Forget Psystar, Build Your Own Mac Clone

While tech pundits chronicle the saga of Open Computer, you could be making one

By Megan Miller Posted 04.16.2008 at 4:50 pm 4 Comments

Build your own "Hackintosh" Lifehacker.com

The Web has been abuzz this week with speculation about the company Psystar, which recently appeared out of nowhere offering (for just $399) a PC called the Open Computer that runs OS X Leopard.

According to Psystar, the base configuration for their machine includes a 2.2 GHz Intel Core Duo processor, 2GB of memory, integrated Intel GMA 950 Graphics, 20x DVD +/-R SATA drive, four USB ports, and it comes preinstalled with Leopard. Sounds pretty sweet,right? ...Except for the fact that it's technically illegal to run Apple software on non-Apple equipment.

Something smelled fishy to tech reporters who had never heard of the manufacturer, so they began researching the identity and origins of the mysterious Psystar Corporation. The Guardian reported that they were unable to get answers to basic questions about the company from the contact listed online, that the headquarters had actually moved twice in a 24 hour period, and that there were no Google results for Psystar prior to this week. And earlier this week, the online store at Psystar.com suddenly shut down due to “problems with its ecommerce system.”

Apple has kept mum about the whole thing despite Psystar's defiant (and inaccurate) statement that Apple is acting as a "hardware monopoly." The Psystar Web site states: "Psystar has assembled a system that is completely operational with Leopard called the Open Computer. We call it the Open Computer to reflect the opening of what has previously been a hardware monopoly,"

While the controversy shakes out (Will customers get their Open Computers? Will they work? How long until Apple gives Psystar the smackdown?) we've got a suggestion for Leopard-loving scofflaws. Rather than buying an Open Computer, you could just make your own. A while back, Lifehacker posted some very thorough instructions for building a “Hackintosh” and while the parts will run you close to $800, you will at least be guaranteed an actual, physical computer. However, if you’re not up to the hack and that $399 is still burning a hole in your pocket, my uncle’s got some land in Florida you might be interested in…

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4 Comments

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DoggyDoorman

04/17/08 at 2:14 am

Too bad they didn't keep the give-one, get-one program going longer. The one laptop per child has some great featuers for a small Linux machine, and this is being written on one. Yep $400 and you gave a laptop to a kid in the third world.

The 7.5 inch screen has fully readable web pages with no side scrolling, because it displays at 200 dpi, yep even with bifocals.

The battery life is incredible compared to the vast majority of laptops. 4 hours on a full charge is not uncommon.

The funky Ears that serve as antennas pull in wireless signals easily from 2 times the range of the other laptops I have.

Fully solid-state, like the MacBook Aire, No fan, no noise, very little heat. Built in camera/video, microphone, speakers, game-pads, and the screen reverses for e-book mode.

The waterproof keyboard is a bit tiny for adult fingers, but it doesnt take that long to figure out how to type reasnoably fast on it.

You can set it up to dual boot into Ubunto, and do basically the same as these other machines.

3.2 pounds, and it looks all the world like a Fischer Price kid's toy, with the white and green color scheme, and the handle.

Nope, no optical drive, but at least it has a slot for SD cards and 2 more USB ports than the $1800 MackBook Aire!

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ghostaliaz

03/26/09 at 8:00 pm

Why buy from this company? I have already built to new macs & they seem faster then my new Imac & my brothers new mac book pro. People you do not need this middle man (Psystar) & it was fun doing it & plus I still buy macs from apple & I plan to buy 3 mac mini's soon, one for my car & 1 for my kitchen & one for my bathroom (yeh I know wierd) but I just can't help myself I am a dang on computer geek (he he). P.S Oh to make your build easy, well the already patched osx that works with the most hardware is (IDeneb) & you can find it on any torrent site like ( www.mininova.org ) ,But to do it the right way I downloaded & installed (IDeneb), but I still purchased two OSX leopard's from the Apple Store because I thought that It was only right to do, but I also think Apple should let us put there wonderful Distro on any computer that we like & or choose. I am one for freedom & me being free to buy any O.S & install it on any hardware that I choose is freedom to me & the only way to live & even if the company does not agree & if you think about it, me & my family members still did not stop buying macs & or the O.S for macs, infact they probably will make more money because more & more people are just plain sick of Microsoft's tainted security prolem infested crap & they want to make the mac switch, but everyone does not have 1,2 to 3 thousand dollars to spend on one of there computers, but what they can do is either build there own for around what it cost me was ($500.00) or use there present pc to install it on, either way Apple wins because where they were not getting any money, they will now be getting by selling to pc users. I think everyone should have the chance to experience a wonderful OS X experience not just the rich or well off. Apple wake up & sell your O.S to us PC users because there is a lot of revenue here if you all just open your eyes & minds & stop being stuck up hard heads, people will keep buying your computers anyway, shoot I still do & created my own. Wake up your loosing money that you could be getting, just simply port/patch your O.S to run on windows pc's. What can you loose, because people are going to do it anyway & this way you will be getting paid for your product. Wake Up Apple!

The Computer Geeks/Scientist/Technologist & Futurist will inherit the earth! Wheres my flying car?

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ultimatenerd22

07/10/09 at 5:35 pm

i dont really care cause im a pc and im awesome. www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHTQMWLn2m0

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quasi44

12/07/09 at 5:29 pm

Good lookin out, PopSci. I know that a lot of people don't know the physical reasons why Mac or Apple are not compatible with PC systems. For what they were 'offering', I'm sure they would have had plenty of victims. For me personally, I prefer Linux for my system administration, keeps things simple, and nearly bulletproof.(nearly, because there were at least two specific viruses written to attack Linux) Still, I always watch to see what people are doing, and this one would have interested me. I'd like to think I'd have figured out the scam, but who knows? I started reading the article, and even as I was saying NO WAY! to myself, my gears were clickin and clackin and I almost started a physical hack on my experimental system right then. I've thought about this type of thing in passing, but it has always seemed like too much work for too little value...now ya went and got me thinking it over again, just to see once...