The Unauthorized MACS before the CLONES came around+The aforementioned clones

Apple just isn't one of those companies that can allow their computers to be cloned,

Unlike IBM to which they didn't trademark their tech except for their BIOS CODE which allowed their PC to be cloned much to BIG BLUE's intense CHAGRIN which led to them to sell their consumer division to LENOVO in 2005.

APPLE took extreme precautions to prevent their computers from ever being cloned since they still haven't recovered from their nightmares from the days when the APPLE II was cloned what with the various clones like the FRANKLIN ACE 1000

and the LASER 128.

So when the MACINTOSH started to gain traction and popularity as the 90s were coming around the corner, 

APPLE was taken aback by the release of TWO PRODUCTS that cloned the MACINTOSH in a weird way....

These two products were the

OUTBOUND SYSTEMS LAPTOPS

&

THE A-MAX DONGLE for the COMMODORE AMIGA COMPUTERS.

These are early MAC clones(Though one was just a hardware emulator)

Who's purpose was to provide a clone of a MACINTOSH to the end user without paying the higher price of an actual APPLE SANCTIONED MACINTOSH

I'm looking at both you 

MACINTOSH II(1987) & JEAN-LOUIS GASSEE!!!!

First, let's talk about the OUTBOUND LAPTOP:

The OUTBOUND LAPTOP was an attempt to bring MACINTOSH COMPUTER on the go with a battery powered laptop that you could use while taking transit, riding a train, working on documents while flying on a PLANE, etc.

And it all conformed nicely on a sizeable LCD backlit screen as shown above as well as a keyboard and trackbar for mouse control

The laptop seen above however looked like something that could give the MORROW PIVOT a run for it's money.

So OUTBOUND decided to update the system with a more proper NOTEBOOK style form factor later down the line.

Pretty cool huh?

However, APPLE wasn't having it.

But due to an unusual design which I'll discuss later,

APPLE could do nothing to force the laptop out of the market so instead, APPLE responded with their own early attempt at a LAPTOP:

Macintosh Portable(1990)

This laptop above was an early attempt but one thing that set this Laptop apart from the OUTBOUND systems is the fact that unlike OUTBOUND who used a PASSIVE MATRIX DISPLAY,

MACINTOSH PORTABLE used a much crisper ACTIVE MATRIX DISPLAY

But that display was also the COMPUTER's downfall.

Because back in the early days, ACTIVE MATRIX was INSANELY EXPENSIVE and drove up the cost for them laptop computers.

So that meant that only business or the exceptionally moderately wealthy could afford the active matrix laptops of the time.

APPLE eventually abandoned the portable in favor of the much better received POWERBOOK series of Laptops

POWERBOOK 100 with Passive Matrix display(1991)

POWERBOOK 170 with Active Matrix display(1991)

As for the A-MAX,

It's a very weird device that actually works in tandem with the COMMODORE AMIGA...

HOW SO?

Well, the AMIGA and the MACINTOSH share the exact same CPU 

The MOTOROLA 68000 CPU

And because of that, it would be possible to emulate the MAC on an AMIGA at full speed since they share the exact same CPU.

But there's one problem:

THE DISK FORMATS ARE INCOMPATIBLE!!!!

The AMIGA uses AFS as it's FORMAT for it's FLOPPY DISKS 

while the Classic Macintosh used MFS for it's FORMAT.

So the solution was to create a device that allowed much of the MAC hardware to be emulated from a little board that connects to the parallel port of the AMIGA

while a little passthrough was offered so that users could plug in an APPLE MACINTOSH compatible FLOPPY DRIVE into the unit so that one could use FLOPPY DISKS in the system.

So this actually became more desirable back in the 90s to just buy a COMMODORE AMIGA and the A-MAX DONGLE so that you can use MAC software or files whenever you've got schoolwork that had to be done on the Computer but your family wasn't well off financially to buy a MAC in those days.

(Back in the day, APPLE COMPUTERS dominated schools but not homes.)

The only problem however was to source the MAC ROMS.

Yes, both the OUTBOUND LAPTOP and the A-MAX DONGLE required the ROM CHIPS pulled from an actual MAC in order to be used due to APPLE at the time refusing to license the MAC TOOLBOX in read-only form.

