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Speaker 1: tech stuff from how stuff works dot com. You've heard
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Speaker 1: this video podcast from how stuff works dot com. Hello there, everybody,
Speaker 1: and welcome to tech stuff. My name is Chris Palette,
Speaker 1: and I'm the tech editor here at how stuff works
Speaker 1: dot com. And apparently I speak halting Lee sitting across
Speaker 1: from me as usual as senior writer Jonathan Strickland. Hey,
Speaker 1: they're all you hepcats a sight. Yeah yeah, I'm not
Speaker 1: sure where they came from. We had a big philosophical
Speaker 1: discussion just a minute ago. Of course, this episode may
Speaker 1: publish before that one, so we won't go into any detail. Um,
Speaker 1: Before we get started, I wanted to remind you remember
Speaker 1: we were talking earlier about pumpkin destruction. Oh yes, yes, right,
Speaker 1: the Science Channels showing the road to Punkin, Chunkin and
Speaker 1: Punkin chunkin on Thanksgiving night. Yeah, that's a November twenty
Speaker 1: six here in the United States on Science Channel. Yeah,
Speaker 1: starts at eight. Uh. Then there's another one at nine,
Speaker 1: So those are the two shows. Um, you get to
Speaker 1: see these guys who build these amazing machines designed to
Speaker 1: shoot pumpkins a very far away before they explode. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: it's it's lovely. I've actually watched shows like this in
Speaker 1: the past, and it's it's a lot of fun to
Speaker 1: watch those those guys shoot a uh an object that
Speaker 1: probably shouldn't be fired from a cannon and watch it
Speaker 1: burst on the ground. It's it's what you might call gorgeous.
Speaker 1: So what are we gonna talk about today? While it
Speaker 1: all boils down to a message I received in listen
Speaker 1: or mail. Now, this listener mail came from Mark from Phoenix, Arizona,
Speaker 1: and Mark wrote an incredibly long and wonderful listener listener
Speaker 1: mail to us. But it's so long and it covers
Speaker 1: so much ground that I tried to cut it back
Speaker 1: a little bit because it's just it's too unwieldy to
Speaker 1: start off an episode. So here's here's what's left. Greetings,
Speaker 1: Chris and Jonathan, I want to tell you how much
Speaker 1: I enjoy listening to your podcast, as well as comment
Speaker 1: on several specific items. Excerpt your episode on Apple clones
Speaker 1: lacked a description of resources on the web, both for
Speaker 1: sale and open source, that are available to convert a
Speaker 1: PC into a hack intosh. Never tried this myself yet,
Speaker 1: but I also have read several articles claiming success using
Speaker 1: OS ten as a virtual machine when parallels Desktop and
Speaker 1: V and fusion wear. But your mileage is sure to vary.
Speaker 1: As with any type of non authorized, undefined use of
Speaker 1: any hardware, software, or firmware. You put them in all caps.
Speaker 1: I thin make it special. Another definition of firmware you
Speaker 1: can consider is any code that begins execution on the
Speaker 1: system prior to the main operating system becoming active. Take
Speaker 1: it or leave it, but don't deny it. Also sounds
Speaker 1: pretty good. Once again, I love your podcasts and feel
Speaker 1: at times that you two have produced some of them
Speaker 1: just for me. To me, that's a sign of true
Speaker 1: technology evangelists. Please don't stop doing what you do until
Speaker 1: you at least talk about jail breaking and why that
Speaker 1: could drive you crazy or worse. Sincerely, Mark from Phoenix, Arizona.
Speaker 1: So this isn't the jail breaking episode. This is a
Speaker 1: long distance dedication. Yes, this one goes out to Mark
Speaker 1: Mark wherever you are, probably Phoenix, Arizona. This one specifically
Speaker 1: for you. Um so we wanted to talk about Hackintosh
Speaker 1: is now like Mark said ages back back in April,
Speaker 1: in fact, I think, um, we had an episode called
Speaker 1: Apple Clones. We're kind of talking about these computers that
Speaker 1: were being made by a company called sy Star. Still
Speaker 1: are actually and still buy them. Um and the company
Speaker 1: what size Star was doing that was so unique was
Speaker 1: it was selling uh hardware, PC hardware that was running
Speaker 1: the Mac os ten operating system. Now, this is unusual
Speaker 1: because Apple likes their Mac os ten operating system to
Speaker 1: run on Apple computers and only Apple computers. That's right.
