A Macintosh clone is a personal computer made by a manufacturer other than Apple, using (or compatible with) Macintosh

Macintosh

The Macintosh , or Mac, is a series of several lines of personal computers designed, developed, and marketed by Apple Inc. The first Macintosh was introduced by Apple's then-chairman Steve Jobs on January 24, 1984; it was the first commercially successful personal computer to feature a mouse and a...

 ROM

Firmware

In electronic systems and computing, firmware is a term often used to denote the fixed, usually rather small, programs and/or data structures that internally control various electronic devices...

s and system software

System software

System software is computer software designed to operate the computer hardware and to provide a platform for running application software.The most basic types of system software are:...

.

Background

The Apple II

Apple II series

The Apple II series is a set of 8-bit home computers, one of the first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products, designed primarily by Steve Wozniak, manufactured by Apple Computer and introduced in 1977 with the original Apple II...

 and IBM PC

IBM PC

The IBM Personal Computer, commonly known as the IBM PC, is the original version and progenitor of the IBM PC compatible hardware platform. It is IBM model number 5150, and was introduced on August 12, 1981...

 computer lines were "cloned" by other manufacturers who had reverse-engineer

Reverse engineering

Reverse engineering is the process of discovering the technological principles of a device, object, or system through analysis of its structure, function, and operation...

ed the minimal amount of firmware

Firmware

In electronic systems and computing, firmware is a term often used to denote the fixed, usually rather small, programs and/or data structures that internally control various electronic devices...

 in the computers' ROM chips and subsequently legally produced computers that would run the same software. These clones were seen by Apple as a threat, as Apple II sales had presumably suffered from the competition provided by Franklin Computer Corporation and other clone manufacturers, both legal and illegal. At IBM, the threat proved to be real: most of the market eventually went to cloners like Compaq

Compaq

Compaq Computer Corporation is a personal computer company founded in 1982. Once the largest supplier of personal computing systems in the world, Compaq existed as an independent corporation until 2002, when it was acquired for US$25 billion by Hewlett-Packard....

, Leading Edge

Leading Edge (company)

Leading Edge Hardware Products, Inc., was a computer manufacturer in the 1980s and the 1990s. It was based in Westborough, Massachusetts.-History:...

, Tandy

Tandy Corporation

Tandy Corporation was a family-owned leather goods company based in Fort Worth, Texas. Tandy was founded in 1919 as a leather supply store, and acquired RadioShack in 1963. The Tandy name was dropped in May 2000, when RadioShack Corporation was made the official name.-History:Tandy began in 1919...

, Kaypro

Kaypro

Kaypro Corporation, commonly called Kaypro, was an American home/personal computer manufacturer of the 1980s. The company was founded by Non-Linear Systems to develop computers to compete with the then-popular Osborne 1 portable microcomputer...

, Packard Bell

Packard Bell

Packard Bell is a Dutch computer manufacturer and a subsidiary of Acer. The name was previously used by Packard Bell, an American radio manufacturer founded in 1926. In 1986, Israeli investors bought the name for a newly formed personal computer manufacturer. Originally the company produced...

, and dozens of smaller companies, and in short order IBM found it had lost control over its own platform.

Apple eventually licensed the Apple II ROMs to other companies. The earliest, the Bell & Howell Apple II+ was manufactured by projector and lens manufacturer Böwe Bell & Howell to capitalize on its stature in schools. The Bell & Howell Apple II+ was notable for its black enclosure with carrying handle, its coaxial video output and a stereo jack for headphones. Unlike the Apple II+, which lacked UL Certification

Underwriters Laboratories

Underwriters Laboratories Inc. is an independent product safety certification organization. Established in 1894, the company has its headquarters in Northbrook, Illinois. UL develops standards and test procedures for products, materials, components, assemblies, tools and equipment, chiefly dealing...

 because its case could be opened while it was running, the Bell & Howell was fully certified. Apple also licensed the Apple II ROMs to educational toy manufacturer Tiger Electronics to produce an inexpensive laptop with educational games and the AppleWorks

AppleWorks

AppleWorks refers to two different office suite products, both of which are now discontinued. Originally, AppleWorks was an integrated software package for the Apple II platform, released in 1984 by Apple Computer...

 software suite, the Tiger Learning Computer (TLC). The TLC lacked a built in display. Its lid acted as a holster for the cartridges that stored the bundled software since it had no floppy drive.

