EFi-X readies desktop Millennium Mac-clones

updated 01:45 pm EST, Fri December 12, 2008

Millenium Mac clones

The American distributor of the EFi-X open-platform USB dongle has created the Millennium series of desktop computers that are designed to compete with the Mac Pro, according to AppleInsider. The Millennium 4 will be the first product released, featuring a Core 2 Quad processor overclocked to 3.8GHz, 4GB of RAM, a GeForce 8800 GTS video card, 150GB 10,000RPM drive and a 1TB 7,200RPM secondary drive. The company claims that its computer is 80-percent as fast as the 8-core 3.0GHz Mac Pro, but will sell for less than half of Apple's price.

The technology takes a much different approach than Hackintosh systems or clones such as Psystar. The EFi-X dongle attaches to a USB connection on the motherboard, re-creating the Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI) environment found on Mac systems.

The EFI method is claimed to allow users to simply install OS X without any hacks or system modifications, with full support for updates as well. The company engineers suggest that Apple would effectively disable OS X on its own Macs if the code is changed to cause conflicts with the EFi-X hardware.

Considering the heated legal battle that is raging between Psystar and Apple, the company has chosen to tread lightly with its marketing and sales tactics. The computers do not come with OS X installed or bundled, customers must obtain their own copy and install it themselves. The EFi-X dongle is also sold separately and not included with the package, meaning that the computer, clone technology, and operating system will not be sold together.

The exclusion of the operating system would seem to avoid many of the initial copyright infringement and EULA charges that were presented in the Psystar case. Apple recently amended its case against the clone-maker, however, to include charges of DMCA violation.

The DMCA code prohibits companies or individuals from manufacturing, providing, offering to the public or trafficking any technology or product that is designed "for the purpose of circumventing protection afforded by a technological measure that effectively protects a right of a copyright owner..."

The Millennium 4 system will be available for $1900, with the EFi-X dongle priced at $200. Millennium 8, 16, and 24 models will be available sometime in the next few months, with the highest end model featuring six 2.13GHz Xeon L7455 processors.

By Electronista Staff

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computers, hacks, clone, Apple

Eldernorm

Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Sep 2007

-3

12/12, 04:28pm | report spam | close reply

Interesting but...

This is an interesting article and an interesting thought. BUT... .. Why?

You buy a computer from joe. you buy software from apple and an adapter from joe's son.

You can get technical help for 90 days on the software side. Fine.

91 days later you are on your own. Since you did not buy the apple, you cannot get 3 years of apple care for a pc.

Now what.?????? For a few bucks more you get a full Apple system, hardware software and support. GREAT support...... Insanely great support.

Or you can call joe's son and ask him. He will just blame the software and there is NO support there.

Yep, save a nickel, spend 3 years running in circles.

Just a thought.
en

Guest

Joined: Nov 1999

12/12, 05:59pm | report spam | close reply

I love my dongle

I love my EFI dongle and machine I built. 100% stable, everything works, including time machine and all the other stuff. Software update works perfectly. Took my retail install dvd from 10.5.4 to 10.5.5. Can't wait for 10.5.6 to come out!

jamesfabin

Joined: Aug 2007

12/12, 06:54pm | report spam | close reply

Sounds cool for some

For those who want the advantages of running OSX (but without the full support you get from Apple when buying a full Mac system) but seem to think a mac is "too expensive" this may be attractive - but I must say I'll never do it. When you step back and look at the big picture, buying a true Mac isn't that much more money and get get a lot of value for it - not only the outstanding support, but Macs hold their value longer. If a friend of mine wanted to show off their new computer runs OSX and I saw the case was some knock-off, the first impression I would have is that they couldn't afford a Mac but really wanted one. It's like going out and buying a really bad fake Rolex and showing it off. I'll stick with the real thing for the value and support - it's worth a few extra dollars.