Speaker 1: Anything otherwise is a violation of the end user license
Speaker 1: agreement or yeah, now you lash. Laws by the way,
Speaker 1: are not law yet, so um so, yeah, you you
Speaker 1: are violating a license agreement if you try to install
Speaker 1: an operating system or really when whenever you're doing anything
Speaker 1: that violates a license agreement, you are not technically breaking
Speaker 1: the law in the United States. Um, yet we have
Speaker 1: to say yet change, Yes, there have been so now
Speaker 1: in this case, the whole reason behind it is that
Speaker 1: Apple they like to build a product from the ground
Speaker 1: up and control every aspect of that product possible, right,
Speaker 1: I mean everything. Yeah, So they're very, very concerned about
Speaker 1: the whole user experience. And of course they don't build
Speaker 1: every piece of it, but they choose what processor goes
Speaker 1: in there, and they choose what video card goes the exactly. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So when you're talking about that, then you you realize
Speaker 1: PCs are totally different PCs. Two PCs that are essentially
Speaker 1: the same amount of like they have the same specs
Speaker 1: in general, could have completely different parts to them, completely
Speaker 1: different components from different manufacturers, and they could look totally different.
Speaker 1: You know, one PC may look and completely different from
Speaker 1: another PC that has essentially the same specs. Apple, They're
Speaker 1: going to be uniform. They're beautiful, they're efficient machines. Um,
Speaker 1: they do what what they were designed to do very well.
Speaker 1: Uh But again there unless if you don't like that style,
Speaker 1: you're out of luck, because that's all there is. Yeah. Yeah, Well,
Speaker 1: and and I would like to get into a little
Speaker 1: bit of the definition on hacking because uh, you know,
Speaker 1: the word hacker sort of carries with it a negative connotation.
Speaker 1: I mean, people think of hackers as people who break
Speaker 1: into mainframe computers and steal social security numbers or yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: global thermonuclear war, that kind of thing. Shall we play
Speaker 1: a game? But you know, there are other people who
Speaker 1: see hacking as something different. I mean, the basically the
Speaker 1: whole uh O'Reilly community would see it as people who
Speaker 1: like to take things apart and mess with it and
Speaker 1: you can do things for Yeah, I see how it works,
Speaker 1: Maybe improve upon it, uh you know, maybe share that
Speaker 1: information with other people and and and try something new.
Speaker 1: You know, yeah, you might. You might think, hey, I've
Speaker 1: got this device that does this one thing really well.
Speaker 1: I wish it could also do this other thing. And
Speaker 1: then you think, hey, wait, if I take it apart
Speaker 1: and look and see how it works, I might be
Speaker 1: able to make it do this other thing. And then
Speaker 1: you build it back and you you you add in
Speaker 1: new functionality that is hacking. It can be. It doesn't
Speaker 1: have to be a computer, doesn't have to be a program,
Speaker 1: doesn't have to be software. It can be anything really
Speaker 1: and um, a lot of the early hackers, that's what
Speaker 1: they were doing. They were taking software and saying, you know,
Speaker 1: the software is great, but I could really use a
Speaker 1: little more functionality. I need a couple of features that
Speaker 1: aren't found in this I'll just build in some lines
Speaker 1: of code added into this, uh, this program, and it
Speaker 1: will suddenly do the things I needed to do. May
Speaker 1: not look pretty, it may not be uh, it may
Speaker 1: not be elegant. So you might be a code monkey
Speaker 1: and uh your code is not functional or elegant. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I love Jonathan Colton. Um if you're listening to Jonathan Yeah,
Speaker 1: big fans, Um, I'll be seeing you in Atlanta in January.
Speaker 1: So anyway, the the whole, the whole idea here is that, Yeah,
Speaker 1: these guys are not They're not they don't have any
Speaker 1: like ulterior motives. They're not trying to um bring down
Speaker 1: the system or anything like that. They're curious to know
Speaker 1: how something works. They may want to improve upon it,
Speaker 1: and they may want to use it in a way
Speaker 1: that the person who created it had not either thought
Speaker 1: of or intended. Yeah, and a lot of people in
Speaker 1: the hacker community who take uh shall we say, umbrage
Speaker 1: at the use of the word hacker to describe you know,
Speaker 1: these uh folks who are up to know God like
Speaker 1: prefer that we use the word cracker for those who
Speaker 1: are trying to break in, uh to you know, the
Speaker 1: entire country of Moldova and trash their water system or whatever.
