IBM ThinkPad X40, X41 Motherboard Schematic Circuit Diagram
IBM ThinkPad X40, X41 Motherboard Schematic Circuit Diagram
How Apple Company Controls PC Software
Several Mac-compatible devices were built, produced, and marketed between 1996 and 1997, thanks to an initiative by Apple's more emancipated thinking to license its BIOS/OS combo. Companies like Sony, Power Computing, Radius, and even Motorola spent millions of dollars building these systems, but Apple discontinued the licensing long after the first Mac clones were launched! Apple effectively assured that its systems would not be competitive with Windows-based PCs by terminating these licenses. In comparison to PCs, it has a significantly smaller market share, greater system prices, fewer available software applications, and fewer possibilities for hardware maintenance, replacement, and upgrades. Major components like motherboards, power supplies, and casings are only available from Apple at exorbitant rates because of the unique form factors, making out-of-warranty maintenance, replacement, and upgrades of these components prohibitively expensive.
The only difference between a Mac and a PC now that Apple has changed their Mac systems to PC architecture is the operating system they run, therefore a PC running OS X effectively becomes a Mac, whilst a Mac running Windows essentially becomes a PC. This implies that, other than their design aesthetic, the only thing that distinguishes Mac computers is their ability to run OS X. To do this, Apple adds code in OS X that checks for an Apple-specific security chip, prohibiting OS X from functioning on non-Apple computers. Although this encourages people to buy Apple-branded computers, it ignores the enormous market for selling OS X to non-Apple consumers. For example, if Apple had released OS X to PC customers when Microsoft was postponing the introduction of Vista, OS X would have snatched a significant portion of Windows' market share.