Wary of repeating history and wanting to retain tight control of its product, Apple's Macintosh strategy included technical and legal measures that rendered the production of Mac clones problematic. The original Macintosh system software was a very large amount of complex code that embodied the Mac's entire set of APIs, including the use of the GUI and file system

File system

A file system is a means to organize data expected to be retained after a program terminates by providing procedures to store, retrieve and update data, as well as manage the available space on the device which contain it. A file system organizes data in an efficient manner and is tuned to the...

. Through the 1980s and into the 1990s, much of the system software was included in the Macintosh's physical ROM chips. Therefore, any competitor attempting to create a Macintosh clone without infringing copyright would have to reverse-engineer the ROMs, which would have been an enormous and costly process without certainty of success. Only one company, Nutek, managed to produce "semi-Mac-compatible" computers in the early 1990s by partially re-implementing System 7

System 7 (Macintosh)

System 7 is a single-user graphical user interface-based operating system for Macintosh computers. It was introduced on May 13, 1991 by Apple Computer. It succeeded System 6, and was the main Macintosh operating system until it was succeeded by Mac OS 8 in 1997...

 ROMs.

Emulators

Before true clones were available, the Atari ST

Atari ST

The Atari ST is a home/personal computer that was released by Atari Corporation in 1985 and commercially available from that summer into the early 1990s. The "ST" officially stands for "Sixteen/Thirty-two", which referred to the Motorola 68000's 16-bit external bus and 32-bit internals...

 could be converted into a Mac by adding the third-party Spectre GCR

Spectre GCR

The Spectre GCR was a hardware add-on to the Atari ST computers that plugged into the cartridge port. Designed by David Small and sold through his company Gadgets by Small, it essentially turned the Atari ST into an Apple Macintosh computer...

 emulator, which required that the user purchase a set of Mac ROMs sold as system upgrades to Macintosh users. The Amiga

Amiga

The Amiga is a family of personal computers that was sold by Commodore in the 1980s and 1990s. The first model was launched in 1985 as a high-end home computer and became popular for its graphical, audio and multi-tasking abilities...

 could also be converted into a Mac with similar emulators. Since Apple Computer never manufactured a 68060

Motorola 68060

The Motorola 68060 is a 32-bit microprocessor from Motorola released in 1994. It is the successor to the Motorola 68040 and is the highest performing member of the 680x0 family. Two derivatives were produced, the 68LC060 and the 68EC060....

-based Mac, the fastest way to run native 68000 Mac OS applications without emulation is to run it on an Atari or Amiga with a 68060 upgrade.

There was also a software emulator for x86 platforms running DOS

DOS

DOS, short for "Disk Operating System", is an acronym for several closely related operating systems that dominated the IBM PC compatible market between 1981 and 1995, or until about 2000 if one includes the partially DOS-based Microsoft Windows versions 95, 98, and Millennium Edition.Related...

/Windows

Microsoft Windows

Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...

 and Linux

Linux

Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...

 called Executor

Executor (software)

Executor is software for x86-based PCs that allows older 68k-based Apple Macintosh programs to be run under various x86-based operating systems. Executor was created by ARDI...

, from ARDI. ARDI reverse engineered the Mac ROM and built a 68000 CPU emulator, enabling Executor to run most (but not all) Macintosh software, from System 5 to System 7, with good speed. The migration from 68000 to PowerPC

PowerPC

PowerPC is a RISC architecture created by the 1991 Apple–IBM–Motorola alliance, known as AIM...

, and the added difficulties of emulating a PowerPC on x86 platforms, made targetting the later Mac OS versions impractical.