Speaker 1: We have some bad news for you guys, though. The
Speaker 1: AP style book says no way, everybody's a hacker. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so sorry, we have to follow a P style book rules.
Speaker 1: That's that's our style kinds. So so for us now
Speaker 1: from now on, a hacker as a hacker as a hacker.
Speaker 1: But that's the thing is there there everybody who's a
Speaker 1: hacker is hacking, whether they're using it for good or
Speaker 1: for evil. Oh you know, it's just like Wizard of Oz,
Speaker 1: Are you a good witch? Are you a bad witch? Sandwich?
Speaker 1: So let's go on to talking specifically about the Hackintosh,
Speaker 1: now that we've talked all around the hacker thing. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I just wanted to clarify that because, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: you might associate this with doing something illegal and it's not.
Speaker 1: It's sort of depends on how you go about it.
Speaker 1: And there's different shades of gray from the light grade
Speaker 1: to the very very very dark. It's on the fringe, definitely, definitely.
Speaker 1: Now let me ask you this question, why would someone
Speaker 1: want to build a hackintosh. You know, I can give
Speaker 1: you a specific example of why someone would want to
Speaker 1: build a hackintosh. Hit me baby one more time. Um,
Speaker 1: Steve Jobs does not believe the Apple can affordably produce
Speaker 1: a netbook. Oh so it might, it might behoo have
Speaker 1: someone to prove Steve Jobs wrong by taking a net
Speaker 1: stripping it of its operating system and installing OS ten
Speaker 1: and then you would have a very small, very portable,
Speaker 1: very affordable machine running the Mac operating system. Yes, and
Speaker 1: that's and that's more often than not in the past
Speaker 1: probably year. That's the way I've seen Macintosh is come
Speaker 1: about is because somebody wants a very affordable netbook that
Speaker 1: runs ostend and uh Apple. For the record, I still
Speaker 1: have a twelve inch power book, which is an older
Speaker 1: power pc uh Macintosh, and I still get comments like wow,
Speaker 1: that's a really small mac and like, yeah it is. Well,
Speaker 1: they don't make it anymore. They don't make it twelve inch, right, Um,
Speaker 1: so that's another closest you can get. And it was
Speaker 1: actually never really affordable. It depends on how you define.
Speaker 1: All right, well, let me let me also go ahead
Speaker 1: and get this out of the way, because I don't
Speaker 1: want tons of people writing me. Um. When we talk
Speaker 1: about price points, and people often will say that the
Speaker 1: Mac computers are more expensive than PC computers. Okay, well
Speaker 1: in general, yeah, that's true. You look at the Mac
Speaker 1: computers have a specific range and it's essentially if take
Speaker 1: the Mac Mini out of the equation, right, so you're
Speaker 1: just looking at the laptops to desktops. You're looking at
Speaker 1: a thousand to around two thousand dollars or your for
Speaker 1: most of your base computers. Right, So that's you know,
Speaker 1: that's fairly expensive. You don't find anything below a thousand
Speaker 1: dollars besides the Mac Mini, which is just the really
Speaker 1: just the basic basic part of a computer, and you
Speaker 1: have to buy everything else around it anyway. Um, Whereas
Speaker 1: with a PC you can look at PCs and like, hey,
Speaker 1: look this store is running a thing where I can
Speaker 1: get this PC for four dred bucks. What's the difference?
Speaker 1: The differences in performance? MAX? The reason why MAX are
Speaker 1: so expensive. There are a couple of different reasons. One is, yes,
Speaker 1: you are paying the Apple tax. Yes, that Apple computers
Speaker 1: are more expensive than a PC that runs the same
Speaker 1: kind of like the same powerful, same amount of power.
Speaker 1: I guess you could say, and it's hard to say,
Speaker 1: Like the processor is is similar, the amount of storage
Speaker 1: space is similar, the amount of RAM is similar. If
Speaker 1: you if you if you look at the guts of
Speaker 1: the machine, the stuff that's not you take everything outside
Speaker 1: the case, and you get a similar processor and a
Speaker 1: similar hard drive, and a similar graphics processor and sound card.
