A Macintosh clone, also known as a Clonintosh (a

portmanteau A portmanteau word, or portmanteau (, ) is a blend of wordsClone" and "

Macintosh The Mac (known as Macintosh until 1999) is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple Inc. Macs are known for their ease of use and minimalist designs, and are popular among students, creative professionals, and ...

"), is a computer running the

Mac OS Two major famlies of Mac operating systems were developed by Apple Inc. In 1984, Apple debuted the operating system that is now known as the "Classic" Mac OS with its release of the original Macintosh System Software. The system, rebranded "M ...

operating system that was not produced by

Apple Inc Apple Inc. is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, United States. Apple is the largest technology company by revenue (totaling in 2021) and, as of June 2022, is the world's biggest company ...

. The earliest Mac clones were based on emulators and reverse-engineered Macintosh ROMs. During Apple's short lived Mac OS 7 licensing program, authorized Mac clone makers were able to either purchase 100% compatible motherboards or build their own hardware using licensed Mac reference designs. Since Apple's switch to the Intel platform, many non-Apple

Wintel Wintel (portmanteau of Windows and Intel) is the partnership of Microsoft Windows and Intel producing personal computers using Intel x86-compatible processors running Microsoft Windows. Background By the early 1980s, the chaos and incompatibi ...

/ PC computers are technologically so similar to Mac computers that they are able to boot the Mac operating system using a varying combination of community-developed patches and hacks. Such a Wintel/PC computer running

macOS macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and la ...

is more commonly referred to as a Hackintosh.

Background

The

Apple II The Apple II (stylized as ) is an 8-bit home computer and one of the world's first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products. It was designed primarily by Steve Wozniak; Jerry Manock developed the design of Apple II's foam-m ...

and

IBM PC The IBM Personal Computer (model 5150, commonly known as the IBM PC) is the first microcomputer released in the IBM PC model line and the basis for the IBM PC compatible de facto standard. Released on August 12, 1981, it was created by a team ...

computer lines were "cloned" by other manufacturers who had

reverse-engineer Reverse engineering (also known as backwards engineering or back engineering) is a process or method through which one attempts to understand through deductive reasoning how a previously made device, process, system, or piece of software accomp ...

ed the minimal amount of

firmware In computing, firmware is a specific class of computer software that provides the low-level control for a device's specific hardware. Firmware, such as the BIOS of a personal computer, may contain basic functions of a device, and may provide h ...

in the computers' ROM chips and subsequently legally produced computers that could 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 Franklin Electronic Publishers, Incorporated (formerly Franklin Computer Corporation) is an American consumer electronics manufacturer based in Burlington, New Jersey, founded in 1981. Since the mid-1980s, it has primarily created and sold hand-hel ...

and other clone manufacturers, both legal and illegal. At IBM, the threat proved to be real: most of the market eventually went to clone-makers, including

Compaq Compaq Computer Corporation (sometimes abbreviated to CQ prior to a 2007 rebranding) was an American information technology company founded in 1982 that developed, sold, and supported computers and related products and services. Compaq produced ...

, Leading Edge, Tandy,

Kaypro Kaypro Corporation was an American home and personal computer manufacturer based out of San Diego in the 1980s. The company was founded by Non-Linear Systems (NLS) to compete with the popular Osborne 1 portable microcomputer. Kaypro produced a ...

Packard Bell Packard Bell is a Dutch-registered computer manufacturing brand and subsidiary of Acer. Originally an American radio set manufacturer, Packard Bell Corporation, it was founded by Herbert A. Bell and Leon S. Packard in 1933. In 1986, Israeli i ...

Amstrad Amstrad was a British electronics company, founded in 1968 by Alan Sugar at the age of 21. The name is a contraction of Alan Michael Sugar Trading. It was first listed on the London Stock Exchange in April 1980. During the late 1980s, Amstra ...

in Europe, 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, primarily to educational toy manufacturer

Tiger Electronics Tiger Electronics Ltd. (also known as Tiger and Tiger Toys) was an independent American toy manufacturer best known for its handheld LCD games, the Furby, the Talkboy, Giga Pets, the 2-XL robot, and audio games such as ''Brain Warp'' and th ...

in order to produce an inexpensive laptop with educational games and the

AppleWorks AppleWorks was an integrated office suite containing a word processor, database, and spreadsheet. It was developed by Rupert Lissner for Apple Computer, originally for the Apple II platform and launched in 1984, and was later reworked for the Ma ...