12/12, 11:15pm | report spam | close reply

EFI dongle is a scam

-2

12/12, 11:23pm | report spam | close reply

Inside the dongle, there is software that anyone can download and install on just about any modern PC (go to youtube.com and search for Hacintosh ). Their trick is thought to be that they have loaded the free firmware hack from the Russian guy onto the flash-memory, then wrapped a micro-controller around it to make it USB bootable without being viewable outside of the boot process. For Apple (or anyone else) to PROVE that the flash contains hacked EFI firmware (that violates the DMAC against Apple), they would have to hack thru the micro-ocontroller, which would, on its face, be a violation (under the same DMCA) against this dongle vendor. But the naive engineers at the dongle maker who thought up this scheme up are in for a lesson if Apple obtains a federal court order to have the device analyzed. Courts enforce intent before letters of the law. What's worse is that the freeware hacks may not be legal under DMCA in USA but they are in other areas of the world (that don't have DMCA yet) and are copyrighted under the GPL free software license, which is violated through this scheme of selling it for profit. There is a kid name Jonathan Monroe at Actual Technologies who also sells GPL free software disguised as commercial products --only in that case, businesses are using his hacks to store medical records, run multi-million dollar businesses that thousands of people depend on, etc.. In all these cases though, when they finally get caught, they just vanish leaving the public holding the bag. Someday gov't will catch up to all this stuff, but history tells us they are running about 15 years behind the curve...

-4

12/12, 11:24pm | report spam | close reply

Inside the dongle, there is software that anyone can download and install on just about any modern PC (go to youtube.com and search for Hacintosh ). Their trick is thought to be that they have loaded the free firmware hack from the Russian guy onto the flash-memory, then wrapped a micro-controller around it to make it USB bootable without being viewable outside of the boot process. For Apple (or anyone else) to PROVE that the flash contains hacked EFI firmware (that violates the DMCA against Apple), they would have to hack thru the micro-ocontroller, which would, on its face, be a violation (under the same DMCA) against this dongle vendor. But the naive engineers at the dongle maker who thought up this scheme up are in for a lesson if Apple obtains a federal court order to have the device analyzed. Courts enforce intent before letters of the law. What's worse is that the freeware hacks may not be legal under DMCA in USA but they are in other areas of the world (that don't have DMCA yet) and are copyrighted under the GPL free software license, which is violated through this scheme of selling it for profit. There is a kid name Jonathan Monroe at Actual Technologies who also sells GPL free software disguised as commercial products --only in that case, businesses are using his hacks to store medical records, run multi-million dollar businesses that thousands of people depend on, etc.. In all these cases though, when they finally get caught, they just vanish leaving the public holding the bag. Someday gov't will catch up to all this stuff, but history tells us they are running about 15 years behind the curve...

12/12, 11:25pm | report spam | close reply

Inside the dongle, there is software that anyone can download and install on just about any modern PC (go to youtube.com and search for Hacintosh ). Their trick is thought to be that they have loaded the free firmware hack from the Russian guy onto the flash-memory, then wrapped a micro-controller around it to make it USB bootable without being viewable outside of the boot process. For Apple (or anyone else) to PROVE that the flash contains hacked EFI firmware (that violates the DMCA against Apple), they would have to hack thru the micro-controller, which would, on its face, be a violation (under the same DMCA) against this dongle vendor. But the naive engineers at the dongle maker who thought up this scheme up are in for a lesson if Apple obtains a federal court order to have the device analyzed. Courts enforce intent before letters of the law. What's worse is that the freeware hacks may not be legal under DMCA in USA but they are in other areas of the world (that don't have DMCA yet) and are copyrighted under the GPL free software license, which is violated through this scheme of selling it for profit. There is a kid name Jonathan Monroe at Actual Technologies who also sells GPL free software disguised as commercial products --only in that case, businesses are using his hacks to store medical records, run multi-million dollar businesses that thousands of people depend on, etc.. In all these cases though, when they finally get caught, they just vanish leaving the public holding the bag. Someday gov't will catch up to all this stuff, but history tells us they are running about 15 years behind the curve...

12/12, 11:26pm | report spam | close reply

heh heh

Some people think that these computers are valuable like rolexes and cars. Apple is just a commodity player using off the shelf pc parts, like intel cpu's, nvidia or ati video cards, ordinary hard drives, cd/dvd drives etc. Apple only makes the cases, Ferrari doesnt buy ford engines, nor does rolex use timex clocks inside their watches, big difference...