Speaker 1: You're you're going i mean, the components themselves, the stuff
Speaker 1: that's inside the box will be It'll be a little cheaper,
Speaker 1: but not not as much as what a lot of
Speaker 1: people think. Really, I mean, if you get the quality
Speaker 1: of of um components that Apple uses in their their
Speaker 1: their machines, it's really you're not really going to save
Speaker 1: a ton of money by building the equivalent PC version.
Speaker 1: You will save some, but not not as much as
Speaker 1: what a lot of I think a lot of people
Speaker 1: just imationed, like, oh, there's like a five mark up
Speaker 1: immediately on Apple products. That's just simply not true. No,
Speaker 1: not not not that way. But there is Apple can
Speaker 1: demand a you know, a little bit more cashe and
Speaker 1: they can they can charge a little bit more for
Speaker 1: their products, but it's not you know, completely unwarranted. They
Speaker 1: generally do get a little bit better components. But let
Speaker 1: the you know, the Dells and the hps of the
Speaker 1: world that use those same components are cheaper, but not
Speaker 1: as cheap as a an E machine you know what
Speaker 1: you might get at four at at you know, your local,
Speaker 1: but it's also running a less powerful process that doesn't
Speaker 1: have as much memory, doesn't have as much hard drive space,
Speaker 1: which is the thing about netbooks in general. They are
Speaker 1: you know, they use less powerful processors. And so really
Speaker 1: a Hacintosh is going to be attractive to someone who
Speaker 1: wants a computer running the Macintosh operating system. They do
Speaker 1: not need it to be as powerful as Apple has
Speaker 1: made their computers, not in general. So well, let's well,
Speaker 1: let's just say like I want to Let's say I
Speaker 1: want to run stuff on the mac os, but I
Speaker 1: don't really have it in my budget to buy the
Speaker 1: cheapest of the the imax. Let's say, okay, I want
Speaker 1: a desktop computer, and you don't want a Mac minie.
Speaker 1: I don't want a macmni. Okay, let's say that I
Speaker 1: don't want to Mac Mini, which is around what six
Speaker 1: seven hulls. I think, so honestly, haven't I will look
Speaker 1: to look while I talk, So, uh, I don't I
Speaker 1: can't afford the lowest level iMac. Let's say, and I want, um,
Speaker 1: I want a desktop computer. It does not have to
Speaker 1: be as powerful as the iMac, but I want it
Speaker 1: running the operating system. I don't have any options besides
Speaker 1: the Mac Mini, which is there you go, That's what
Speaker 1: I thought it was. But um, I wasn't. It wasn't
Speaker 1: entirely so uh but keeping that in mind, then I
Speaker 1: would you know, I'm going out and buying like a
Speaker 1: cheaper desktop, I'm putting the mac Os on it. What
Speaker 1: do I need to do in order to do that? Okay,
Speaker 1: here's the thing. The Mac Os is built for a
Speaker 1: very specific hardware and bios configuration. Yes, I mean if
Speaker 1: you if you are in control of the entire you know,
Speaker 1: theoretically in the entire line of computers, you know specifically
Speaker 1: what processors you have used in the past and what
Speaker 1: it should run on. Like Microsoft really has a much
Speaker 1: more difficult job because they have to build an operating
Speaker 1: system that can work on a huge variety of hardware.