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, as it had no floppy drive.

Emulators

Long before true clones were available, the

Atari ST The Atari ST is a line of personal computers from Atari Corporation and the successor to the Atari 8-bit family. The initial model, the Atari 520ST, had limited release in April–June 1985 and was widely available in July. It was the first per ...

could emulate a Mac by adding the third-party Magic Sac emulator, released in 1985, and, later, the Spectre,

Spectre GCR The Spectre GCR is a hardware and software package for the Atari ST computers. The hardware consists of a cartridge that plugs into the Atari ST's cartridge port and a cable that connects between the cartridge and one of the floppy ports on the ST ...

, and Aladin emulators. The first three of those emulators required that the user purchase a set of Mac ROMs sold as system upgrades to Macintosh users. Later, multiple emulators were released for the

Amiga Amiga is a family of personal computers introduced by Commodore International, Commodore in 1985. The original model is one of a number of mid-1980s computers with 16- or 32-bit processors, 256 KB or more of RAM, mouse-based GUIs, and sign ...

. Starting with the sales of PowerPC Macs, a CPU emulator to run 68000 applications was built into the Mac OS. By the time

68060 The Motorola 68060 ("''sixty-eight-oh-sixty''") 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 68000 series. Two derivatives were produced, the 68L ...

processors were available, PowerPC Macs became so powerful that they ran 68000 applications faster than any 68000-based computer, including any Amiga, Atari ST or Sharp X68000. This means even a 68060-upgraded Atari ST clone or Amiga, which avoid CPU emulation, were always slower, on top of causing some programs not to work thanks to imperfect virtualization of the Mac system and remaining machine components.

Connectix Connectix Corporation was a software and hardware company, noted for having released innovative products that were either made obsolete as Apple Computer incorporated the ideas into system software, or were sold to other companies once they became ...

also released another 68k emulator for Macs, replacing the original, called Speed Doubler, supposedly reported to be even faster than Apple's. As the years went by, the emulator wasn't updated to work with later versions of the original Mac OS, however, supposedly because Apple's own 68k emulator eventually surpassed it in performance, and the OS itself relied further on native PowerPC code with each new Mac OS update. There was also a software emulator for x86 platforms running

DOS DOS is shorthand for the MS-DOS and IBM PC DOS family of operating systems. DOS may also refer to: Computing * Data over signalling (DoS), multiplexing data onto a signalling channel * Denial-of-service attack (DoS), an attack on a communicat ...

Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for se ...

and

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, whi ...

called

Executor An executor is someone who is responsible for executing, or following through on, an assigned task or duty. The feminine form, executrix, may sometimes be used. Overview An executor is a legal term referring to a person named by the maker of a ...

, 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 (with the backronym Performance Optimization With Enhanced RISC – Performance Computing, sometimes abbreviated as PPC) is a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architecture (ISA) created by the 1991 Apple– IBM– ...

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

Unlicensed clones

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

file system In computing, file system or filesystem (often abbreviated to fs) is a method and data structure that the operating system uses to control how data is stored and retrieved. Without a file system, data placed in a storage medium would be one larg ...

. 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, codenamed "Big Bang", and also known as Mac OS 7, is a graphical user interface-based operating system for Macintosh computers and is part of the classic Mac OS series of operating systems. It was introduced on May 13, 1991, by Apple C ...

ROMs.

This strategy, making the development of competitive Mac clones prohibitively expensive, successfully shut out manufacturers looking to create computers that would directly compete with Apple's product lines. However, companies like Outbound Systems,

Dynamac To date, two methods have been used to make a personal computer, not offered by Apple, but able to run the Mac operating system: either create a Macintosh conversion or build a Macintosh clone. Unlike Mac clones that contain little or no origi ...

and

Colby Systems Chuck Colby was an electronics engineer and chief-inventor, founder and president of Colby Systems Corporation, a company that created the first DVR-based video surveillance systems but is also very notable as a pioneer in portable computing, be ...

, were able to sidestep the Mac cloning process by targeting high-end, high-profit market segments without suitable product offerings from Apple and offering Mac conversions instead. In the early 1980s, Brazil's military dictatorship instituted trade restrictions that prohibited the importation of computers from overseas manufacturers, and these restrictions were not lifted until 1993. 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 clone IBM PC compatible computers are similar to the original IBM PC, XT, and AT, all from computer giant IBM, that are able to use the same software and expansion cards. Such computers were referred to as PC clones, IBM clones or IBM PC clones. ...

s the Brazilian Computer and Automation Council did not allow production to proceed.