The first Macintosh clones

Apple's strategy of suppressing clone development was successful. From 1986 to 1991, several manufacturers created Macintosh clones, including the portable Outbound

Outbound Laptop

The Outbound Laptop was an Apple Macintosh-compatible laptop computer. It was powered by a 15-MHz Motorola 68000 processor. Later versions increased the clock speed to 20 MHz....

; however, in order to do so legally, they had to obtain official ROMs by purchasing one of Apple's Macintosh computers, remove the required parts from the donor, and then install those parts in the clone's case. In 1986, Apple made a deal to sell discounted Macintosh computers to Dynamac for conversion. In 1988, Colby Systems, which had previously produced their Macintosh-compatible laptops on a trade-in basis, began selling them to Apple dealers who would then fit motherboards from their spare stock.

In the 1980's, Brazil's military dictatorship instituted trade restrictions that prohibited the importation of computers from overseas manufacturers. A Brazilian company called Unitron (which had previously produced Apple II clones) developed a Macintosh clone with specifications similar to the Mac 512K, and proposed to put it on sale. Although Unitron claimed to have legitimately reverse-engineered the ROMs and hardware, and Apple did not hold patents covering the computer in Brazil, Apple claimed the ROMs had simply been copied. Ultimately, under pressure from the US government and local manufacturers of PC clones the Brazilian Computer and Automation Council did not allow production to proceed.

Official Macintosh clone program

By 1995, Apple Macintosh computers accounted for around 7% of the worldwide desktop computer market. Apple executives decided to launch an official clone program in order to expand Macintosh market penetration

Market share

Market share is the percentage of a market accounted for by a specific entity. In a survey of nearly 200 senior marketing managers, 67 percent responded that they found the "dollar market share" metric very useful, while 61% found "unit market share" very useful.Marketers need to be able to...

. Apple's clone program entailed the licensing

License

The verb license or grant licence means to give permission. The noun license or licence refers to that permission as well as to the document recording that permission.A license may be granted by a party to another party as an element of an agreement...

 of the Macintosh ROMs and system software to other manufacturers, each of which agreed to pay a flat fee for a license, and a royalty

Royalties

Royalties are usage-based payments made by one party to another for the right to ongoing use of an asset, sometimes an intellectual property...

 (initially $50) for each clone computer they sold. This generated quick revenues for Apple during a time of financial crisis. From early 1995 through mid-1997, it was possible to buy PowerPC

PowerPC

PowerPC is a RISC architecture created by the 1991 Apple–IBM–Motorola alliance, known as AIM...

-based clone computers running Mac OS, most notably from Power Computing

Power Computing

Power Computing Corporation was the first company selected by Apple Inc to create Macintosh-compatible computers . Stephen “Steve” Kahng, a computer engineer best known for his design of the Leading Edge Model D, founded the company in November 1993...

. Other licensees were Motorola

Motorola

Motorola, Inc. was an American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, which was eventually divided into two independent public companies, Motorola Mobility and Motorola Solutions on January 4, 2011, after losing $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009...

, Radius

Radius (computer)

Radius was an American computer hardware firm founded in May 1986 by Burrell Smith, Andy Hertzfeld, Mike Boich, Matt Carter, Alain Rossmann and other members of the original Mac team specializing in Macintosh equipment....

, APS Technologies, DayStar Digital

DayStar Digital

DayStar Digital, Inc., was founded in 1983 by Andrew Lewis as a subcontract manufacturer of electronic assemblies and circuit boards. In 1986, the company released memory upgrades for Apple Macintosh Computers, its first product. In 1987 the company began to market processor upgrades exclusively...

, UMAX, MaxxBoxx

MaxxBoxx

MaxxBoxx is the name of a line of Macintosh clones produced by MaxxBoxx DataSystems in Germany from July, 1997. The early various models featured single 180-333 MHz PowerPC 604e CPUs all the way up to quad 200 MHz versions and multiple media drive bays for easy expansion...