Speaker 1: We're talking about different kinds of processors, motherboards, ram hard
Speaker 1: drive space, I mean, video cards. It has to be
Speaker 1: able to support all this different stuff. Now, Apple, the
Speaker 1: OS only has to support a a limited number of
Speaker 1: components because that's all Apple will use. Now, even within
Speaker 1: a line of IMAX, depending on when you get one,
Speaker 1: the components may not be exactly the same because Apple,
Speaker 1: like other companies, is going to purchase their equipment in
Speaker 1: places where it makes the most sense. So if if
Speaker 1: one person, if one company, creates a motherboard that is
Speaker 1: that the OS um supports, and that's the cheapest one
Speaker 1: in the market, that's where they're gonna go. But if
Speaker 1: another company starts to undercut the first one and the
Speaker 1: OS also supports that motherboard configuration, you can bet that
Speaker 1: Apple is gonna switch. So there are still a range
Speaker 1: of of pieces of equipment that you can find in
Speaker 1: the Macintosh line, but it's a much much more narrow range, right,
Speaker 1: So if you want to build a PC that runs
Speaker 1: mac OS reliably, that means that you have to make
Speaker 1: sure that the components you pick are among those that
Speaker 1: the OS supports, Otherwise you will have problems getting your
Speaker 1: hardware to interact with your operating system. And that's gonna
Speaker 1: be tricky, especially with UH stuff like the netbooks, because
Speaker 1: the netbooks use and often use processors that were not
Speaker 1: part of the the Apple line. Yeah, it's actually a
Speaker 1: lot easier to build a desktop than it would be
Speaker 1: to buy a netbook or laptop and strip it of
Speaker 1: its operating system and put in a new one. Um,
Speaker 1: what you can do if you want to buy or
Speaker 1: if you want to build your own computer, you would
Speaker 1: buy the the components individually, including the case. So you're
Speaker 1: talking about everything from the power source to the fan,
Speaker 1: to the motherboard, to RAM, to hard drive, two disk drives.
Speaker 1: All of that stuff needs to be purchased, and you
Speaker 1: need to to look and see what the mac os supports.
Speaker 1: I will tell you right now. The source that I
Speaker 1: found that I think gives the most um thorough walk
Speaker 1: through of building a hackintosh is life Hacker. Life Hacker
Speaker 1: gives a great rundown from beginning to end on how
Speaker 1: to build a hackintosh. Uh they even link out to other,
Speaker 1: um other really really in depth articles about building your
Speaker 1: own computer. So if you've never built a computer before,
Speaker 1: and the language in that article is a little difficult
Speaker 1: for you to understand because you're just not familiar with
Speaker 1: the terminology, you can actually go to their earlier articles
Speaker 1: and see, you know, you can build from the ground up. Okay,
Speaker 1: so it's nice because it doesn't it's it's accessible. All right. Well,
Speaker 1: let's talk about what you would actually need to do
Speaker 1: if you were going to do I mean, you know
Speaker 1: in a nutshell that if you're gonna do it at
Speaker 1: that level, you're really gonna go forward with it. I
Speaker 1: wouldn't follow the instructions were going to lay out. I
Speaker 1: think we're just gonna talk about the high end. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're gonna about in general generalities. So, so you have
Speaker 1: a you have a PC, maybe you built it, maybe
Speaker 1: it's a netbook that you want to run ten on.
Speaker 1: How are you going to convince it that it's a Macintosh.
Speaker 1: The first thing you're gonna have to do is probably well,
Speaker 1: as far as I'm concerned, is tweak your bios. Now,
Speaker 1: the bios is this layer of programming that interacts between
Speaker 1: your operating system and your computer's hardware. The bios has
Speaker 1: to be able to operate in such a way that
Speaker 1: it can convince the operating system that the underlying hardware
Speaker 1: is in fact a Macintosh. So, um, you need to
Speaker 1: find a set of directions, and there are many out
Speaker 1: there on the web that tell you how to tweak
Speaker 1: your BIOS in such a way so that it is
Speaker 1: compatible with the mac Os because just plugging the mac
Speaker 1: OS DVD into your PC and then trying to install
Speaker 1: the operating system, that's not gonna work. And I just
Speaker 1: do a clean install like that, right right. And I
Speaker 1: can tell you from personal experience that this right, this
Speaker 1: right here is going to keep a lot of people
Speaker 1: from doing from trying this because UM, I installed a
Speaker 1: copy of a Buntu Johnny jack Lope on an old
Speaker 1: PC that I had, and uh, this is this is
Speaker 1: a version of Linux for those of you who aren't
Speaker 1: in the know. UM. Now, the Linux community is much
Speaker 1: different because in this case, UM, I have had difficulty
Speaker 1: finding a driver for the monitor that I have, so
Speaker 1: I can't I'm having trouble changing the resolution of the
Speaker 1: monitor and making the most of the size that I
Speaker 1: have hooked up to the PC. The thing the difference
Speaker 1: here is eventually the Linux community, somebody might write a
Speaker 1: driver for that, because it's an open source operating system
Speaker 1: and there are thousands and thousands of people messing with
Speaker 1: it and tinkering with it and hacking it every day. Now,
Speaker 1: in Apple's case, if I'm trying to do this with
Speaker 1: a hack in tash and I can't get a particular
Speaker 1: piece of hardware to work, then nobody's going to be
Speaker 1: writing a driver for it because Apple is not supporting it.
