December 4, 1992: Apple engineers demonstrate a “proof of concept” of the Mac operating system running on an Intel computer.
More than a decade before Macs switch to Intel processors, the astonishing feat is part of an aborted plan to make Apple’s software available on other manufacturer’s hardware. Apple ultimately chickens out, fearing (probably correctly) that this will hurt its hardware sales.
The idea to get Mac OS running on Intel processors dated back at least as far as 1985, the year after the first Macintosh shipped (and a little operating system called Windows made its debut). Plans ramped up in the early 1990s, when Windows began to gain serious traction in the marketplace.
The importance of ‘Star Trek’ and ‘Macrosoft’
In August 1990, Dan Eilers, Apple’s vice president of strategy and corporate development at the time, sent a 112-page confidential memo to Apple management. In it, he laid out what the Mac division needed to do in order to remain a marketplace contender.
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