IIc here in Brazil (one external slim 5 1/4 floppy disk drive), where we had a few choices of Apple clones (and we did not had the original as an option, inexistent, and could not be imported due to local laws protecting local industry... of clones!). I loved it and learned to program in Basic, GraForth, Pascal and assembly, thanks to 5 books that came together with the computer. I kept it for 10 years and loved it. Still love it, that's why I'm here lol

[@Michael500ca]

I got my first computer, an Apple IIc that I still have to this day and still works, during summer break in 1985 in the Okanagan region of BC. I was so stoked to finally have my own computer in my own room. That is one of the best memories of my life. Almost 36 years ago now, wow time flies.

[@datacipher]

Lol. Well i still have my 2E from 80’s okanagan as well. On the other hand i had some friends with the laser - big disappointment for them as the occasional game didn’t run properly.

[@JustinEmlay]

It's so cool being able to get our hands on stuff now that we could only have dreamed of as kids.

[@Starchface]

Many people would later get rid of their old '80s and '90s machines. Obsolete but not yet collectible, who knows how many were lost to the garbage dump? Now that retro-computing has become a legitimate hobby as we relive the glory days, prices of what remains are through the roof.

[@gallgreg]

I have a Laser 128EX as well, that I got when I started a computer recycling program in 1997 - I love that machine! Some very cool features and was extremely compatible, from my experiences with it... Happy to see you feature it on your channel!

[@dhparadox0974]

I used to have a Laser 128 (not an EX) my parents bought for me when I was 12. I think it was $499 and included an Amber monochrome monitor and thermal printer. It was a large ad inside a Computer Shopper magazine. I was over the moon excited when it came and I used it every day. I wrote a lot of my own programs (nothing too complex though). Great to see one of these. Brings back a lot of good memories.

[@wbfaulk]

I love how the hero marketing photos on the box have the ports all sitting at odd angles in their housings.

[@patrickbetts5504]

Seeing you so hyped about finally using one of the computers you wanted as a kid, put a smile on my face! :)

[@clintvieira]

Now this was a walk down memory lane. The Laser 128EX was my second computer. I've still got it in storage. It still works as far as I know, although it's been at least a decade since I've turned it on so it's iffy. Nice to see an old friend getting some love. :) BTW, you can hang an expansion card off of the slot on the side as is. They also sold an expansion box that would plug into the slot and give you two slots to plug cards in. That's what the 5 and 7 switches on the bottom are referring to. Oh, and yes, the cracked version of Choplifter ran fine. :)

[@bryndal36]

I had the original Laser 128. I bought it in 1988 and saved up for it from working at a computer store that had started selling them. What was really funny is we had an Apple rep come into to the store telling us we couldn't advertise it being fully Apple compatible but because I had a huge library(100s) of games for the Apple, I was able to tell him that every single game I had worked perfectly fine. I had a hacked copy of Choplifter and it worked perfectly as well so no idea if the original version worked or not. I loved that machine.

[@albertstadt9853]

My office ran the dispatch for our thrift store operation off of an EX/2 with a big ramdisk box on the side. We used Appleworks to schedule donation pickups. We got it in 1990 and used it until we transitioned to a 386 running Windows 3.1 in 1993.

[@brianh2771]

I also have one of these. I installed the expansion RAM, works great. Also works great with the Apple 3.5 Drive just as with the IIGS and Classic Mac.

[@williamsteele]

Adrian, the switch on the back is for the keyboard... normal or the alternate... just like the Keyboard button on the IIc. Also, the expansion slot was later changed to use the external case to prevent accidently unplugging the card while it was running, which could damage the machine. It used a ribbon cable between the computer and the expansion box to allow them to move without the risk of pulling it out.

[@amyworrall9246]

You can totally plug expansion cards when the computer is running! www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Scrooge_McDuck.txt

[@williamsteele]

​@@amyworrall9246 Well, just read it... you must be very lucky and fast to do it correctly. That's not something a company would rely on when doing it wrong just one time can destroy the machine.