Speaker 1: And the only luck and I can tell you from
Speaker 1: you know, the amount of frustration of how with just
Speaker 1: that one little thing where actually somebody might take a
Speaker 1: look at it for real. You know, if I were
Speaker 1: going to try to do this and it didn't work
Speaker 1: right off the bat, I would probably go, well, the
Speaker 1: chance to coming around this obstacle are pretty, you know,
Speaker 1: pretty low. That's why I would go with building a
Speaker 1: computer versus buying one and hoping that everything is going
Speaker 1: to work out, because at least when you buy all
Speaker 1: the components, especially if someone's already done this before, then
Speaker 1: at least you have the you know, yeah, you have
Speaker 1: something to fall back on saying, well, it worked in
Speaker 1: this case, so it should work when I do it,
Speaker 1: as long as I do everything correctly. When you're using
Speaker 1: a different set of hardware, there's no way to predict that.
Speaker 1: So um and and the only other thing you can
Speaker 1: hope is that the next generation of Apple products actually
Speaker 1: uses whatever hardware you is no longer is isn't recognized
Speaker 1: by your operating system and that they patch it, which
Speaker 1: is the chances are minuscule, but it's easy if you're
Speaker 1: It would be far easier to build a hack intosh,
Speaker 1: if you were going to take the components themselves off
Speaker 1: the store shelf and go, I know they used this,
Speaker 1: I know they used that. I'm pretty sure they have
Speaker 1: one of those in an iMac. You can put it
Speaker 1: together and probably get it to work without too awfully
Speaker 1: much difficulty. I would imagine, yeah, you'd have to it
Speaker 1: would know what those things were. Usually you're gonna have
Speaker 1: to rip the operating system software onto another desk. The
Speaker 1: Lifehickers suggests that you buy your copy of the operating system,
Speaker 1: so you're not just stealing it. Well, that's that's uh,
Speaker 1: that's how side star is making its case because they're
Speaker 1: buying legitimate copies of the operating system. It's just that
Speaker 1: Apple says that it's a violation of the end user
Speaker 1: license agreement to use it on a machine that is
Speaker 1: not technically am academ Right. So side Star what they
Speaker 1: are doing is they're doing exactly what I'm describing, except
Speaker 1: they're doing it on a wider scale. They're doing it
Speaker 1: in a mass production kind of way. I guess not
Speaker 1: really mass production because I doubt that they're making that
Speaker 1: many of them right now. Well, I mean it's more
Speaker 1: than just one or two. Yeah, yeah, but it's it's
Speaker 1: a company that's that's taking this process and as you know,
Speaker 1: kind of putting a a streamlined effect into into place.
Speaker 1: And so what they're doing is they're installing this upbring
Speaker 1: system on a set of PC hardware that is as
Speaker 1: close to what the Mac hardware does as possible. UM.
Speaker 1: And there are three different tiers that you can buy,
Speaker 1: UH for the the Size Star models and UM Size
Speaker 1: Star also offers they just started offering at a trial
Speaker 1: version anyway, a set of software called Rebel. Yes that
Speaker 1: that would be Rebel e f I, and the e
Speaker 1: f I is actually short for UM. Oh, I had
Speaker 1: it down here? Where is it? I honestly don't know
Speaker 1: the answer to this because I didn't have it. Where
Speaker 1: is it? Anyway? It's a UM. The e f I
Speaker 1: is basically a piece of code that defines the basically
Speaker 1: the different communication between an operating system and the platform firmware.