-7

12/12, 11:29pm | report spam | close reply

Inside the dongle, there is software that anyone can download and install on just about any modern PC (go to youtube.com and search for Hacintosh ). Their trick is thought to be that they have loaded the free firmware hack from the Russian guy onto the flash-memory, then wrapped a micro-controller around it to make it USB bootable without being viewable outside of the boot process. For Apple (or anyone else) to PROVE that the flash contains hacked EFI firmware (that violates the DMCA against Apple), they would first have to hack thru the micro-controller and that process would, on its face, be a violation (under the same DMCA) against this dongle vendor. But the naive engineer at the dongle maker who thought up this scheme and pitched it to an investor to back him is in for a lesson if Apple obtains a federal court order to have the device analyzed by neutral third party. Courts enforce intent before letters of the law, that's why they exist. What's worse is that the Russian guy's freeware hacks may not be legal under DMCA in USA but they are in other areas of the world (that don't have DMCA yet) and are copyrighted under the GPL free software license, which is violated through this kind of scheme of selling free software for profit. There is a guy at Actual Technologies who also sells GPL free software disguised as commercial products --unsuspecting businesses are using his commercial stuff without realizing it is wrapped around some guy's science project to hack into Microsoft protocols and they are storing patient medical records, running multi-million dollar businesses that thousands of people depend on, etc.. In all these cases though, when they finally get caught, they just vanish leaving the public holding the bag. Someday the gov't will catch up to all this stuff, but history tells us they are running about 12 years behind the curve.

-5

12/12, 11:32pm | report spam | close reply

Inside the dongle, there is software that anyone can download and install on just about any modern PC (go to youtube.com and search for Hacintosh ). Their trick is thought to be that they have loaded the free firmware hack from the Russian guy onto the flash-memory, then wrapped a micro-controller around it to make it USB bootable without being viewable outside of the boot process. For Apple (or anyone else) to PROVE that the flash contains hacked EFI firmware (that violates the DMCA against Apple), they would first have to hack thru the micro-controller and that process would, on its face, be a violation (under the same DMCA) against this dongle vendor. But the naive engineer at the dongle maker who thought up this scheme and pitched it to an investor to back him is in for a lesson if Apple obtains a federal court order to have the device analyzed by a neutral third party. Courts enforce intent before letters of the Law -- that's why they exist. What's worse is that the Russian guy's freeware hacks may not be legal under DMCA in USA but they are in other areas of the world (that don't have DMCA yet) and are copyrighted under the GPL free software license, which is violated through this kind of scheme of selling free software for profit. There is a guy at Actual Technologies who also sells GPL free software disguised as commercial products --unsuspecting businesses are using his commercial stuff without realizing it is wrapped around some guy's science project to hack into Microsoft protocols and they are storing patient medical records, running multi-million dollar businesses that thousands of people depend on, etc.. In all these cases though, when they finally get caught, they just vanish leaving the public holding the bag. Someday the gov't will catch up to all this stuff, but history tells us they are running about 12 years behind the curve.

-8

12/12, 11:34pm | report spam | close reply

Inside the dongle, there is software that anyone can download and install on just about any modern PC (go to youtube.com and search for Hacintosh ). Their trick is thought to be that they have loaded the free firmware hack from the Russian guy onto the flash-memory, then wrapped a micro-controller around it to make it USB bootable without being viewable outside of the boot process. For Apple (or anyone else) to PROVE that the flash contains hacked EFI firmware (that violates the DMCA against Apple), they would first have to hack thru the micro-controller and that process would, on its face, be a violation (under the same DMCA) against this dongle vendor. But the naive engineer at the dongle maker who thought up this scheme and pitched it to an investor to back him is in for a lesson if Apple obtains a federal court order to have the device analyzed by a neutral third party. Courts enforce intent before letters of the Law -- that's why they exist. What's worse is that the Russian guy's freeware hacks may not be legal under DMCA in USA but they are in other areas of the world (that don't have DMCA yet) and are copyrighted under the GPL free software license, which is violated through this kind of scheme of selling free software for profit. There is a guy at Actual Technologies who also sells GPL free software disguised as commercial Macintosh products --unsuspecting Mac people are using this commercial stuff without realizing it is wrapped around some guy's science project to hack into Apple or Microsoft protocols and they are storing patient medical records, running multi-million dollar businesses that thousands of people depend on, etc. In all these cases though, when someone gets hurt and they finally get caught, they just vanish leaving the public holding the bag. Someday the government will catch up to all this stuff, but history tells us they are running about 12 years behind the curve.

12/12, 11:37pm | report spam | close reply

Moderator Help

Please delete the previous 6 copies of that post and this message..lol

12/13, 02:09am | report spam | close reply

bad price

LouZer

Joined: Nov 2000

12/13, 11:36am | report spam | close reply

Re: bad price

Their whole strategy is price, but let's add: $1900 $200 for dongle $130 for OS X = $2230. And it still doesn't say anything about Superdrive or iLife software. The Apple Store has refurb Mac Pros starting at $2000. Why pay more?

let's compare:

Their computer comes with twice as much RAM, larger secondary and faster primary drive (15000 RPM). TWO DVD/RW drives instead of one. And a CPU that is 1GHz faster BEFORE the over-clocking.

