Home-brew Macs Appear, Disappear from eBay

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A budding eBay entrepreneur that goes by the name "chris555" tried to cash in on Pystaris Mac clone scheme by offering his own knock-off Macs on eBay. His two "Non Apple Mac OS X" systems appeared at the beginning of the week for US$549 each, but had been removed by Wednesday morning.

The eBay product description stated "Run the award winning Mac OS 10.5 on this custom-built desktop computer for hundreds less than a computer direct from Apple. This desktop comes preloaded with Mac OS X Leopard with all the latest features. Finally, the power of Mac OS X at a fraction of the price," according to AppleInsider.

Pystar made news in April when it introduced its OpenMac Intel-based Mac clones. The computers claimed to be Mac OS X 10.5-compatible and came with Leopard pre-installed. While the $399 price tag might appear compelling on the surface, the systems were not Apple authorized and the installed copy of Mac OS X 10.5 violated Appleis end user license agreement, or EULA.

There is no word as to why chris555is unauthorized Mac clones were removed from eBay.

Jeff Gamet

Jeff Gamet

Jeff is the Mac Observer's Managing Editor, and co-host of the Apple Context Machine podcast. He is the author of "The Designer's Guide to Mac OS X" from Peachpit Press, and writes for several design-related publications. Jeff has presented at events such as Macworld Expo, the RSA Conference, and the Mac Computer Expo. In all his spare time, he also co-hosts the We Have Communicators podcast, and makes guest appearances on several other podcasts, too. Jeff dreams in HD.

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