Speaker 1: And so they're trying they're basically fooling the computer into
Speaker 1: two are actually fooling the operating system into believing that
Speaker 1: it's running on a Macintosh. So in other words, you
Speaker 1: could run this software to install mac os on any computer. So,
Speaker 1: like you know, Chris was talking about the netbooks, this
Speaker 1: would be one way to get the mac OS onto
Speaker 1: a netbook, assuming the netbook was capable of running the
Speaker 1: operating system, if it was powerful enough. Um. But as
Speaker 1: a side star points out, there's no guarantee that all
Speaker 1: of your hardware, all of your drivers are going to
Speaker 1: be compatible with the mac os. It is supposed to
Speaker 1: try and fool the OS as much as possible into
Speaker 1: thinking it's on an Apple machine, but that does not
Speaker 1: mean that everything's gonna work, Like you might suddenly realize
Speaker 1: that your touch pad doesn't work. Um. And a lot
Speaker 1: of people who have netbooks, netbook hacintoshes have had trouble
Speaker 1: with stuff just cutting out on them and crashing. It's
Speaker 1: been unreliable. Yeah, so I mean buy or beware, not
Speaker 1: not completely, but you know it, it happens from time.
Speaker 1: It's not necessarily going to be as reliable as again,
Speaker 1: building your own machine. But of course building building a
Speaker 1: netbook is pretty much I mean, I guess could take
Speaker 1: that on but it would probably be more expensive than
Speaker 1: just going out and buying one. Yeah. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: it's the kind of thing that I would imagine the
Speaker 1: the support costs, even if you're the ones supporting it,
Speaker 1: it would be kind of irritating. It would be you'd
Speaker 1: be better off getting, you know, a machine that worked
Speaker 1: for you, with some operating system that you were comfortable with. Right.
Speaker 1: So the trial version of Rebel, just so you guys know,
Speaker 1: it is very limited. It has a two hour run
Speaker 1: time and after that it deactivates. And they also very
Speaker 1: they make it very clear that they do not uh,
Speaker 1: they are not to be held responsible for any data
Speaker 1: lost during the process. Yeah, and that that goes back
Speaker 1: to our always back up your hard drive. Yes. By
Speaker 1: the way, ef I is short for Extensible Firmware Interface,
Speaker 1: the interface between the firmware and the hardware. That makes sense.
Speaker 1: That makes sense, all right, So we've defined Hackintosh. We
Speaker 1: kind of gave people, you know, say, go to life
Speaker 1: hacker if you really want to take this on. It's
Speaker 1: an interesting project. I don't know that I would necessarily
Speaker 1: take it on. I've already got a Mac and I'm
Speaker 1: happy with it, and you know, I was. It comes
Speaker 1: down to if you're willing to put in the work. Um,
Speaker 1: and the money really is a big deal. The life
Speaker 1: Hacker machine that is described as eight hundred dollars. The
Speaker 1: little fudging there, it was eight hundred after some rebates
Speaker 1: total it was I think, so that's still cheaper than
Speaker 1: any iMac you're gonna find. It's not as it's more
Speaker 1: expensive than the Mac many. But then again with the
Speaker 1: Mac Mini you've kind of buy other stuff too. So
Speaker 1: if you already have monitors or whatever that are going
Speaker 1: to work with this, uh, then you'll save money that way. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then there's the the joy of hacking, which a
Speaker 1: lot of people, you know, if you you're interested in
Speaker 1: having it as a project, I mean, that's sort of
Speaker 1: a different animal. But for me, I'm I'm not at
Speaker 1: that level. I'm more of an enthusiast for technology. So
Speaker 1: I would prefer that if I were using a Macintosh
Speaker 1: or Windows or Linux machine that in general it would
Speaker 1: run pretty well. Yeah. I kind of like stuff, but
Speaker 1: I would prefer it to work more than it doesn't. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm right there with you then, And I you know,
Speaker 1: the the gray area. It just kind of makes me nervous. Well,
Speaker 1: whenever I think about building on taking on a project
Speaker 1: like this, Like I thought about a few different projects
Speaker 1: like this, and I really think, like, oh, that might
Speaker 1: be really neat to tackle. What if I really, you know,
Speaker 1: tried this out. Um, I look back to the things
Speaker 1: I built in wood shop class back when I was
Speaker 1: in high school and how they are completely unidentifiable from
Speaker 1: what they are supposed to be, and I think this
Speaker 1: might not be for me. Yeah, yeah, um yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's funny because I just don't I don't know. It
Speaker 1: seems like it would be an awful lot of trouble
Speaker 1: unless you were specifically, you know, doing it just to
Speaker 1: see what breaks and what doesn't. Um, And I think
Speaker 1: we should mention to the dark gray part of the
Speaker 1: gray area, which is the cracked version. There is another
Speaker 1: way to do this, which is within actual cracked version
Speaker 1: of the operating system. And in this case, you're violating
Speaker 1: more than the end usual action because you're essentially stealing
Speaker 1: in a copy of the operation that is not you
Speaker 1: should make copy. I guess you could argue, hey, what
Speaker 1: if I went out and bought a copy of the
Speaker 1: operating system and never used it and then just downloaded it?
