Why cant you build your own Mac?

Mick_Berg

New member
Sorry this is not Trainz-related but,
Why can you not put a Mac together from individual parts like you can with a PC?
Thanks,
Mick
 
Sorry this is not Trainz-related but,
Why can you not put a Mac together from individual parts like you can with a PC?
Thanks,
Mick

You can but the operating system is the problem. Apple offer a much more controlled environment than things like Windows but you pay a major price for it.

"Hackintosh, a stock PC running Apple's OS X. " Google it and you'll see it can be done.

Cheerio John
 
You can but the operating system is the problem. Apple offer a much more controlled environment than things like Windows but you pay a major price for it.

"Hackintosh, a stock PC running Apple's OS X. " Google it and you'll see it can be done.

Cheerio John

Thanks John, I'll take a look.
Mick
 
Why not use the old beater' MAC for general computing ... and buy a brand new Windows desktop PC for gaming ... simple as that !
 
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And of course as a gamer who has never liked Mac, why would you want to......
I agree. I don't care for Macs with their ridiculous prices and elitist attitude. I am forced to use one where I work (UCLA and a place that begins with G, they know what they are doing, I think) But my wife likes them and needs an up-to-date one. I have collected enough bits to build a new computer and thought it might be fun. But the CPU is AMD so I don't think it will work. I think I'll build a Linux box instead.
Mick
 
Back in the day when people were building their own PCs from off the shelf parts, the heart of the matter was the BIOS ROM, which was a major stumbling block. Third party replacements like Phoenix and Award often contained the letters IBM in some innocuous text like, "this is not IBM " or something similar since code compilers looked for that in order to work. Apple has always had a very tight relationship between their ROM and the hardware, making cloning a non-trivial job. Aside from the possible cost saving at the expense of time to build, why would you want to? Could you build a better MAC than Apple?
 
The main issue is going to be the driver software. In the windows environment the manufacturers put a lot of effort into writing good drivers. In the Apple environment you're dependent on Apple for the drivers so more or less stuck using exactly the same hardware components.

Cheerio John
 
Could you build a better MAC than Apple?

Not really because of aformentioned driver availability - effectively limiting your hardware to the highest spec Apple has - but I can build an equivalent one for much less. Back in high school a few friends and I had a side project for the music club (they needed a Mac but couldn't afford a new one). We not onlyy built a hackintosh we put it inside a modified G5 case so it even looks like the real deal.
 
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