[@erinwiebe7026]

Thanks Adrian for the retrospective on the Laser 128EX. I remember seeing ads for it at the time (and like you, I also had a //c), but I hadn't realized it was made by V-Tech. I worked at a local computer store in the mid 90's where we built our own 'made to order' PC clones and for a time we also sold V-Tech pre-built PC's. I remember the day the store owner walked in and announced that going forward we would be selling them along side our custom PC's. The reaction of the staff was "V-Tech? As in the toy computer company?" We were all somewhat skeptical at first but when the first orders came in, we were impressed by their quality and value-for-money. And I guess our customers were impressed that year too and we sold several dozen that Christmas season (93-94?). I helped prep so many of those PC's in the store's back room!

[@spocklodgic]

Felt so exciting takes me back to those old feelings and memorys. Thanks Tech brother.

[@pauldunecat]

I can still see the Apple Iic commercial in my mind where it was controlling a high rise building, and the narrator said it was powerful enough to run the whole thing, as the lights get turned off. And then I hear "Apple II forever" and that brings an even bigger chuckle. Thanks Adrian for the channel, good times every posting on both channels! :-D

[@xqqqme]

I, too, had a IIc...and I, too, remember that commercial. Then, at the time, someone had to blow it all for me by noting that office tower lights, elevators, HVAC and other stuff just needed switches...and it didn't take all that much power to set a switch!

[@Psychlist1972]

My high school had purchased a whole classroom full of these for the intro to computing class in the 80s. Not sure if they were the ex version, though.

[@chrisbalfour466]

That's impressive. My elementary school in 1988 had a computer room full of Apple IIgs computers. Just for Number Munchers and Oregon Trail, as far as I know. The instructor had all the computers powered from a switched outlet, and at the end of each class period would cut power to all the computers. That couldn't have been good for them, in hindsight.

[@kirbyyasha]

@@chrisbalfour466 Yeah but when you walked in, and all those machines powered up at once. It was an amazing sound.

[@zeropointzer0]

My elementary school in the early 90s had one single PC - for the secretary. And my "high school" had some ancient XTs from the mid 1980s with B/W monitors and no HDD until around 1995 when they finally were replaced with 486s (MS-DOS). But they weren't used much because "computers" and "school" didn't mix well at all in Germany in the 90s (and beyond).

[@rasz]

@@zeropointzer0 mmm Germany, land of FAXes and typewriters :) My secondary school in Poland converted woodworking shop to computer lab in 1993. 286es with EGA and HDD. We learned DOS basics, then Boolean logic, and finally Turbo Pascal.

[@zeropointzer0]

@@rasz But just those good old 100% mechanical typewriters, not this fancy new electric stuff that you need to plug in! We're very open to new technology...as long as it has been approved for at least 50 years! 😅 In school we used Turbo Pascal too - in 9th grade, one math lesson per week was sacrificed for "Informatik" (computer science). It didn't have much to do with CS though, the math teacher (who didn't know shit about programming...or computers in general for that matter) took a fat TP book and copied code from it to the blackboard (while making a gazillion mistakes of course) and tried to explain what that code was doing...the nerd corner in the classroom then told him. 😎

[@ajgelado]

A small comment on 3 ½" drive support on the IIc (and maybe the 128EX too). All IIcs (except the very early, ROM version FF) support SmartPort, which enables them to use SmartPort 3 ½" drives. These are different from Macintosh 3 ½" drives, which need an “eject” signal on the port. In fact, including that signal in the port is what causes a Macintosh drive to die if connected to an Apple II. Also, SmartPort was way faster than Commodore’s IEEE-488, because it was designed so that the IIc could support an external hard drive (and thus allowed sustained transfers of 24-32 kB/s, vs. 8 kB/s on a Disk II or about 2 kB/s on a Commodore 1541). Commodore’s IEEE-488 was an old interface designed in the 60s by HP for controlling laboratory equipment (really!) and was not well suited for high speed devices such as disk drives. It was included in the PET because it was quite common in the 70s, and then carried on to every 8-bit Commodore computer.

