The Soviet Agat (Агат) was an unlicensed copy of the Apple II produced behind the Iron Curtain for use in Soviet and Warsaw Pact schools and labs. Despite its origins, it proved to be a capable system that improved upon the original Apple II in many ways, being both faster and more expandable.

This did not sit well with either the Defense Department, which used a number of Apple II systems of its own, or with Apple Computer, which saw no revenue from the Agat. At a 1980 meeting, after the Agat had been publicly demonstrated in a Moscow trade show, a group of DoD officials and Apple executives met privately to discuss retaliatory measures.

At the time, Apple was deeply involved in bringing its new Apple III machine to market, but even before its official launch many within the company were privately aware that the machine was likely to be an expensive boondoggle. It had a tendency to overheat, its clock chip was highly prone to failure, the case geometry made for narrow, easily damaged traces, and the individual chips in the system were prone to jarring loose. While key people at Apple–notably Steve Jobs–were in denial about the Apple III, others–notably Steve Wozniak–were very clear-eyed about the machine’s problems.

The DoD, represented at the meeting by Brigadier General Irvin Hooper III, promptly suggested that the Apple III be allowed to “fall into” Soviet hands.

In the guise of a promotional tour, Apple III units and schematics were taken to West Germany and shown off at a number of electronics manufacturers that were known to have been penetrated by the East German Stasi. Extra copies of blueprints and technical specifications were also made available, as were the demonstration units. As expected, the East Germans–already deep in development on their own U61000 chip–were quick to seize the technical details and share them with Moscow.

This led, in 1982, to the announcement of the new “Agat IV” computer, which was promised to be faster, cheaper, and more efficient than the original Agat, which still had not entered official serial production. The Agat II and Agat III were notably skipped (dismissed as “mere prototypes”) as well. Considerable resources were devoted to the Agat IV, leaving the original Agat engineers with a skeleton crew and few resources.

The result was as predictable as it was inevitable: the Agat IV underwent a tortured development cycle, as engineers repeatedly tried to correct its underlying engineering problems working from reverse-engineered specifications. Huge amounts of equipment and time were taken up the the endeavor, with the only result being a belated May 1990 debut of the Agat IV, which was all but given away in small numbers to party members and military academies. In the case of the original Agat, its engineers had valiantly managed to produce 12,000 units by 1990, but lack of official support and the severe drain of resources brought on by the Agat IV meant that the production numbers were dwarfed by the Apple II’s 6,000,000+.

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