So what you're saying is that for the same price, you can get a 'real' Mac with less features, but call it the 'same'.

12/13, 11:48am | report spam | close reply

Re: interesting

Why? You buy a computer from joe. you buy software from apple and an adapter from joe's son.

Why? The price.

And what is the problem? Oh, right, its not all from the same vendor, so it will all fail. That's why you must buy only Apple software, and nothing from any other developer.

You can get technical help for 90 days on the software side. Fine.

No, you can't, because they want your machines serial number.

91 days later you are on your own. Since you did not buy the apple, you cannot get 3 years of apple care for a pc.

Well, not everyone wants AppleCare. The reason it is a 'good buy' for Macs is because of the expense to get your Mac fixed without it.

But getting a standard PC clone fixed is cheap in comparison, where the need for AppleCare is all but diminished.

Now what.?????? For a few bucks more you get a full Apple system, hardware software and support. GREAT support...... Insanely great support.

Oooh! I remember when I used to laud Macs because I NEVER NEEDED SUPPORT! Ah, the good ol' days.

Or you can call joe's son and ask him. He will just blame the software and there is NO support there.

Gee, so what you are saying is that macs are so complicated, hard to use, and so full of problems that they are basically useless without AppleCare? Interesting. I always thought they were easy to use, easy to maintain, and easy to fix, software wise at least.

And maybe you missed the fact that there's 1000 people in any 5 mile radius who works computers. You don't have to haul it down to your 'local' apple store 60 miles away, or have to send in the computer and wait for it to be returned.

12/13, 11:49am | report spam | close reply

Update

Appleinsider reports that the computer makers here are NOT the same people who make the dongle.

"EFi-X and EFi-X USA are two different companies. "

macnixer

Joined: Mar 2006

12/13, 01:59pm | report spam | close reply

Surprising

MacNN did not do its homework before publishing this article. I have been following all the Hackintosh makers and I had visited the EFI-X USA site on 12th morning much before this article was published. They have abandoned the Millennium project rather they are not making any clones.Irresponsible journalism.

dimmer

Mac Enthusiast

Joined: Feb 2006

12/13, 02:46pm | report spam | close reply

So...

this product, if it exists, is simply a PC. No great value-add. And not at a price point with equivalent PC's either. Ho-hum.

The dongle is interesting, from a geek point of view -- but it's not $200 worth of interest.

lkrupp

Junior Member

Joined: May 2001

01/04, 08:58pm | report spam | close reply

Unsupported

Installing OS X on unsupported hardware will nver get off the ground, let alone make it to the mainstream. Can anyone even conceive of a company deploying OS X running on unsupported hardware with the full knowledge that Apple will not provide any support let alone honor any warranties, expressed, implied, or otherwise. Can anyone conceive of the general public purchasing something like this (other than someone in "because I can" crowd) and the calling Applecare when they have issues? Well yes, on that one, but the results won't be pretty.

And finally, what's to keep Apple from simply removing OS X from the retail shelves altogether? You want a copy of OS X? Get it only from Apple and only with proof of ownership and valid serial number of a real Mac. Or charge $1000 for an unlocked retail copy of OS X with no warranty.

There's no end to the trouble Apple could cause to hackintosh owners. Just look at what the iPhone jailbreak crowd goes through every time there's a new update.

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EFi-X readies desktop Millennium Mac-clones

updated 01:45 pm EST, Fri December 12, 2008

Millenium Mac clones

interesting

Interesting but...

I love my dongle

Sounds cool for some

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EFI dongle is a scam

EFI dongle is a scam

EFI dongle is a scam

heh heh

heh heh

EFI dongle is a scam

EFI dongle is a scam

EFI dongle is a scam

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bad price

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EFi-X readies desktop Millennium Mac-clones

updated 01:45 pm EST, Fri December 12, 2008

Millenium Mac clones

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interesting

Interesting but...

I love my dongle

Sounds cool for some

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EFI dongle is a scam

EFI dongle is a scam

EFI dongle is a scam

heh heh

heh heh

EFI dongle is a scam

EFI dongle is a scam

EFI dongle is a scam

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bad price

I thought..

Re: bad price

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