[@kaitlyn__L]

Thanks, HP. (Though I guess they had no way of knowing it would be used inappropriately longly…)

[@jordanhazen7761]

@@kaitlyn__L HP themselves kept this IEEE-488 port (aka HP-IB) on their UNIX workstations and other machines for many years to follow, and used it for hard drives, streaming tape drives, floppy drives, and other storage devices beyond the original lab instrumentation role. At school we had one freestanding HP 600MB hard drive nearly the size of a washing machine, using that same interface. IEEE-488 on these computers it seemed to operate at about half the speed of first-generation SCSI. Some implementations were probably faster than others, though. I never used it on a Commodore.

[@kaitlyn__L]

@@jordanhazen7761 that’s cool to know. I do like a lot of their older machines, such as those shown off on CuriousMarc.

[@SteveMorton]

If my memory is correct, Central Point Software produced PC Tools for Dos and eventually Windows. If was my preferred software for all the DOS machines at work, I was sent some complementary copies of PC Tools as we used to order quite a few copies of it when ever we were getting new machines.

[@soundfluxsoundflux8603]

I was a teenager when i first saw the adds for this. I had to do a lot of arm bending and pleading to get it. It was mail order and with shipping it was $415. Mine was the Laser 128. I also got the expansion box because internal modems were cheaper then the external. About 6 months ago I was cleaning my basement and pulled it out after about 20 years, plugged it in and started playing Ultima 4. The modem still fires up and every thing works. They may have been a clone company but the reliability was way better then apple.

[@tigheklory]

This video was such a tease. Hopefully part 2 will show the full Monty.

[@lepompier132]

Adrian, that was also one computer that catch my eyes ate the time, the first computer that touche and learn to program on it was an Apple II. When the Laser 128 came out that was one clone Apple computer I wanted at the time and even more when the Laser 128EX was out. But along the way I learn to use the IBM PC & IBM PC/XT and for school use I ended up with a clone IBM PC/AT from Ogivar from the Montreal area, they were one of the few that designed their own motherboard and inhouse PSU/and tower case build called the "OGIVAR Panama System V". And the amzing thing is I still have that computer system. The 80's and the early 90's were unique in clone PC design. I remember also outside of the Laser 128EX, at the time if I had the budget, I would got the Apple //e that would gave the opportunity to upgrade to the //gs. but my parents budget could not help to give wnat I wanted for computer hardware. But I still loved that period, I learn to program in Turbo Pascal on and Apple II plus with a real CPM card in itway before I touche an IBM PC clone. Your channel does bring back a lot of good memory. And maybe I should restore some of the computers I still have in storage.

[@davidorama6690]

I’m as excited about the box as you are.

[@mikeuk666]

shame the other cry babies in chat here are not the same 👍🏻

[@airsoftmodels]

I used the Apple //c as my only computer from 1984 until 1994, in high school and college, so I missed not only the IIgs, Amiga, and Atari ST, but all the IBM compatible computers up until my next computer the Toshiba 1910CS laptop, which was a 486SX. I often wish I had the chance to experience the fascinating alternatives that were available at the time.

[@cg8888]

I'm so glad you managed to get your hands on one of these and show it off. I recently acquired a huge collection of vintage computers, and among the collection was an Apple IIc (with LCD!), a Laser 128EX, and a 128EX/2. When I first saw these, I mistakenly thought they were Laser XTs, and didn't even realize they were Apple IIe/IIc clones. Very fascinating dive into the 128EX. Thanks!

[@winstonsmith478]

That case has an Atari ST styling, especially from the side.

[@ErraticPT]

Looks more like an Atari 65/130XE.

[@UKMrFoxy]

I was thinking the exact same thing. Looks like my 65XE

[@xXTheoLinuxXx]

@@ErraticPT The XE line is shaped after the ST. So it makes some sense :)

[@vgaglory4555]

Glad you pointed this out, was the first thing I thought of, reminded me of my old Atari ST

[@HolgerT]

That was my first thought! Had an Atari 1040 ST.

