Mac Clones History: A Tale of Poor Margins and Bad Timing(tedium.co)
tedium.co
Mac Clones History: A Tale of Poor Margins and Bad Timing
https://tedium.co/2025/09/02/apple-macintosh-clones-history/
18 comments
EDIT: Just barely mentioned is Axiotron's ModBook --- while not a clone per se (a Mac Laptop was disassembled, keyboard removed, and screen either replaced or reinstalled w/ a digitizer layer), it was a device marketed to folks whom Apple did not have a product for, and until the Apple Pencil, was the best Apple device in between the Newton MessagePad or a Wacom Cintiq for stylus usage.
ModBook is mentioned in the article. But Outbound (another deconstructed Mac) is not.
Obviously should have searched --- still think it would have merited deeper discussion.
I saw an Outbound in the early 90s if my memory is right. Their use of the tiny bar as mouse replacement looked really cool. Kinda want to play around with that as an input device.
I have one in the basement! The bar was called the "ISOpoint" bar. It was a great use of the tiny space. Also innovative was the IR keyboard. You could disconnect and move it pretty far from the main unit.
The Rollermouse Free product appears to be cut from the same cloth. The learning curve might be troublesome.
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_conversion
Wow, I thought I had been a big Mac, er, addict as a kid and somehow I never heard of these except maybe the Modbook.
Wow, I thought I had been a big Mac, er, addict as a kid and somehow I never heard of these except maybe the Modbook.
My dad worked at Motorola at the time. He told a story where Motorola security walked Steve Jobs off of the premesis. Bad times.
Anyway, my dad worked on the machines that built/tested the motherboard for motorola's clones. He'd bring home some of the broken ones that were supposed to be dumped, and he'd fix them up. I had a top-notch StarMax running some ad-hoc fixes and upgrades. Pretty sweet machine until I finally got a job and bought a Windows machine. It still works today, except that the IDE drive. I could buy a new IDE drive (if I could even find one) but the total horsepower of the machine is less than even a raspberry pi these days, and not worth the power consumption.
Anyway, my dad worked on the machines that built/tested the motherboard for motorola's clones. He'd bring home some of the broken ones that were supposed to be dumped, and he'd fix them up. I had a top-notch StarMax running some ad-hoc fixes and upgrades. Pretty sweet machine until I finally got a job and bought a Windows machine. It still works today, except that the IDE drive. I could buy a new IDE drive (if I could even find one) but the total horsepower of the machine is less than even a raspberry pi these days, and not worth the power consumption.
>Motorola security walked Steve Jobs off of the premesis
Do you know why? Sounds like a story everyone would be interested to hear.
Do you know why? Sounds like a story everyone would be interested to hear.
[deleted]
No, I don't know/remember why. But it was shortly after that when mac clones stopped being a thing.
Using security to escort Steve Jobs out seems a bit extreme, no? Were they afraid he was gonna steal or break something on his way out or what lol
When I worked at $BIGCORP it was corporate policy that all visitors needed to be escorted out of the building, but this was usually done by one of the employees they had come to meet with, not security.
A good IDE to SATA adapter and SSD and it should be a screamer
I dislike the cult of Jobs, but I do have moments of respect for him in "brand" sense he had very strong drive not to "dilute the brand" and I would think most apple shareholders (I am not one consciously but who knows what tech stocks my pension fund holds) would agree. There hasn't been a time since his return to apple where a shareholder had reason to question the long term value.
I wanted hackintosh to work forever. I even ran one, somebody else front loaded the work to get it flying. It was a dog. It was a huge mistake. I'm glad I wound up accepting the apple tax into my life and just buying the mainline product.
I wanted hackintosh to work forever. I even ran one, somebody else front loaded the work to get it flying. It was a dog. It was a huge mistake. I'm glad I wound up accepting the apple tax into my life and just buying the mainline product.
Very sad that Hackintoshes are approaching the end of their workability --- I'd give a lot to be able to have a portable w/ a Wacom EMR stylus --- probably going to break down and just buy a Mac Mini and connect it to a Wacom Movink 13.
When they were kicked off Apple licensing they were allowed to sell their inventory; their last ad had some police officer paraphernalia and the slogan was “We Lost Our License to Speed”.