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. The earliest Mac clones were based on emulators and reverse-engineered Macintosh ROMs. The StarMax 3000/160MT, a Macintosh clone manufactured by MotorolaĪ Macintosh clone, also known as a Clonintosh (a portmanteau of ' Clone' and ' Macintosh'), is a computer running the Mac OS operating system that was not produced by Apple Inc.