[@Havanacuba1985]

That IIc setup you had with that little monitor is so awesome

[@dionelr]

The Laser 123EX was my first computer when I was younger. I don’t exactly remember what year it was, but we definitely went to a store to buy it. The speed is adjustable using keyboard commands. I seem to recall if you hold the number 2 key and then press control+reset, the machine beeps and the speed adjusts to that 2.3 speed. Same with the number 3 (to get the 3.6 speed). So many good memories playing old games and programming in basic.

[@RetroPCUser]

I'm getting a Laser 128 soon. I just need to wait for it to arrive, check the system for issues, and do some testing and hope the drive has a 100% aligned head.

[@MaidenAriana]

It is so funny you posted this today :) I had the Laser 128 (not the EX) when I was younger but we eventually gave it to an extended family member who did not have a computer. I just finally purchased one again for my collection and it arrived this week. The Vic-20 was actually my first computer but this was my first Apple related machine. It worked extremely well and I fondly remember playing the Bard's Tale and Kings Quest games on it along with writing programs for fun. I also remember explaining over and over again why it was actually better than the Apple to my friends.

[@MightyJabbasCollection]

The first computer that was completely mine, rather than being a family computer, was a Laser 128 (not sure of the exact model). I must have been 12 or 13 years old at that point. I'm sure my parents got it because it was cheaper than the Apple Iic, but it worked pretty well even after I spilled coffee in it at one point. I also had a Laser-branded printer which was a crappy thermal paper printer. I remember one day my friend's mother said something along the lines of, "I hear you have a laser printer!" (which would have been very expensive at the time). I was like, "uh, yeah..."

[@jordanhazen7761]

Here is a PDF scan of Laser's surprisingly well-written technical reference manual. Alongside Laser-specific bits, it gives some nice detail about the Apple II architecture in general, such as the soft-switches, memory map, language card & auxiliary bank switching, etc.: www.apple.asimov.net/documentation/hardware/machines/Laser%20128%20Series%20Technical%20Reference%20Manual.pdf

[@cheycheyc]

I think laser was a Dutch company before being bought out by VTech. Retrospector78 did a gr8 video on its history.

[@mingohagen]

It was a Dutch company, there's a pretty cringy commercial featuring Katja Schuurman.

[@Angellmbrr]

How 18 mins reading just an old computer box can be interesting/entertaining? That's why I'm subscribed to this channel hahaha!

[@mikeuk666]

it's a shame there are cry babies complaining about it in the comments though 👍🏻

[@Feenicks01]

I remember my best friend at school got a Laser branded 286 PC clone, man it brings back memories seeing that logo again!

[@LegoTux]

I remember seeing those at Sears, Service Merchendise, and other general retailers back in the 80s.

[@ultrametric9317]

Look at all that retro hair! I had retro hair too! I started upgrading to skin when I was about 23! :)

[@michaelmullett7327]

I really liked this video and would love to see more like it!

[@robertlawrence9000]

Really cool! I can't wait for part 2!

[@gaminawulfsdottir3253]

My first computer wass a Laser 128. This really takes me back. I taught myself AppleBASIC on it... because I didn't have anything else to run on it.

[@Peter_S_]

I had one with the expansion box which was a really cheap folded sheet metal enclosure with a small switching supply in it and a couple slots. It was NOT just a passive passthrough IIRC. I remember lots of sloppy hot glue inside around what looked like a hand wound inductor. The speeds are from faster memory being available. The Apple ][ ran the DRAM at 2MHz and gave every other cycle to the video circuits resulting in the 1MHz CPU speed. By using dedicated video RAM and freeing the main memory you can unlock that access time and now base system timing on the video timing rather than the DRAM timing restrictions of 1977. The 2.3MHz is actually 2.386MHz which is 2/3 of the color sync frequency and the 3.6 is of course the 3.579545MHz NTSC burst frequency. They could have provided 1.193MHz too, but there's no use when you already have 1MHz mode which is needed for compatibility with disk drives.

[@kaitlyn__L]

I can just imagine: “moom, do I choose 1 or 1.2?” or maybe more likely “it’s not woooorking” if there had been a 1.2 and messed with the disk drives.

