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Apple has filed a patent application for "system and method for creating tamper-resistant code", ZDNet reports. It appears Apple is attempting to patent technology related to letting OS X run only on 'approved' hardware. Apple reportedly filed the application last April – before the Intel transition was announced – but the filing was only made public last week. The details make a cloudy issue a little clearer: how is Apple going to ensure OS X for Intel doesn't run on white box PCs? Here's a partial answer: the OS will look for a specific hardware address; or, alternatively, ROM code. Now with the current PowerPC Macs, there's about 1MB in ROM (initialization; boot functions), before New World ROM-in-RAM kicks in and the OS X system ROM takes over (remembering it's in software, not in hardware). However, it sounds like there might just be a little bit of code in the hardware ROM of each MacTel, telling the OS whether the hardware is 'authorized' to run OS X. Actually, it's all pretty much how the old Mac LC and LC II used to work: they could actually address more than 10MB of RAM, but even if you put 12 in, it wouldn't show up for work. The reason? Apple put a ROM block on more than 10 megs, so you couldn't buy an el-cheapo Mac and expect it to address as much RAM as a Mac IIsi or IIfx. So it's the same – but different. This just simply won't let you whack OS X-for-Intel onto a PC and boot it. But can you run Windows on Mac? We won't stop you, said Phil Schiller at the WWDC earlier this year. Translation: We won't encourage you either; but if you manage to make Windows (or Linux, for that matter) boot on a MacTel, well, bully for you. Bottom line? No OS X on a PC. Absolutely-positively not.
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