The Apple II and IBM PC computer lines were 'cloned' by other manufacturers who had reverse-engineered the minimal amount of firmware in the computers' ROM chips and subsequently legally produced computers that could run the same software. Such a Wintel/PC computer running macOS is more commonly referred to as a Hackintosh and the most popular community effort developing and sharing the requisite software patches is known as OSx86. Since Apple's switch to the Intel platform, many non-Apple Wintel/ 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. 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.
The earliest Mac clones were based on emulators and reverse-engineered Macintosh ROMs. The StarMax 3000/160MT, a Macintosh clone manufactured by MotorolaĪ Macintosh clone, also known as a Clonintosh (a portmanteau of ' Clone' and ' Macintosh'), is a computer running the Mac OS operating system that was not produced by Apple Inc.