[@scelbi8h]

Oh this video comes just in time. I purchased one in eBay 5 years ago and I only used it once to check if it worked. Yesterday I took it out of storage, and started looking for information about the RAM chips needed to upgrade the card. I can't wait for the next video on this machine, I'm sure it's going to be very helpful for me :)

[@darthbukowski6894]

Adrian, I am really enjoying both your channels. Great content.

[@Rodville]

The Laser 128EX was my first ever computer. I had to pay for it myself so that meant every weekend mowing lawns in South Florida heat for a few years to pay back my mom for it. It came with the computer, Amber monitor, and a dot matrix printer.

[@commandtheline]

Awesome these were a staple of my elementary school days right around second to 5th grade

[@Dark_eVader]

At 10:42, you were saying that you couldn't tell what the switch was for but it shows on the picture the Keyboard selection which you later discovered when looking at the actual product. Just FYI.

[@retropuffer2986]

Nice. I loved the Apple II clones. It was always interesting to see what features they gave.

[@parrottm76262]

Almost bought one of those when it first came out. Really looking forward to another video on this machine.

[@stevenbell8971]

As usual Adrian excellent work

[@anotheruser9876]

Funny to see the Brother PT80 in the background. I found one at Value Village the other day for CDN$8.95.

[@piconano]

I think Atari got inspired by the 3 slanted keys on the apple IIC, and went nuts on the Atari 512ST's function-key design.

[@Choralone422]

Those machines bring back memories! I learned how to type on a Laser 128 in school when I was in 7th grade. I can't remember the name of the typing program we used but I do remember getting to play Oregon Trail as a bonus for finishing my work early in class!

[@mikekinasz]

I have a LASER 128 (non EX) and am really looking forward to seeing how I might be able to use the RGB! Looking forward to next video.

[@OzRetrocomp]

Congrats on finally achieving a childhood dream. :) We had the Laser 128/128EX Australia as well; I have a feeling that Dick Smith Electronics may have sold them, though I'd probably need to get my hands on a DSE catalogue from 1987 or 1988 to confirm. I know DSE sold VTech machines from the era (VZ200/VZ300), as well as an earlier VTech Apple II clone (Laser 3000 a.k.a. Dick Smith CAT). BTW I wonder if that "STD/ALT" switch changes between QWERTY and Dvorak keyboard layouts?

[@mattparker9726]

Great, now I want ANOTHER retro machine. Thanks, Adrian.

[@hjalfi]

That's a nice late-era 6502 machine. 1987 is after the release of the Atari ST, Amiga and Archimedes, so 8-bit machines were thoroughly obsolete at that point, but I can't think of any other 6502 machines with that fast a CPU and that much RAM. If these were at all known in Europe I might be tempted... what's the memory banking like? Can you swap out the entire 64kB address space? If so, you could probably get Acorn's MOS running on this!

[@jordanhazen7761]

Unfortunately, the expansion RAM could only be addressed indirectly, one byte at a time, via address & data registers mapped to "slot 5" I/O space (similar to slot 1-7 cards sold for the Apple II+ and //e, e.g. Applied Engineering's RamFactor; not their Aux-slot RamWorks for the //e). So, unlike with the second 64K auxiliary bank, it wasn't possible to execute code directly from this memory. There was provision for bulk copying of data (address auto-increment), and firmware in ROM would set it up as a ProDOS RAMdisk. That's all I ever used mine for. EDIT: I forgot Appleworks would use it as extra desktop memory as well, with no need for any patching.

[@trafrellik]

The 192k ram made absolute sense the moment they said 3.6 MHz. The architecture split the clock for memory access between CPU and video, so by handing the video memory to a separate bank you can now spend all the clock cycles on the CPU and let a dedicated chip deal with video memory access (probably through banking, which also explains why it would be more than an 2k, 8k or 16 k range - which corresponds to the "modified" video modes on the //+).

[@dennisp.2147]

Laser made a very similar form factor machine that was a PC XT clone. As well as a standard looking XT desktop machine.

[@kevincozens6837]

Where I am VTech is a maker of cordless home telephones. There isn't much confusion about 128k vs 192k as it mentions that 64k is for video RAM. That leaves 128k for running programs.

[@tenminutetokyo2643]

I later worked with someone from Central Point in Silicon Valley in the late 90's. All the small utility companies back then were cool.

[@opp31337]

we had a laser when i was a kid but i don't remember if it was a 128 or a 128EX as i was very very young when we had it.

[@guyfellows2293]

the EX/2 remembers date and time and port settings. on the ex you had to set them each time. Also the EX/2 will let you chose which slot to boot from.

[@junker15]

A LASER 128EX like this was the first computer I ever owned (bought it at Sears in 1990). Since Central Point Software were the distributor of it, it even came with a copy of Copy II+! A sort of downfall to the LASER 128EX is the keyboard. It's a cheap rubber dome affair, and a common failure mode is that some keys lose their conductivity over time. Scribbling on a piece of paper with a pencil, then rubbing the affected domes in the graphite seems to sort it. (Yes, the keyboard has INDIVIDUAL domes!) LASER 128EX UDC can use Apple 3.5 drives (the "dumb" version as used on the IIgs and IIc+). It will not only NOT work with the UniDisk 3.5, it will damage the hardware if you connect one and then power on. UniDisk 3.5 and other SmartPort things like the IIgs SmartPort and Slinky use the same protocol; it's just that the LIRON hardware was made for slower computers like the II+, IIc, and IIe, so the UniDisk 3.5 has its own 65C02, SRAM, and ROM in the drive, and the LIRON controller card has an IWM and SmartPort firmware on it. The IIc just needed a firmware upgrade to use the UniDisk 3.5 since there was already an IWM in it. As for CPU acceleration, the LASER 128EX has a 4MHz 65C02 and just seems to be run at the speed you choose (hold "1", "2", or "3" while powering on). It doesn't appear to have any cache like the Zip chip I never was able to get a sidecar for it, but I worked out years later that the expansion slot was just a pin-for-pin Apple II slot, and if I set slot 5 or 7 as "external", that's what the expansion slot would be. I just put my expansion card in face up and it works. You only need the sidecar if you want two slots external. The RAM board appears as "/RAM5" in ProDOS. Appears to be Slinky-compatible. You can expand this board in banks of 256kB using 41256s just like a real Slinky.

[@pickronk]

I would visit my friend when I was a kid and he had one, we loved it!! Better than my Apple IIe - wasn't completely compatible but mostly

[@flaturiah]

Whoa wait, I'm actually early to the (presumably) public release. Good seeing you, Adrian!

[@Obie327]

Hey Adrian!, I was one of the lucky ones to purchase my Laser 128ex at Sears. I never actually owned an Apple 2 C/E, Or GS just played with them in school or library. Since I had a huge collection of games and apps already... I saw that Sears had an Apple clone and bought one later on when I had some money. (clearance sale) Sadly my Laser was put in the garage when I moved away and was broken when I returned from out of state. (sad) Love to see a further software and internal dive into this beloved computer. Thanks again for the video! P.S. I would thoroughly enjoy hearing some classical music played through it's speaker system.

[@joshuamacdonald4913]

This is on my list. I would love to find one.

[@Colin_Ames]

Nice find!

[@MrAlan1828]

Wish I had a Laser 128EX vs Apple IIC, fast forward to April 2023 I got them both

[@zerocooler7]

I used Apple II computers in school and wanted one of my own. I saw this computer in a Sears catalog, and I kept asking my parents to buy it for me. Then Christmas came and I got my surprise - a Laser computer but not this one. They gave me a Laser Compact XT, which looked very similar to this but was an IBM-compatible machine instead of an Apple compatible one. So I have always been curious as to what I could have had if they bought this instead.

[@sonic-12_2]

Hey it's has the LCD port thats removes certain pins expect the ones required to power the LCD the replaced pins allow for rgb

[@rickydoingtech]

I didn't know that vtech made any more computers other than the laser 200 and laser 300, makes me interested in getting one of these ☺️ Awesome video and educational as always, thank you for your content

[@AlphaFox78]

I had that same Hayes 2400 baud modem as a kid! My parents used it to auto dial phone numbers but when they replaced it I got it. much fast.

