Editing Macintosh clone (section)

{{short description|Computer running Mac OS not produced by Apple}}
{{distinguish|Hackintosh}}
[[File:StarMax 3000 160MT.jpg|thumb|The [[Motorola StarMax|StarMax]] 3000/160MT, a Macintosh clone manufactured by Motorola]]
A '''Macintosh clone''' is a computer running the [[Classic Mac OS]] operating system that was not produced by [[Apple Inc.]] The earliest Mac clones were based on [[emulators]] and reverse-engineered Macintosh [[Read-only memory|ROM]]s. 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.

During Apple's [[Mac transition to Intel processors|switch to the Intel platform]], many non-Apple [[Wintel]]/[[Personal computer|PC]] computers were technologically so similar to Mac computers that they were able to boot the [[Classic Mac OS|Mac operating system]] using various combinations of community-developed patches and hacks. Such a Wintel/PC computer running [[macOS]] is more commonly referred to as a ''[[Hackintosh]]''. Apple's transition to [[Apple silicon]] means that making Mac clones is considerably harder.