If you want more leeway on how the A-MAX actually worked, 

here's THE 8-BIT GUY's 2022 Video about the device itself:

Speaking about the A-MAX, 

I've heard there was a variant available for the AMIGA 2000, 3000, 4000, all that jazz 

That used the ZORRO EXPANSION SLOTS on those machines which made using a dongle like the one above redundant due to the UPGRADABLE NATURE of the aforementioned machines in the paragraph above this current one.

APPLE must have been so annoyed about these cloned attempts that around 1992, APPLE just straight up licensed their ROMS and Board designs to Select CHERRY PICKED OEMS who'd want to clone the systems

If you want to know more about them MAC CLONES of the 90s, here's a video discussing it all

Eventually when STEVE JOBS was rehired back to APPLE in 1997 following the acquisition of NEXT, 

JOBS wasn't pleased with the direction that APPLE was going so alongside canceling APPLE's PERFORMA line,

He also canceled all the contracts to the clone manufactures who made MAC CLONES.

But what he didn't cancel were the hardware emulators to run WINDOWS on a PowerPC MAC so he allowed those cards to still be manufactured.....

At least for the POWER MACINTOSH series of Computers.

But the story about WINDOWS emulation on a MAC from the days of hardware and software emulation software, to the switch to intel CPUS, to the parallels software we use nowadays for the M-Series CPUs are a story for another time. 

Before NINTENDO, Before them other laptops did it, APPLE perfected DOCKED Computing in the 90s+COMMERCIALS for the POWERBOOK DUO series.

With the NINTENDO SWITCH turning 10 years old on MARCH 2027,

I though it was about time to look a specific product that APPLE made that predates not only the SWITCH by almost 25 years but also predates most LAPTOP computers before it:

THE APPLE POWERBOOK DUO

At first, this looks like any POWERBOOK laptop made by APPLE in the 90s....

And it its.....

But that's only the beginning.

Take a look at some commercials I've seen from that era

and

The idea of the POWERBOOK DUO is to have an ALL-IN-ONE computer not in the same vein as an ALL-IN-ONE Computer you set up on your desk like this:

But more like,

You buy a laptop but you feel that you need a DESKTOP but back in the 90s, it was considered very expensive to have both a DESKTOP and a LAPTOP due to the high price of RAM in those days.

So the solution was to provide a specialized DOCKING STATION that you can use your laptop with whenever the need for DESKTOP work feels right.

Some are just stations that accept the use of expansion cards and higher watt power but still let you use the laptop's screen and keyboard.

While others take it a step further and turn the laptop into a full on DESKTOP with it's own 

MONITOR, MOUSE, KEYBOARD, etc.

The POWERBOOK DUO is no exception.

APPLE knew in the 90s that there were those who'd want the convenience of both a laptop and and desktop but don't want to deal with financial sacrifices or buyers remorse so they sold the laptop and the docks to make the marriage all the more easier.

And yes, even JERRY SEINFELD loves all the benefits that the POWERBOOK DUO offers

Though it was weird to many viewers of SEINFELD to see this box of WINDOWS 95 on JERRY's desk here

DOUBLY SO since the POWERBOOK DUO that JERRY SEINFELD had does not support the DOS COMPATIBILTY PDS Card that allowed the use of MS-DOS(and WINDOWS) to be used on a MACINTOSH of the era.

Yes... There did exist a MACINTOSH that could run WINDOWS.

And it did that with a PDS SLOT CARD 

long before BOOTCAMP or PARELLELS DESKTOP were cool.

I did a Blogpost about that a few days ago:

The POWER MACINTOSH released in 1994 that could do more than just be a MACINTOSH: The Power Macintosh 6100 DOS Compatible Computer that ran PC software long before the age of BOOTCAMP

Happy 50th Anniversary to Marc Brown's FAMOUS AARDVARK

For those who still think ARTHUR began as a TV series back in 1996,

Don't say things like that.

ARTHUR as a franchise actually predates the PBS Series by about 20 Years.

Yes, That's right.

MARC BROWN's Famous AARDVARK goes all the way back to the year 1976.

Yes. That 1976.

