When is a Mac not a Mac? The answer is when it's a clone. Success breeds imitators and this is just as true in the Mac world as anywhere else. In the early days of the Apple II and the Mac, 'compatible' machines did occasionally appear but, given the Mac's bespoke ROM, any 'compatible' machines were produced without Apple's consent and, naturally, were illegal. This wouldn't always be the case though.

With its fortunes failing in the mid-1990's Apple took the 'brave' option of allowing other manufacturers to produce legal Mac compatible machines. The dominant PC industry had shown that competition between multiple suppliers would push down prices and increase market share - a track that Apple were, then, desperate to take. With ROMs actually licensed from Apple (allowing the Cupertino boys to still retain control of who was allowed to create Mac compatible machines), these 'new' clones were guaranteed to be 100% Mac compatible and buyers now faced, for once, a pleasant problem: buy an Apple Mac or a cheaper Mac compatible?

The thinking behind the switch to 'compatibles' was, for Apple logical. Unlike IBM who'd lost control of the PC following the clever work of Compaq (and the numerous manufacturers that followed), Apple were able to keep tight reign of not only the ROM that made a Mac a Mac, but also the all important operating system Mac OS, that completed the Macintosh 'package'. This was the major difference between Apple and IBM and, arguably, what convinced Apple to go down this path (IBM, not being in control of the PC's operating system, left the door wide open for Microsoft to supply each of the 'compatible' manufacturers and become the controlling factor - a fact that IBM had, sadly, overlooked).

Having gone 'legal', clone machines soon started to appear from not only established computer manufacturers but also from companies that had never tried to exist in the desktop computing industry. Motorola, Umax and Daystar found themselves rubbing shoulders with not only startups like Outbound and Shaye but also industry 'big hitters' such as Pioneer and Tatung. With such a wealth of machines available, there were inevitably casualties but the most surprising of these was Apple themselves. Having misjudged the situation greatly, Apple quickly found that it's attempts to 'open the market' (and increase their own revenues) were actually hurting them financially. Mac compatible sales may have increased but Apple Mac sales took a big hit and it wasn't difficult to see why: Buy an expensive Apple Mac or buy a cheaper compatible Mac? In the early days of the desktop industry (when IBM started to lose control) buyers were wary of buying anything that wasn't 'IBM' (hence the, still in existence, use of 'IBM-compatible') but by the mid-1990's buyers had become more educated and knew that if it said 'compatible' on the outside, it would be, in effect, a Mac on the inside. If buying a Mac without a stripey fruit logo on the front saved you several hundred dollars...

Having been stung by the financial implications of the arrangement Apple eventually saw sense (for them) and not only cut back the 'compatible' programme but aborted it entirely. Buyers were back to square one: If you want a Mac, you have to buy an Apple Mac.

With such a wealth of manufacturers and machines produced (even within just a couple of short years from 1996 to 1997), the number of clone machines is, understandably, huge and identifying common elements between them is nigh on impossible. Most were based around the Tanzania motherboard (developed by Apple in conjunction with Motorola) and all tended to use the PowerPC 603 or 604 CPU. Beyond that it was very much a case of every-Mac-for-him/herself. Some sported ADB sockets, some used the more common PS/2 sockets. Some used the Apple 15 pin monitor connector, some used VGA. Some used SCSI, some used IDE. Some approached the Mac from the Apple viewpoint, some from the PC viewpoint (noisy steel cases et al). One thing that they did all have in common though was that they were PowerPCs, and anything an Apple PowerPC equipped Mac could do, they could too.

Note: With such a vast number of machines, documenting all of them is very difficult. The other important thing to remember is that this is primarily a 68K site. The following list is therefore not exhaustive and only covers those machines that the museum actually owns. Of course if you want to expand that list by donating... =;)