Hackintosh

When Apple migrated to the PC-Intel platform in the mid 2000s, Apple hardware was more or less the same as generic PC hardware from a platform perspective. This theoretically allowed for installation of Mac OS X on non-Apple hardware. ''Hackintosh'' is the term appropriated by hobbyist programmers, who have collaborated on the Internet to install versions of Mac OS X v10.4 onwards dubbed ''Mac OSx86'' to be used on generic PC hardware rather than on Apple's own hardware. Apple contends this is illegal under the

DMCA The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is a 1998 United States copyright law that implements two 1996 treaties of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). It criminalizes production and dissemination of technology, devices, or ...

, so in order to combat illegal usage of their operating system software, they continue to use methods to prevent Mac OS X (now macOS) from being installed on unofficial non-Apple hardware, with mixed success. At present, with proper knowledge and instruction, macOS installation is more or less straightforward. Several online communities have sprung up to support end-users who wish to install macOS on non-Apple hardware. Some representative examples of these are Dortania and InsanelyMac.

Psystar Corporation

In April 2008, Psystar Corporation based in

Miami Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a coastal metropolis and the county seat of Miami-Dade County in South Florida, United States. With a population of 442,241 at ...

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and ...

, announced the first commercially available OSx86, a

/ PC computer with

Mac OS X Leopard Mac OS X Leopard (version 10.5) is the sixth software versioning, major release of macOS, Apple Inc., Apple's desktop and server operating system for Macintosh computers. Leopard was released on October 26, 2007 as the successor of Mac OS X Tig ...

pre-installed partially with software from the OSx86 community project.

Apple An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple trees are cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus '' Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, where its wild ancest ...

immediately sued in July 2008 and a protracted legal battle followed, ending in November 2009 with a summary judgement against Psystar. In May 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court denied Psystar's appeal, closing the case for good.

Licensed clones

In 1992, ''

Macworld ''Macworld'' is a website dedicated to products and software of Apple Inc., published by Foundry, a subsidiary of IDG Inc. It started life as a print magazine in 1984 and had the largest audited circulation (both total and newsstand) of Macin ...

'' published an editorial stating that Apple clones were coming, and that the company should license its technology to others so it would benefit as the overall Macintosh market grew. UMAX SuperMac S900

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 penetration refers to the successful selling of a good or service in a specific market. It is measured by the amount of sales volume of an existing good or service compared to the total target market for that product or service. Market p ...

. Apple's

Mac OS 7 System 7, codenamed "Big Bang", and also known as Mac OS 7, is a graphical user interface-based operating system for Macintosh computers and is part of the classic Mac OS series of operating systems. It was introduced on May 13, 1991, by Apple Co ...

licensing program entailed the

licensing A license (or licence) is an official permission or permit to do, use, or own something (as well as the document of that permission or permit). A license is granted by a party (licensor) to another party (licensee) as an element of an agreeme ...

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 (initially ) 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

-based clone computers running Mac OS, most notably from

Power Computing Power Computing Corporation (often referred to as Power Computing) was the first company selected by Apple Inc to create Macintosh-compatible computers (" Mac clones"). Stephen “Steve” Kahng, a computer engineer best known for his design of ...

and

UMAX UMAX is a domestic interline intermodal freight transport program that provides shipping and logistics of containers. The program is a partnership; its parent companies are Union Pacific Railroad and CSX. Launched March 29, 2010, UMAX has ...

. 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. A total of 75 distinct Macintosh clone models are known to have been introduced during the licensee era. The following companies produced licensed Mac clones:

Jobs ends the official program

Soon after

Steve Jobs Steven Paul Jobs (February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011) was an American entrepreneur, industrial designer, media proprietor, and investor. He was the co-founder, chairman, and CEO of Apple; the chairman and majority shareholder of Pixar; ...

returned to Apple in 1997, he personally tried to renegotiate licensing deals more favorable to Apple five times over the course of three weeks and in his words each time was "basically told to pound sand". This response caused him to halt negotiations of upcoming 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 and gave their users free Mac OS 8 upgrade disks, ending the clone era. Only UMAX ever obtained a license to ship Mac OS 8 and get Mac OS 8 upgrade disks, which expired in July 1998 (Power Computing also got Mac OS 8 disks by their acquisition by Apple). All other manufacturers had their Macintosh clone contract terminated by late 1997 and either continued their brands as