Events that took place are:

My Mother's birth on JUNE 26 of that year,

-No Photos available-

THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA's Bicentennial of that year,

Then Incumbent President GERALD FORD went head-to-head against JIMMY CARTER but lost  reelection on November of that year,

TAXI DRIVER was released to CINEMAS to great SUCCESS,

FOX releases the TEASER TRAILER for STAR WARS during showings of KING KONG and therefore raised hype for GEORGE LUCAS' film for it's 1977 premiere,

The FAIRCHILD CHANNEL F is released as the first game console to use ROM CARTRIDGES for it's games,

Apple releases their APPLE 1 Logic Board for sale,

While MOS TECHNOLOGIES releases their KIM-1 Hobbyist board

BRIAN DE PALMA's CARRIE was released to cinemas 

And BILLY COORE's favorite childhood Mall

CAROLINA CIRCLE MALL opens in GREENSBORO, NORTH CAROLINA

Alongside all those,

A Former College Professor who goes by the name of MARC BROWN 

Had then recently lost his job as a teacher after the College he worked for went bankrupt.

His then FOUR YEAR OLD son TOLON BROWN asked his father to tell him a story 

No, unlike the FAMILY GUY screenshot here, 

it's not about advertising a Restaurant with competitive prices...

but rather it was about a funny animal

Yes.... It's about an AARDVARK......

"DON'T YOU DARE CALL ME AARDVARK!!!"

NO.

This has nothing to do with FRIZ FRELENG's THE ANT AND THE AARDVARK.....

Rather it was an original AARDVARK character made by MARC BROWN himself:

DOESN'T LOOK LIKE ARTHUR.... Doesn't it.....

Well, Artists have to start somewhere.

This story was about ARTHUR READ, an AMERICAN AARDVARK living in the city of ELWOOD in the U.S state of PENNSYLANIA, where he's suffering from FACIAL DYSPHORIA due to the fact that like real-life aardvarks, he's got a long nose where his mouth is also .

So he contemplates getting RHINOPLASTY but after testing out various other animal faces, he reconsiders.

Go check out a PDF on ARCHIVE.ORG so you can read the gist of it all.

Also, you may notice that in this book, ARTHUR is not even wearing glasses as the character's eyesight was still perfectly fine......

Though that would change when ARTHUR'S EYES was published in 1979

And it's here where his more familiar design is solidified if still a little off from his more common design we're familiar with nowadays.

This book from 1979 is where ARTHUR gets his trademark 

PERSCRIPTION SPECTACLES.

For several years since the book was published in 1979,

The READ family have maintained their pseudo-aardvark nose designs for the better part of the first half of the 1980s

As time went on, MARC BROWN decided to allow his character to evolve artistically and ARTHUR subsequently had his snout shortened, probably because the long snout made him more angst-ridden like he was from his 1976 days and it made expressions more difficult to achieve.

Though ARTHUR's aardvark ears were retained which made some people think that he looked like a mouse but he's definitely an aardvark.

Anyway, I think this book ARTHUR'S BIRTHDAY from 1989 is where the final designs were heavily solidified but you decide in the comments.

In the later years, many TV stations in the UNITED STATES expressed heavy interest to adapt the books into a TV SERIES because the stories provided good educational value for children but MARC BROWN routinely turned down offers due to the fear of losing his creative rights to the characters. 

But then he relented on JANUARY 1993 when CAROL GREENWALD of WGBH assured he'd keep the characters if he were to be an executive producer as the show's curriculum is to encourage children to go to the library and read books.

 

In 1996,

PBS, alongside the Canadian studio CINAR, collaborated with MARC BROWN to adapt his then 20 year old ARTHUR franchise into a ANIMATED TV SERIES.

And thus was born an ANIMATED Long runner, though it started with the Second Book

Production however was no easy WALK IN THE PARK....

More like it's NO EASY WALK IN THE TAPE AND COMPUTER DEPARTMENTS.

Even though ARTHUR is an AMERICAN FRANCHISE, Production services were split where most of the PRODUCTION is done in CANADA...

Specifically at CINAR(now COOKIE JAR) where the art, Layouts, screenplays, voice recordings, etc. are produced.

And as is the norm for Animated Tv Shows that were made in AMERICA or CANADA, 

Animation Services which include In-betweens, breakdowns, etc. are sent to SOUTH KOREA.

And here's the kicker:

ARTHUR NEVER USED ANY PHYSICAL ACETATE CELLULOID!!!!!