[@kenny13a]

I love how you spend 20 minutes examine the box

[@mikeuk666]

that's what we love

[@braddl9442]

Half the video was just the box, you could feel the kid that prob looked at that thing in mags and the stores come out. I remember the days that packaging used to get me excited like that

[@danilko1]

This was me. When you can't have one, you obsessed over the specs and adverts. Then life kicks in. Those moments however are burned in.

[@Scoopta]

You could read the standard kbd and alt kbd labels on the box

[@christianlingurar7085]

I understand you, I totally understand you :-) I didn't even dare to dream of this machine, but I knew it. I DID dare to dream of a IIc with LCD, but it was far out of reach

[@desiv1170]

Great vid. Always loved the Laser 128 series... That said, what interested me most in this video... Cricket Sound Box for the //c? Never heard about that!!! Interesting!!!

[@adriansdigitalbasement]

Yeah it had limited support but was the Mockingboard over serial. It did work and I loved it!

[@souta95]

My 3rd grade teacher had one of these in her classroom in the mid-90's. I remember playing Word Muncher and Number Muncher along with Oregon Trail, but Oregon trail had a bad spot on the disk and I never was able to finish it.

[@organiccold]

Adrian does a video where 18 minutes is talking about a computer nox and i loved it. Only you do turn a cardboard box in an interesting theme lol

[@Bakamoichigei]

0:32 Ghostbusters! I played the absolute hell out of that on the Apple! :D

[@mancavehobbies6213]

Awwwwww diddy Adrian ...LOVE THE OLD VOLVO IN THE BACKGROUND ....

[@jimcompton4587]

I think that's an 140 wagon

[@pd8559]

2nd computer for me (TI/994a 1st) finally I beat Adrian! Oh snap! Wait a minute now I feel very old 🤣😭

[@misterhat5823]

That was my first computer.

[@kaitlyn__L]

I’m such a baby, my first computer was a 1999 generic-ish Pentium 3. But to this day, I still miss how tactile and clicky that power button was.

[@rarbiart]

i remember a Laser(?) which was able to start in 3 different modes: Apple][, CP/M or MS-DOS. I can't find the exact model, but that had been my dream machine of the early 1980ies.

[@RomeoG39]

I loved my IIc. But I do remember drooling over all of the home computer magazine ads for other computers, expansions, peripherals, etc...

[@brzzzaaaPP]

The STD/ALT keyboard switch was to change the key layout from standard QWERTY to Dvorak. If you looked at your Apple //c, it had this switch on top along with the 40/80 column switch. The idea of the Dvorak layout was if you learned it, it would make you faster at typing if you were right-handed. The split between normal English language was like 55% right handed characters to 45% left-handed. Contrast this with QWERTY where the left hand hit 73% to 27% of characters on the right hand. This is an odd anachronism of typewriters; the idea was originally meant to SLOW DOWN the typist as the original Sholes typewriter (and many subsequent until the invention of the IBM Selectric typewriter) had the characters pound the paper on the roller with a swinging hammer of sorts. What would happen if the typist was too fast would result in collisions of these hammers where the new letter was swinging forward and would tangle with the returning previous character's hammer and the device would end up jammed until manually freed by the user or in extreme circumstances, a repair technician. Dvorak was meant as a way to break from this anomolous anachronism but never really caught on as all secretarial schools still taught QWERTY in their keyboarding classes.

[@Edricofifrit]

Dude! I had one of these back in 1987, little 7 year old me played a LOT of Solo Flight on it, and Loved keeping my mom awake with Print Shop and the noisy printer. That's awesome!. Also had a Commodore 64 and a Spartan something or other that made it run Apple stuff.

[@ninoporcino5790]

the name of the company is Video Technology, "VTech" is the logo but also an abbreviation/alias name. Before 1985 VTech did reverse-engine the Apple disk drive, porting its floppy disc GCR format from 6502 to Z80; they added it to their "Laser 500" home computer line. In that period they were also producing their own VLSI chips, so along with knowledge of Apple technology they decided to make an Apple IIc/e clone. Our local Laser Computer Club had one Laser 128 and I remember using it for a short time.

