Vernacular Technical Practices Beyond the Imitative/Innovative Boundary: Apple II Cloning in Early-1980s South Korea

Abstract This article seeks to reinstate the significance of microcomputer cloning in the history of computing, seeing it as a vernacular technical practice that is outside of the institutional domain yet entangled with it. While exploring the practices of Apple II cloning at the Cheonggyecheon electronics market, and its contribution to promoting the computer industry in South Korea during the early 1980s, the study examines how the vernacular technical practices of cloning moved beyond the imitative/innovative boundary. It has two parts. First, the cloning of Apple II computers is traced with a focus on cottage industry technicians at the electronics market and their East Asian translocal connections. Second, the entanglements of the vernacular with the institutional are analyzed in relation to how clones were sometimes superior to the original while retaining compatibility with it, which in turn made large firms rely on such vernacular practices. Arguing that the boundaries of copy/original, imitative/innovative, or vernacular/institutional were permeable, this study concludes that vernacular technical practices of cloning, although outside formal institutions and official histories, constitute a critical part of the computer industry and the history of computing.