Language⇒Japanese

My appleII Notes-19

My AppleII Notes-19

01/1/28 Updated Information on Clear Light
01/1/17 Clear Light Superstar Computer

 

米国のオークションで購入し、船便で忘れた頃やってきたマシンは、今までのどのApple II Plusとも似ていないマシンだった。 This is the machine I bought at a US auction, forgot about, and that then eventually arrived  by sea. It  did not look like any other Apple II Plus I had ever seen. I  will explain a few things about it below.

When I asked for advice on getting information on this machine, Mr. Sckop immediately brought Mr Eric C. Anderson’s website to my attention. The site tells the story of the development of this machine. I revised the notes below on the basis of what was revealed on his website and the stories related by Eric  in his email. That said, I must take my hat off (as usual) to Mr. Sckop, who with his extensive knowledge knew about Eric’s site in the first place. (Text containing updated information is in orange)

 

Clear Light/Superstar


The Apple II Plus configuration that arrived at my house consisted of the main unit, two Disk II units, a Disk II card, parallel 

interface card (I think), and an unknown card. The machine was painted gray, it bore the logo “clear light/Superstar”, and also bore the logo “apple computer Inc.” in small letters.                                                                                                      Up to now I have never seen such a machine, and the image that was  posted on the the auction site was out of focus, so I did not know whether it was genuine or not, but the machine which  arrived was certainly a unique machine.

I thought it was one of those special machines that was manufactured for another company such as an Apple II plus machine supplied to  Bell & Howell.

Eric C. Anderson is an engineer. He was born in 1946 and graduated with a degree in electrical engineering from Rochester University. He then went on to MIT and studied computer science. In 1979, he was one of the founders of "Clear Light Productions" (later renamed "Clear Light, Inc.") in Boston. The company was in the business of making multimedia systems that used slides for preaching. This system uses six slide projectors and has audio, and Eric developed the system as chief engineer.
The company's systems started out as a manual systems, moved to simple digital systems, then to paper tape, next to being purely digital, and finally to using an Apple II. Specifically, this system was developed to send a sequence signal from an Apple II to a control system (dissolve system), which in turn controlled the projector and voice.
At that time, the east coast  education market was flooded by Bell & Howell (BH) , and the design of the BH system was constantly on Eric’s mind. According to  Eric,  only two companies had Apple II based systems that where co-branded by Apple: BH and Clear Light.  Co-branding allowed the two companies to affix a nameplate containing the name Apple and their own company name on the machines they sold. The gray color scheme  was  probably to distinguish the Clear Light system from the BH system.
Whether Apple officially approved is uncertain, but there was an episode when Apple asked Clear Light to stop co-branding. Clear Light requested US$1100 to cover the cost of the remaining nameplates that would become of no use, and there were no further requests from Apple after that.

The BH machine was developed by Apple itself in collaboration with BH as a strategy for selling in the east coast and Canadian education markets, but the Clear Light Superstar system was nothing like this, so it is assumed that a venture company not related to Apple should sell a machine  based on the Apple II Plus under its own brand.


The key tops are black like Bell & Howell, and the serial number is A 2 S 2 - 555268. AppleII Plus The label attached on the back panel is the same as the later model of Apple II Plus. From the design of the label and the fact that it is gree, this model was probably made sometime between 1981 and 1982. ( (Refer to My Apple II Notes-2)
The machine has an RFI motherboard, which matches the manufacturing period  estimated from the label. There is no particular evidence of any substantial design changes or of anything being replaced. The power supply is also an ASTEC in gold, which was  a commonly used power supply at this time.

According to Eric's website, this machine was demonstrated at various trade shows during 1983; however, as the Apple IIe was released n January 1983 and the base machines were late-production Apple II Plus machines, it means the machines were mainly sold in 1982.

Disk II Special Model

The casing of Disk II is gray like the main unit, and the front panel is decorated with special lettering as shown in the photo. I could not trace back the history of this system, but I don’t feel either the the main unit and Desk II are more than 20 years old and they are in very good condition.
Disk II
The points of interest with the Disk II are that there is no familiar label on the back and the rubber feet are carefully painted gray.

Both the main unit and Disk II were purchased as finished products from Apple. Afterwards, they were painted gray and seem to have been own-branded by  Clear Light by affixing a custom name plate to the machine. It seems that the label on the back panel prevented the gray paint from being applied and so had to be peeled off.

Cards & Instruction Memo


The left upper portion of the photo is of a card bearing the logo for an APPIC from SSM Microcomputer Products, Inc. I assume it is a parallel interface card because of the shape of the cable connector. The bottom portion of the photograph is the Disk II card. No particular modifications seem to have been made.

 

The card on the left is an unknown card. The two cables have a DIN connector at the end.

上蓋には Every tray in#1On the top lid, there is a memo, which is as follows:

Every tray in # 1
hit RETURN to boot Hit RETURN to boot
Enter time & date Enter time & date
Main Menu E Main Menu E
File name MY KIND of LIVING, D2 File name MY KIND of LIVING, D2
Move cursor to Line 16 (GSTART) Move cursor to Line 16 (GSTART)
Hit R Hit R
Check Projectors #1 and power Check Projectors # 1 and power
Start Tape, count down must be MINUS Start Tape, count down must be MINUS
It reads like instructions for running software that synchronizes with the projector and moves the tape recorder.

このマシンにはハンドアセンブルで作られたリアルタイム、マルチタスクOSが添付されていた。 A real-time, multitasking OS made by hand assembling was attached to this machine. In order to compensate for the inadequacy of the system’s 64K memory, the system sets up an overlay system in DOS 3.3 and reads files from the disk and executes them each time. For this reason, it appears that the RWTS (Read Write, Track and Sector) subroutine was designed to stay permanently in memory.
I sent e-mail to Eric to see if I might be able to try and run this system in Japan. His reply can be summarized as follows:
· Eric no longer has this system.
·Each piece of software is protected by a unique serial number, so we must prepare two sets of active software, search out the portion that is protected by the serial number, and make corrections.
· In order to run this system, special equipment is necessary, such as a special dissolve unit, projector, and tape recorder.

It is likely someone still using this system in the US, so I would like to get more information in the future.

Eric joined Apple Computer in 1987 and subsequently developed a program for the Video Overlay Card for the Apple II, worked on a project to emulate an 6502 instruction set by replacing it with an ARM chip (discontinued during development), and was involved in designing chips for the 660 or 840 AV Mac. Now he is working at a company called FlashPoint Technology, Inc. that is developing an OS for digital cameras.

Reference: Eric's Page Http://Www.2Live4.Com/eric.Htm