[@erichkohl9317]

In junior high my friend Mike got one of these, and I had an Apple //e, so we finally were able to share some computer experiences together.

[@BestSpatula]

At last, a KZbin video about my first childhood computer. I hope you get to the RGB functionality on this machine. I'm curious about the pinout.

[@cee128d]

Had a former co-worker give me his old 128EX and an original 128 about 20 years ago. Also had one of their IBM XT clones that had a similar look.

[@jordanhazen7761]

Regarding the usefulness of an 128EX/2's 3.5" floppy drive option, though you probably wouldn't want one as your only drive, keep in mind that these were double-sided and stored 800K, just like Macs of the same period, which was about 5.7 times the capacity of Apple's 5.25" Disk II format-- far more of a relative capacity gain than on a PC. With the compact size of most Apple software, these could almost serve the role of little removable hard drives, or Syquest/ZIP cartridges from a later era. I found this among the most useful features of my Laser, but did keep the 5.25" external drive from the Apple //c I'd upgraded from, which became Slot 6, Drive 1 (the internal 3.5" was S7D1) and was used mainly for self-booting games (though some could be coerced into running from 3.5" under a patched DOS 3.3, which saw the drive as two volumes of 400K - largest addressable disk size under that OS, I believe). I don't know if Laser ever supported multiple, daisy-chained external floppies like a //GS.

[@RoyaltyFreeMusicTracks]

Outro music is Abyss by < e s c p >. You forgot to credit.

[@stevesether]

Almost 30 years ago I remember having a conversation with a friend of mine, and his father about the Apple II line. In the 80s I was a Commodore kid and had a 64, and later a 128. They had an Apple IIc. At this point (early to mid 90s) my friend and I had both gotten Amigas, and the father had moved on to the PC world, so this was more like a look back at the (recent) past than it was about what computer to buy, since by then the Apple II line was all but dead. I didn't know a huge amount about all the Apple II line, so I asked them what the best Apple II was. They argued for the Apple IIc because it had everything you'd ever want, and was portable. I argued for the IIe, since it had expansion slots. That was the one thing I always missed about the C64/128, lack of expandability. Sure, it had some RAM expansion slots used by GEOS, but for the most part most software never took advantage of it. The Amiga had an expansion slot (which I had already bought a HD and more memory for by then), so in my mind expansion was just absolutely necessary. Now, almost 30 years later I realize that the best Apple II machine wasn't made by Apple, it was made by VTech!

[@StuBonham]

As a young home computer hobbyist, Apple stuff was well out of my price bracket. Its interesting to see what I was missing!

[@bobjones-ey5gl]

3 finger Salute @ 22:00 Open Apple Ctrl Reset - Ctrl Alt Del - Ctrl Left Amiga Right Amiga

[@tommyovesen]

Great video Adrian. I have a Laser 200 machine in my collection That was my first machine back in 82-83. I learnt programming basic on that before I went over to the C64.

[@tenmillionvolts]

When he said vtech laser, I thought that's familiar... Here in New Zealand, they were called the VZ200. Our main electronics shop sold them for years

[@mrjsv4935]

Very interesting! Didn't know Vtech did computers after the Laser 2001, which I kind of have as a Finnish version, called Salora Manager.

[@sjn7220]

My first computer was a Laser128 (non-EX version). Bought it from a catalog in 1988 with a monitor, printer, and 2nd disk drive way cheaper than any Apple II sold at the time (I think around $1000-$1200 total at the time). Over time some of the keys on the keyboard stopped working or worked intermittently and I eventually donated it. I remember running AppleWorks with the Beagle Bros. add-on to print in all sorts of different fonts. Eventually bought a 1200 baud modem to dial into bulletin boards. Fond days.

[@memsom]

VTech made all kinds of crazy stuff. The VTech Helio was a Palm Pilot rip off, including VT-OS, a complete OS that was very PalmOS like.