The Mac Apple Wants You To Forget About!

The hackintosh scene has ramped up in the last few years but what you may not know is that Apple licensed out macOS to PC makers to create Macintosh clones...

So, you're working on your new Hackintosh build looking for help on how to install macOS on a PC by using Clover EFI and various other tools. Companies like Psystar that sold commercial Hackintosh computers got sued out of existence, but did you know that prior to Steve Jobs' return to Apple in the 90s, Apple actually licensed out macOS to PC vendors? Pretty wild! They did so because Windows vs Mac was becoming a hot debate and Windows was catching up very quick. This video covers all that Apple history and more!

[austinevans]

Terrific story man, never heard of this one...

[jdmweeb]

"...which made system upgrades a piece of cake"

*Tim Cook has left the chat*

[avaughs]

Yeah, I owned one of these. Bought one of their Tower Floor Standing Units. It rivaled the PowerMac 9600.

[ThisIsTechToday]

That was the most convenient thing to have in order to get you to 10 mins, lol. Bravo.

[ckane]

I was a Product Lead for Power Computing during 1995-1999l I loved that company. Though I would not call myself a Mac Guy, since during my tech years I was a window, unix, and Mac admin.... I had so much fun during my time. :-) (1998 - 1999 we maintained our Power Computing brand while Apple devoured our little company. )

[Addakhel]

Actually, Steve Jobs almost licensed Mac OS to Sony's VAIO laptops.
He was so impressed by the hardware quality of VAIO.
Great video man!

[YasinHasan]

3:52 damn Jobs looks fukking happy to have MS on his side 😂

[crytcx]

Gawd you’re young! In 1996, I graduated high school! 🤣

But I watched this era unfold in the pages of MacUser (yeah!) and MacWorld, as I used my Performa 400 to “go online” with a 14.4k modem. Good times, good times. Thanks for the trip down memory lane.

[elenchus]

back in tha day, we used to refer to this period as the Clone Wars.

[gtoger]

Remember when Sears sold a licensed Apple //c clone?

[game.different]

My first “Mac” was a Motorola Starmax 5500 rocking a 200Mhz PowerPC 604e. I had a blast playing Unreal with a hacked Diamond Monster 3D.

[skaternspike]

Then: People: 8 Megabytes of ram is okay
Now: People: 8 Gigabytes of ram is okay
Future: People: 8 Terabytes of ram is okay

[xmetal]

Wow, that’s a blast from the past! I started my official freelance career and a power computing tower and had kind of forgotten about them! It was a quite good machine at the time and definitely allowed me to get into the design world, though I quickly transitioned back to a real Mac and have been there ever since. Thanks for sharing that bit of apple history!

[brewno]

Your video reminded me of the Pirates of the Silicon Valley movie - I need to watch it again now

[BecauseTesla]

The Power PC was a collaboration between Apple, IBM, and Motorola. From that relationship, Motorola had its own clone called the StarMax. I had a Motorola StarMax 4000 from either 1996 or 97.

[KingHuang]

I still have my Power Computing PowerTower Pro 225 stored away somewhere! It was a great machine.

[PunitGor]

Love how you summarised the history of early Bill Gates and Steve Jobs partnership.

[butlerwm]

In 2000 and 2001, I taught A-Plus and N=Plus courses for our high school vocational department. We acquired a dozen Mac clones for the A-Plus class. They were easy to assemble and because Mac OS liked SCSI, we were able to integrate aspects not normally found in PCs of the period. I developed my fondness for Apple during that time.

[SFDJMark]

One interesting detail: Steve Jobs never actually "killed" the licensing program for the Mac clones. The licensing agreement was for the clones to run "Macintosh System 7". So within about a month of Steve Jobs returning to Apple, the operating system update that was slated for mid-1997 and originally going to be called "7.7" was renamed "Mac OS 8", and that was the effective end of the licensing agreement.


Also I believe Power Computing was one of a very few (if not the only) manufacturer to sell computers that would run BeOS (dual-boot configurations). At that time (1996-97) BeOS looked like a vision of the future compared to the then antiquated Macintosh System 7.X.


I believe your shirt was from Macworld 1997 (pretty sure Power Computing wasn't in business yet in early 1995, they appeared later that year). Macworld 1997 was Power Computing's last real hurrah, they had a bigger presence than Apple that year, and were running a "military" style campaign featuring shirts like yours, camo pants, and staffers driving around the streets of San Francisco in logo-ed Hummers. Very soon after that came the news about "Mac OS 8" and the story of Power Computing and "Mac Clones" came to a speedy conclusion.

[timg]

"My 3rd birthday in 1996" - oh God, I'm old.