2010s - NOTES
 DW FACTSby Dark Watcher |
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The APF Imagination Machine is by far one of the most unique systems we have come across. In the late 1970s, a company by the
name of APF Technologies released a simple cartridge based system similar to other consoles on the market. The console called
the APF M1000 was a simple stand-alone unit that marketed for $130 USD and featured a built in game called Rocket Patrol.
However the M1000 / MP1000 console was merely a portion of the true Imagination Machine. APF blurred the lines of "Me too" consoles by introducing the APF MPA-10 module. The APF M1000 / MP1000 video game console could be "docked" to the MPA-10 to create a hybrid computer. The combined unit became the APF Imagination Machine and provided the BASIC program language, keyboard, 9K of RAM and could be expanded to 17K RAM, color graphics and a built in cassette recorder. The cassette mixed an audio track with the data track so as you were loading, a pre-recorded voice would tell you about the program. A 5-1/4" disk drive option was also an optional accessory. The APF Imagination Machine could be purchased as a single unit for $599 USD, or you could purchase the console ($129 USD) and the MPA-10 module ($499 USD) separately. |
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 HANDS ON REVIEWby Larry Greenfield (Special Guest Contributor) |
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Before I bought my first CoCo (Radio Shack Color Computer), the first computer I actually ever owned was an APF Imagination Machine.
Made by APF Electronics (now out of business), I bought this through the mail from "Protecto Enterprises" in Illinois when I was still
in Jr. High. The APF Imagination Machine made a great first computer. Motorola 6800-based, the machine had an excellent full-sized keyboard, 9K of RAM and connected to your TV set via an RF monitor. The Imagination Machine was really an extension of APF's video game console, built to compete with the likes of the Atari 2600. You could first buy the video game portion by itself, and then later add the "rest" of the computer, though I wound up buying mine as one complete unit, as many were later sold. |
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The main drawback (like so many other computers of its day) was a lackluster BASIC. To program graphics required a lot of POKEs
or CALLs, and I still remember the command to clear the screen after all these many years: CALL 17046.
The machine did have some major pluses though:
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I wound up selling my APF Imagination Machine about a year after I bought it. I wish I could have kept it somehow, but at the
time, I was only a young kid, and needed the money to buy a CoCo. The APF Imagination Machine was a lot of fun and incorporated
a lot of unique features. It really was one of the better home computers of its day. The main reason I traded it in for a
CoCo was the differences in each machine's BASIC interpreters: the APF had a weak BASIC, while the CoCo had -- hands down -- the
strongest BASIC on the market. Since the thing I liked doing most on computers was PROGRAMMING and tinkering (in BASIC) rather
than playing someone else's games. In the end, a strong BASIC was what was most important to me, so I sadly gave up my
Imagination Machine. Though today they are extremely rare (by now, most have probably been recycled, and have come back as plastic dashboards on Nissans), thanks to R. Cotoia, I now once again have a working APF Imagination Machine. |
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