RealTech Travler

It's understandable why most of the "clones" on this site are obscure. They're really just Macs in a different case with a different logo. The RealTech Travler takes this a steps further. It is a Macintosh clone with a different label. The RealTech Travler is identical to the 200 series Outbounds, right down to the sticker inside the ports flap that reads "Outbound Systems Inc., Boulder CO; Model 200 Series."

Jay Menna tells the company's history:

"A company from Humble Texas had an agreement with Outbound. They changed names a few times. First they were called macRentals and they were in the "rental software business". Then they began to sell software under the name Software That Fits. Finally they began to sell all sorts of Mac Hardware and changed their name to Hardware That Fits.

"They went public as a penny stock. They had some VC money involved. I'm not sure of the details. I do recall the going public celebration. They roasted a pig named Scuzzy as SCSI had just come to the mac. The company then moved to Conroe.

"About the time the Mac portable came out Real Provencher, president of HTF, struck a deal with the Outbound people to simply act as an OEM for Hardware that Fits and their house brand "RealTech" (They also sold a ton of printers and hard drives. Perhaps even a scanner or two. They did not manufacture anything themselves.)

"At any rate, the Mac Portable was a joke and the Outbound was really cool stuff. Especially the SCSI disk mode.

"Along came Apple with the PowerBook 100, 140, and 180. The Outbound was a better machine but the cost of production was too high and I believe Outbound collapsed.

"A few years later RealTech got caught up in some nasty litigation over some printer stuff and eventually proved to the judge and the world that they were ok guys. The problem was the fight dang nearly killed them. I believe you can still buy consumables for their printers from them."

RealTech was owned by Real Provencher.

The RealTech logo.

The computer's bottom side, showing the RealTech Travler insignia. Note that RealTech really did spell "Travler" with just one 'e'!