page_title: Macintosh clone
hierarchical_section_title: Macintosh clone
context_page_description: A Macintosh clone is a computer running the Mac OS operating system that was not produced by Apple Inc. 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/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 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.
context_section_description: A Macintosh clone is a computer running the Mac OS operating system that was not produced by Apple Inc. 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/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 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.
caption: The StarMax 3000/160MT, a Macintosh clone manufactured by Motorola
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