The Rise and Fall of Apple’s Mac Clones Era

There’s a class of consumer that wants something they know they cannot have. For some of those people, a Macintosh computer not made by Apple has long been a desired goal.

For most of the Mac’s history, you could only really get one from Apple, if you wanted to go completely by the book. Sure, there were less-legit ways to get Apple software on off-brand hardware, and plenty of people were willing to try them. But there was a short period, roughly 36 months, when it was possible to get a licensed Mac…