This was weird and mostly shocking because we are made to think that 90s Animation

DIGITAL INK AND PAINT was only a DISNEY thing through their THEATRICAL FEATURES

HERCULES(1997)

Because most animation in AMERICA often refused to switch to DIGITAL INK AND PAINT until the late 90s due to either cost of the equipment or personal beliefs.

With the exception of some shows like REN & STIMPY & 2 STUPID DOGS,

Artists like DON BLUTH and JIM JINKINS refused computer coloring early on due to their fierce belief that Computer Ink for 2D Animation does not look AETHETIC for their tastes regardless if they use SILICON GRAPHICS workstations.

So until ANASTASIA(1997)

DON BLUTH refused DIGITAL INK AND PAINT in his movies.

And despite the advantages it would bring to DOUG in the DISNEY years,

JIM JINKINS still refused DIGITAL INK AND PAINT even in the DISNEY series.

So it was a shock for many people to realize that ARTHUR exclusively used DIGITAL INK AND PAINT for all the FRAMES in the series, even as early as SEASON 1.

But like I said, It was no Cakewalk in the Park.

That's because AKOM, the KOREAN animation house responsible for the FINAL ANIMATION services on ARTHUR(They also did THE SIMPSONS),

used AXA, an Early DIGITAL ANIMATION software for MICROSOFT WINDOWS
(I'm going to guess WINDOWS NT 4.0 running on Intel Pentium Pro CPUs.)

Though this MAGAZINE AD from 1993 

shows NT 3.1 being used.

But the reason why people thought ARTHUR used CELS until the end of Season 5 was because AKOM was restricted from using BRIGHT COLORS due to concerns from WGBH regarding NTSC COLOR BLEED on their TRANSMITTERS.

"NO ARTHUR!!!

YOU CAN'T USE BRIGHT DIGITAL COLORS,

OTHERWISE YOU'D SCREW UP WGBH's TRANSMITTERS!"

And yes, WGBH was right about requiring the use of DARKER COLORS since many late 90s and Early 2000s animation are guilty of brightening the colors just because Computers.

It wasn't until SEASON 6 that ARTHUR was allowed to use a BRIGHTER Color Palette.

Also, CINAR & AKOM have made mentions that AXA was primitive when compared to more professional software like TOONBOOM or even CAMBRIDGE's ANIMO.

That's because according to my research,

AXA, being an early WINDOWS NT product, was very limited in what usable colors could be used regardless if you have a GRAPHICS CARD that supported 256 COLORS or even 24-bit TRUE COLOR.

For example, the COLORS per frame were limited to 48 before the RAM BUFFER caused the software to crash.

So with those limitations in mind, this also meant that BACKGROUNDS had to be hand painted before they are scanned into the computer.

Episodes were edited on 2" SCOTCH branded QUADRUPLEX AMPEX TAPES for final editorial and for it to be broadcast on PBS affiliates

I know this is slightly unrelated but.....

I think that to build hype for the PBS SERIES and because they also shared the same writers,

(For example, Joe Fallon worked on both DOUG & ARTHUR.)

DISNEY'S DOUG included a LAWYER FRIENDLY CAMEO of the two characters 

ARTHUR & BUSTER

And considering ARTHUR premiered exactly a month after DOUG, 

(DOUG premiered on SEPTEMBER while ARTHUR premiered on OCTOBER)

This CAMEO was fitting.... even if they are from different networks

Though the main difference is that DOUG already gets his funding from DISNEY 

While ARTHUR's funding comes from both the U.S GOVERNMENT and the TAX PAYERS.

Yes, I know it's late for me to celebrate ARTHUR's 50th ANNIVERSARY but I didn't want to limit myself only to the PBS series despite it's everlasting appeal to my generation.

And yes, I've read the original books back in ELEMENTARY SCHOOL in the 2000s so that says much for my experience.

The Tv Series, long runner as it was, ended it's run on tv back in......

While production actually finished at the end of 2019, the series finale didn't air until February 2022...

Hmmm..... I wonder why it took so long to air the finale?

And for anybody who wants to watch ARTHUR through means without resorting to YOUTUBE, the Arthur website, or even archive.org,

The episodes are readily available for viewing through the PLUTO streaming app on you device of choice whether it be PS5, XBOX, PC, APPLE TV, ROKU, etc.