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CompuSource

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
CompuSource Compatible Systems Inc.
Company typePrivate
IndustryComputer
FoundedDecember 1982; 42 years ago (1982-12) in Minneapolis, Minnesota
FounderJoel Ronning
ProductsApple II clones

CompuSource Compatible Systems Inc.[1] was a short-lived privately held American computer company active in the 1980s and based in Minneapolis. It sold a variety of clones of the Apple II, including one portable that was also an IBM PC compatible and a CP/M machine.

History

[edit]

CompuSource was incorporated in December 1982 and co-founded by Joel Ronning in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The computer's first product was a Apple II clone called the Orange Peel. Ronning commissioned original equipment manufacturer Orange Computers, out of Toronto, to manufacture the computer.[2] It was able to run software for the Apple II but had slightly altered capabilities; as well, it used a custom ROM that was a clean-room design of Apple's BIOS for the Apple II.[3]

Around 95 Orange Peel units worth US$76,000 were sold between late 1982 and early 1983,[4] before the computer was the subject of a confiscation at the Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport in February 1983, when guards of the U.S. Customs Service seized four units from a cargo plane coming from Toronto. Executives of Apple had appealed to the Customs Service to look out for potential counterfeits of Apple's products in the years prior;[5] almost 2,000 such counterfeits had been confiscated up to that point in total.[2] Ronning stated that the Orange Peel did not contain any of Apple's copyrighted code nor infringed on Apple's trade dress, with an entirely different external appearance and detachable keyboard.[6] Customs eventually cleared CompuSource of any wrongdoing in March 1984, calling the incident a mistake, but by that point Orange Computer had dissolved, and CompuSource moved on to another supplier. The company continued selling the remaining inventory of Orange Peels, at roughly $300,[7] down from $795 in 1983 (both prices being a fraction of what Apple charged for their Apple IIs at the time).[2]

Shortly after CompuSource lost its first appeal against Customs in August 1983, the company switched to a different supplier of hardware for their next family of clones. Called the Abacus, these computers were manufactured by General Fabrication Corporation of Forest Lake.[8] The Abacus comprised both a standard desktop computer and a portable computer, the latter with a built-in 9-inch CRT monitor and keyboard. Both were compatible with software written for the Apple II and for CP/M; the company licensed Apple DOS 3.3 from Apple and CP/M 2.2 from Digital Research.[9] Ronning was able to avoid charges of patent infringement by deviating from Apple's floppy controller card for the Disk II and schemes to generate artifact color on composite video signals.[10]

Optional for both Abacus machines were a memory expansion card, a clone of the 80-Column Text Card, and an IBM PC compatibility card. The latter contained the circuitry needed to run software designed for the IBM PC running MS-DOS, including an Intel 8088 microprocessor. IBM compatibility was somewhat constricted by the Abacus' RAM ceiling of 192 KB.[9] (CompuSource had been in negotiations with Microsoft to license MS-DOS for the computers but failed to get a contract by the computer's launch date.[11]) The computers came with Compucalc, Compuword, and Compubase, spreadsheet, word processor, and database software respectively—all developed by ArtSci of Los Angeles—as well as three video games.[12]

The Abacus portables were introduced to market in January 1984, with the first 100 units delivered to 100 different dealers for inspection that month.[13] CompuSource achieved volume production around February, manufacturing around another 15,000 in the following months.[14] The Abacus portables were optioned with one or two floppy drives; a 10-MB hard disk option was planned for mid-1984.[15]

References

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  1. ^ OpenCorporates n.d.
  2. ^ a b c Gross 1983a, p. 8D.
  3. ^ Gross 1983a, p. 8D; Staff writer 1984b, p. 9B.
  4. ^ Gross 1983b, p. 10B.
  5. ^ Staff writer 1983a, p. 2C.
  6. ^ Gross 1983a, p. 8D; Staff writer 1983a, p. 2C.
  7. ^ Staff writer 1984b, p. 9B.
  8. ^ Gross 1983b, p. 5B.
  9. ^ a b Freiberger 1983, p. 31.
  10. ^ Gross 1983c, p. 14B.
  11. ^ Staff writer 1983c, p. 53; Staff writer 1984a, p. 30.
  12. ^ Staff writer 1983b, p. 83; Freiberger 1983, p. 31.
  13. ^ Staff writer 1984a, p. 30.
  14. ^ Staff writer 1984a, p. 30; Staff writer 1984b, p. 9B.
  15. ^ Nadeau 2002, p. 43; Staff writer 1984a, p. 30.

Sources

[edit]
  • "CompuSource Compatible Systems Inc". OpenCorporates. n.d. Archived from the original on February 2, 2023.
  • Freiberger, Paul (November 14, 1983). "Abacus will offer a 'portable Apple'". InfoWorld. 5 (46): 31 – via Google Books.
  • Gross, Steve (February 19, 1983a). "Customs puts lock on computer look-alikes". Minneapolis Star and Tribune: 8D – via Newspapers.com.
  • Gross, Steve (August 26, 1983b). "Computers will be deported, but firm has substitute". Minneapolis Star and Tribune: 5B, 10B – via Newspapers.com.
  • Gross, Steve (December 13, 1983c). "3 local makers seek niche in crowded computer field". Minneapolis Star and Tribune: 5B, 14B – via Newspapers.com.
  • Nadeau, Michael (2002). Collectible Microcomputers. Schiffer Book for Collectors (Illustrated ed.). Schiffer Publishing. ISBN 9780764316005 – via Google Books.
  • Staff writer (February 21, 1983a). "Computer grab is case of Apples, Oranges". St. Cloud Times: 2C – via Newspapers.com.
  • Staff writer (September 19, 1983b). "Abacus Desktop Micro Out". Computerworld. XVII (38): 83 – via Google Books.
  • Staff writer (October 10, 1983c). "CompuSource Debuts PC Line with Apple IIe-Compatible Portable". Computer Systems News (134): 53 – via Gale.
  • Staff writer (January 9, 1984a). "CompuSource to Ship First Abacus Portables". Micro Marketworld. 6 (23): 30 – via Gale.
  • Staff writer (March 22, 1984b). "Imports can be risky deal". Minneapolis Star and Tribune: 9B – via Newspapers.com.
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