, and Tatung

Tatung Company

Tatung Company , also known as Tatung, is a multinational corporation established in 1918 and headquartered in Zhongshan, Taipei, Taiwan. Tatung also maintains a regional headquarters in Long Beach, California for the U.S...

. However, by 1996 Apple executives were worried that high-end clones were cannibalizing sales of their own high-end computers, where profit margins were highest.

Jobs ends the official program

Soon after Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs

Steven Paul Jobs was an American businessman and inventor widely recognized as a charismatic pioneer of the personal computer revolution. He was co-founder, chairman, and chief executive officer of Apple Inc...

 returned to Apple, he backed out of recently renegotiated licensing deals with OS licensees that Apple executives complained were still financially unfavorable. Because the clone makers' licenses were valid only for Apple's System 7 operating system, Apple's release of Mac OS 8 left the clone manufacturers without the ability to ship a current Mac OS version and effectively ended the cloning program. Apple bought Power Computing's Mac clone business for $100 million, ending the Clone era. Only UMAX ever obtained a license to ship OS 8, which expired in July 1998.

Jobs publicly stated that the program was ill-conceived and had been a result of "institutional guilt," meaning that for years, there had been a widely held belief at Apple that had the company aggressively pursued a legal cloning program early in the history of the Macintosh, consumers might have turned to low-priced Macintosh clones rather than low-priced IBM/PC-compatible computers. Had it pursued a clone program in the 1980s, in this view, Apple might have ended up in the position that at the time was occupied by Microsoft

Microsoft

Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...

 - an extremely powerful company with high profit margins and a wide base of consumers perpetually dependent on its system software products. Jobs claimed it was now too late for this to happen, that the Mac clone program was doomed to failure from the start, and since Apple made money primarily by selling computer hardware, it ought not engage in a licensing program that would reduce its hardware sales.

Macintosh cloning today

Since Apple transitioned the Macintosh to an Intel platform in 2006, and subsequent to a major increase in visibility and a gain in computer market share for Apple with the success of the iPod

IPod

iPod is a line of portable media players created and marketed by Apple Inc. The product line-up currently consists of the hard drive-based iPod Classic, the touchscreen iPod Touch, the compact iPod Nano, and the ultra-compact iPod Shuffle...

, large computer system manufacturers such as Dell

Dell

Dell, Inc. is an American multinational information technology corporation based in 1 Dell Way, Round Rock, Texas, United States, that develops, sells and supports computers and related products and services. Bearing the name of its founder, Michael Dell, the company is one of the largest...

 have expressed renewed interest in creating Macintosh clones. While various industry executives, notably Michael Dell

Michael Dell

Michael Saul Dell is an American business magnate and the founder, chairman and chief executive officer of Dell Inc. He is the 44th richest person in the world, with a net worth of US$14.6 billion in 2011, based primarily on the 243.35 million shares of Dell stock worth $3.5 billion that he owns,...

, have stated publicly that they would like to sell Macintosh-compatible computers, Apple VP Phil Schiller said the company does not plan to let people run Mac OS X on other computer makers' hardware. "We will not allow running Mac OS X on anything other than an Apple Mac," he said.

Through the efforts of hobbyist programmers collaborating on the Internet, modified versions of Mac OS X v10.4, 10.5 and 10.6, dubbed "Mac OSx86

OSx86

OSx86 is a collaborative hacking project to run the Mac OS X computer operating system on non-Apple personal computers with x86 architecture and x86-64 compatible processors...

", can be used on generic PC hardware, though Apple contends that this is illegal as they use DMCA methods to prevent Mac OS X from being installed on non-Mac hardware a point U.S. District Court Judge William Alsup agreed with.

External links

• Mac Clones and New O/S movie from archive.org
• Mac Clones by Manufacturer (at EveryMac.com)
• Macintosh clones (at LowEndMac.com)
• Infos on all macs and clones (incl. details on some mainboard PCBs / at MacInfo.de)
• Apple Squeezes Mac Clones Out of the Market (at LowEndMac.com)