PC clones IBM PC compatible computers are similar to the original IBM PC, XT, and AT, all from computer giant IBM, that are able to use the same software and expansion cards. Such computers were referred to as PC clones, IBM clones or IBM PC clones. ...

or discontinued them altogether. Some of the clone manufacturers even went out of business. Reportedly, a heated telephone conversation between Jobs and Motorola CEO Christopher Galvin resulted in the contentious termination of Motorola's clone contract, and the long-favored Apple being demoted to "just another customer" mainly for PowerPC CPUs. In 1999, Jobs had discussions with Ben Rosen, Chairman and interim CEO of

at the time, for the world's then-largest Wintel PC manufacturer to license Mac OS, which would have been a coup for Apple. However no agreement was reached, as Apple had second thoughts about licensing its "crown jewel", while Compaq did not want to offend Microsoft, which it had partnered with since its founding in 1982. By 2007, five years after Compaq merged with HP, Rosen told Jobs he had switched to being a Mac user. In 2001, Jobs reportedly had a meeting with Sony executives, saying he was "willing to make an exception" for Sony VAIO to run

Mac OS X macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and lap ...

, although the negotiations later fell through. 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 The iPod is a discontinued series of portable media players and multi-purpose mobile devices designed and marketed by Apple Inc. The first version was released on October 23, 2001, about months after the Macintosh version of iTunes wa ...

, large computer system manufacturers such as

Dell Dell is an American based technology company. It develops, sells, repairs, and supports computers and related products and services. Dell is owned by its parent company, Dell Technologies. Dell sells personal computers (PCs), servers, data ...

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

Michael Dell Michael Saul Dell (born February 23, 1965) is an American billionaire businessman and philanthropist. He is the founder, chairman, and CEO of Dell Technologies, one of the world's largest technology infrastructure companies. He is ranked the ...

, have stated publicly that they would like to sell Macintosh-compatible computers, Apple VP

Phil Schiller Philip W. Schiller (born June 8, 1960) is an Apple Fellow at Apple Inc. He is a prominent figure in Apple's keynotes and has been a member of the company's executive team since Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1997. In 2020 he became the first ...

said the company does not plan to let people run Mac OS X (macOS) on other computer makers' hardware. "We will not allow running Mac OS X on anything other than an Apple Mac," he said.

Macintosh conversion

Unlike Mac clones that contain little or no original

hardware, a Mac conversion is an aftermarket enclosure kit that requires the core components of a previously purchased, genuine Apple

Mac computer The Mac (known as Macintosh until 1999) is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc. Macs are known for their ease of use and minimalist designs, and are popular among students, creative professionals, and software e ...

, such as the Macintosh ROM or the

motherboard A motherboard (also called mainboard, main circuit board, mb, mboard, backplane board, base board, system board, logic board (only in Apple computers) or mobo) is the main printed circuit board (PCB) in general-purpose computers and other expand ...

, in order to become a functional computer system. This business model is most commonly used in the

car industry The automotive industry comprises a wide range of companies and organizations involved in the design, development, manufacturing, marketing, and selling of motor vehicles. It is one of the world's largest industries by revenue (from 16 % ...

, with one of the most famous examples being the

Shelby Mustang The Shelby Mustang is a high-performance variant of the Ford Mustang built by Shelby American from 1965 to 1967 and by the Ford Motor Company from 1968 to 1970. In 2005, Ford revived the Shelby nameplate for a high-performance model of the fi ...

, a high performance variant of the

Ford Mustang The Ford Mustang is a series of American automobiles manufactured by Ford. In continuous production since 1964, the Mustang is currently the longest-produced Ford car nameplate. Currently in its sixth generation, it is the fifth-best selli ...

, and is protected in the U.S. by the

First-sale doctrine The first-sale doctrine (also sometimes referred to as the "right of first sale" or the "first sale rule") is an American legal concept that limits the rights of an intellectual property owner to control resale of products embodying its intellec ...

and similar legal concepts in most other countries. While Mac clones traditionally aim to compete directly with Apple's solutions through lower prices, Mac conversions target market segments that lack dedicated solutions from Apple, and where the need for a Mac solution is high enough to justify the combined cost of the full price of the Mac donor computer plus the price of the conversion kit & labor. The following companies produced Mac conversions: