A minor correction - It was Gil Amelio who renamed MacOS to 8 in order to renegotiate the clone licenses (the original licenses made under Michael Spindler were for a fixed price per machine under the assumption that clone makers would make cheap machines, Gil Amelio wanted to renegotiate to a % of sale price to get a fair value out of the high-end machines that the clone makers were actually successful with). When Steve Jobs came back, he actually tried to finish these negotiations, and actually UMAX did get a MacOS 8 license and shipped an update, but Jobs failed to close negotiations with anyone else, and gave up and killed the program.
Say what you will about Power Computing, but they literally kept this guy as an Apple customer at a time when I may have slipped through the cracks; between purchasing my first personal Mac (a Mac classic bought my first year of grad school in '91), and that part of my adult life when I was starting to earn enough money to afford Macs outright - let alone jump into the iPod, iPhone, and iPad ecosystems - was a vast wasteland of not making near enough income to meet Apple's price point. When my classic outgrew MacOS upgrades and my growing needs, a Power Center tower filled that gap where otherwise I may have had to go "to the Dark side"... When Jobs returned, I was one of those people who cursed at him through my computer screen at the news that he was killing the clone program; in retrospect, well - as they say "the rest is history", and it's clear that Jobs saved the company (with a little financial help from "the Dark Side"!) and put it on the path it's on today.
I picked up a mint PowerTower Pro 225 a couple of years ago to sit alongside my Power Macintosh 9500/132. Funny that I never open my 9500 because every time I do, some other piece of plastic breaks off. But I use the PowerTower frequently to test SCSI drives or try different PCI cards simply because it's got a basic PC metal case that is just as strong as it was 23 years ago when it came out!
I'd been hoping to replace my aging Quadra 650 for a year or so, as I remember. Even with an aftermarket processor upgrade that came along later, it still wasn't up to handling the work I was starting to do more of. The clones looked very interesting to me from the start, or rather their specs and pricing did. I'd been eyeing a forthcoming Motorola tower that they'd announced in an ad... right before Steve Jobs shut down the clone licensing. And very likely, in the same issue of MacWeek that I saw that headline, was the first of Power Computing's closeout ads, announcing their inventory closeout sale. Their mid-range minitower had been my second choice, and so after a week or three to mull things over, I saw their "We got pulled over for speeding" ad, and ordered a PowerCenter Pro 240. Didn't care that it came in a beige box, and apart from the ill-fated Jaz drive option I'd added, it worked great for several years before I replaced it with an Apple G4 Sawtooth. Thanks, Steve Kahng!
Yep, as Sami pointed out, this is a multimedia extravaganza and not everything gets covered in every place. In the podcast you'll hear from someone who worked at Power about the end days and Steve Jobs hiring people back.
@@JasonSnell Yup, I worked at Apple doing tech support for their Powerbooks (and the brand spanking new iBook) in 1999, and a lot of my coworkers were former Power Computing employees who got hired up by Apple.
A minor correction - It was Gil Amelio who renamed MacOS to 8 in order to renegotiate the clone licenses (the original licenses made under Michael Spindler were for a fixed price per machine under the assumption that clone makers would make cheap machines, Gil Amelio wanted to renegotiate to a % of sale price to get a fair value out of the high-end machines that the clone makers were actually successful with). When Steve Jobs came back, he actually tried to finish these negotiations, and actually UMAX did get a MacOS 8 license and shipped an update, but Jobs failed to close negotiations with anyone else, and gave up and killed the program.
Say what you will about Power Computing, but they literally kept this guy as an Apple customer at a time when I may have slipped through the cracks; between purchasing my first personal Mac (a Mac classic bought my first year of grad school in '91), and that part of my adult life when I was starting to earn enough money to afford Macs outright - let alone jump into the iPod, iPhone, and iPad ecosystems - was a vast wasteland of not making near enough income to meet Apple's price point.
When my classic outgrew MacOS upgrades and my growing needs, a Power Center tower filled that gap where otherwise I may have had to go "to the Dark side"... When Jobs returned, I was one of those people who cursed at him through my computer screen at the news that he was killing the clone program; in retrospect, well - as they say "the rest is history", and it's clear that Jobs saved the company (with a little financial help from "the Dark Side"!) and put it on the path it's on today.
I picked up a mint PowerTower Pro 225 a couple of years ago to sit alongside my Power Macintosh 9500/132. Funny that I never open my 9500 because every time I do, some other piece of plastic breaks off. But I use the PowerTower frequently to test SCSI drives or try different PCI cards simply because it's got a basic PC metal case that is just as strong as it was 23 years ago when it came out!
My mother did assembly for power computing in 1996
Excellent video! I always love seeing others talk about these interesting Macintosh Clones!
I'd been hoping to replace my aging Quadra 650 for a year or so, as I remember. Even with an aftermarket processor upgrade that came along later, it still wasn't up to handling the work I was starting to do more of.
The clones looked very interesting to me from the start, or rather their specs and pricing did. I'd been eyeing a forthcoming Motorola tower that they'd announced in an ad... right before Steve Jobs shut down the clone licensing. And very likely, in the same issue of MacWeek that I saw that headline, was the first of Power Computing's closeout ads, announcing their inventory closeout sale.
Their mid-range minitower had been my second choice, and so after a week or three to mull things over, I saw their "We got pulled over for speeding" ad, and ordered a PowerCenter Pro 240. Didn't care that it came in a beige box, and apart from the ill-fated Jaz drive option I'd added, it worked great for several years before I replaced it with an Apple G4 Sawtooth.
Thanks, Steve Kahng!
Surprised there was no mention of Power Computing's acquisition by Apple. If you look at the lineage, that box you have *is* an official Mac, now.
That was mentioned on the corresponding article on the web and I think also on the podcast.
Yep, as Sami pointed out, this is a multimedia extravaganza and not everything gets covered in every place. In the podcast you'll hear from someone who worked at Power about the end days and Steve Jobs hiring people back.
@@JasonSnell Yup, I worked at Apple doing tech support for their Powerbooks (and the brand spanking new iBook) in 1999, and a lot of my coworkers were former Power Computing employees who got hired up by Apple.
Hi Stephen, I guess that you don't have a clone in your collection? Do you want one, or do you only collect Apple made devices?
Still remember that and so frightening of Mac future then.
It was MacOS 7.7 (Tempo) that got renamed MacOS 8.0 and ended the clone era.