Creating your Own Intel Mac (Part I)

After purchasing about a dozen Macintoshes in my lifetime. Within the past few years, I wanted to build a PC. Since Apple's let the Cat out of the bag, I decided to build an Intel Mac instead (same parts, just a different OS.) Let me remind you that running Tiger OSx86 for Intel is not presently legal. Apple does not allow its OS to run on non-Apple Hardware. This is sort of a shame because why else would you want to switch to Intel? Lots of Intel Parts are much cheaper on the street than Apple's proprietary PowerPC Hardware. I really encourage Apple to release a legal verson of its OS to run on Hardware other than Apple's. Why? Let me give you a history of my OS Purchases:

System 7.0
System 7.5
System 8.0/8.1
System 8.5
System 8.6
System 9.04/9.2.1/9.2.2
System X 10.0 Beta
System X 10.0 Retail
System X 10.1
System X 10.2 Jaguar
System X 10.3 Panther
System X 10.4 Tiger PowerPC

That is about $1,600.00 just in Mac OS Purchases by one person. Granted, I spent more than that on Hardware. However, I am really tired of buying a new Box every 3 years. I would like to buy a box that is more upgradable like a PC and buy a processor and/or new motherboard every 6 years. These days you can buy a brand new PC Motherboard for around 100 bucks. Try buying an old Mac Motherboard and it will cost around 750.00 to 1000.00. Why should we keep replacing the entire Box? It is much more economical to replace only the OS every 12-18 months. Avid Mac home users can't afford to keep buying a 2000-3000 computer and take out a used "car loan" for a new Mac. I would rather buy a $130 OS, a $500 PC, and replace and upgrade parts on a much more affordable basis.

If Apple would sell the OS Separately, it would still make millions if not billions on the OS alone. It could still sell its expensive well designed boxes to Apple followers and let the geeks who are willing to tinker with their PCs build their own Macs. Also lets look at it this way, The PC that I just built only runs the Mac OS. I did not buy a copy of Windoze for it and will not run Windoze on it. Macs could actually gain a percent or two in Market share by offering a Build your own Mac starter kit (aka the Microsoft Windows Killer kit.)

Apple would even save money by selling a "Build your own Mac starter kit" This would include:
1 G5 Case
1 Intel Motherboard with built in DVI-D, GMA 950 Graphics, 10/100/1000 Ethernet, SATA, Firewire 400/800, USB 2.0
1 Power Supply
1 GIG RAM (expandable to 4 GB)
1 160 GB SATA Harddrive
1 DVD-RW or CD-RW/DVD ROM Drive.
1 Install it yourself Mac OS X 10.4/10.5 Intel DVD with TPM and Copyprotection removed.
1 (worry about piracy?) Include a serial number and internet activation code for Mac Starter Kit users.

The Motherboard and the powersupply would be installed and mounted in the case. The rest would be up to the User to install and configure.

On top of this Apple could either charge an AppleCare fee for support or use a free third party Public Support User Group like OSX86project.org