As soon as Apple switched to Intel processors, it was inevitable that more of the curious would try to figure out how to run the Mac OS on non-Apple hardware. After all, with most of the hardware components now common to Mac and PC and the fact that Mac hardware can run Windows, why should the reverse not be true?

So that OS X won’t have to dance with just any old PC creep, Apple has implemented software, firmware and legal chastity belts, but that hasn’t stopped people from trying to circumvent them — and succeeding. This Hackintosh activity has been going on for years so it may be just coincidental that in the last month I’ve received a cluster of news releases or reports about successful ports of OSX to non-Mac hardware, including one to the Asus EeePC and a company called Psystar announcing its Open Computer that will run Windows, Linux or Mac OS.

The clone factor isn’t anything new to Apple. In fact, it may have had as much to do with the design envelope of the original Macintosh as the graphical interface and mouse. Apple’s fortunes with the Apple II would have risen much higher were it not for the Apple II knock-off industry that swelled around the platform. Apple successfully sued a couple of them for copyright infringement (and in the process established for the first time in the US that operating systems, ROMs and software could be copyrighted). However, the damage to Apple’s bottom line had been done.

It’s a lesson not learned by IBM, which saw its creation, the IBM-PC, devolve into the generic PC. The IBM brand became one of many, and not necessarily the dominant or most influential one. Of course that gave rise the the golden age of personal computing we witnessed in the last two decades of the past century. But that’s another story…

Next: The Clone Wars

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