Speaker 1: But even so, you're still stealing a copy. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: then you're gonna have to prove that we're talking about
Speaker 1: It seems like the realm of bit torrent here is
Speaker 1: what we're talking about. Yeah. Yeah, and that's that's definitely
Speaker 1: farther than I'm personally willing to go on that. Probably.
Speaker 1: I should also point out that I misspocused. How can
Speaker 1: ago before everyone writes in and tells me that the
Speaker 1: f I is not the interface between the hardware and
Speaker 1: the firmware. It is, in fact the interface between the
Speaker 1: software in the firmware. I was wondering because I was
Speaker 1: thinking that between heart software, between firmware and hardware. I
Speaker 1: was like, wow, that's a that's a new level that
Speaker 1: I'm not even familiar with. That would be a wrong level. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was completely wrong. It is between the software and
Speaker 1: the firmware. So I hope you didn't pause the podcast
Speaker 1: and then tell somebody somebody will have done. We'll see it,
Speaker 1: and and don't think you're funny if you listen to
Speaker 1: the whole thing and then you pretended like you paused
Speaker 1: it and then you wrote in we can tell because
Speaker 1: we're that darn good. Um, I am uh, I'm worn out.
Speaker 1: With Hackintosh's yeah, it's it's it's interesting. Is it seems
Speaker 1: like it would be a kind of an interesting project,
Speaker 1: but uh, it's some it applies to a niche audience.
Speaker 1: But you might hear people talking about it, and maybe
Speaker 1: it'll inspire Apple to come up with a small, uh
Speaker 1: something relatively an expensive portable device like a tablet. I
Speaker 1: didn't say tablet. We're fueling the rumors once again. I
Speaker 1: think really what it comes down to is, uh, if
Speaker 1: you want the mac os that badly, then go ahead
Speaker 1: and put some money into investing into an Apple computer. Um,
Speaker 1: and if you want to do things that are useful
Speaker 1: like play games or productivity software, just stick with the
Speaker 1: Windows machine. Seriously that I don't have an anti Mac bias, honestly.
Speaker 1: All right, I'm done? Are you done? I am? I'm
Speaker 1: so done. Let us move on to our second round
Speaker 1: of listener mail. This comes from David in London, the
Speaker 1: United Kingdom, and I'm too tired to do a fake accent,
Speaker 1: so here we go. Hey guys, great show. As ever,
Speaker 1: something pretty important you didn't mention is where the Zoom
Speaker 1: is sold e g. Only in the United States. Why,
Speaker 1: surely a big partner to uptake with when Apple sells
Speaker 1: their kid globally barrier barrier to uptake. That's why I
Speaker 1: get up a game. I'm trying to read through the
Speaker 1: mic screen. Crazy. Keep up the great work, David and London. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so the zoom it is available in a very limited
Speaker 1: geographic range. It that is definitely another another barrier to
Speaker 1: Microsoft success. UM can't really answer why because I don't
Speaker 1: know the reason. It may have something to do with licensing.
Speaker 1: I have no idea actually that that makes a lot
Speaker 1: of sense. So maybe we'll look into that. That might
Speaker 1: actually be another good podcast is talking about why certain
Speaker 1: things are available in some countries and not in others,
Speaker 1: besides the content stuff like Hulu or BBC, where it's
Speaker 1: clearly a licensing issue as far as content goes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that might be a fun one to do, so we'll
Speaker 1: look into that. Okay, So thanks a lot, David. If
Speaker 1: any of you have any questions or comments or suggestions,
Speaker 1: you can write us. Our email address is tech Stuff
Speaker 1: at how stuff works dot com. Remember we do have
Speaker 1: our live show every Tuesday one pm Eastern. You can
Speaker 1: check that out at our blogs. Just go to how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. Look on the right hand side.
Speaker 1: You will see links to the blogs there. Chris and
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