In a court ruling on Wednesday 28th September 2011, Apple's assertion that any kind of 'Hackintosh' was, is and always will be, illegal, was conclusively affirmed. This will bring great dismay to Psystar customers, potential purchasers of other "alternative Macs" and the many PC enthusiasts who want to run the latest Apple OS on the high-spec rigs they've built themselves from hand-picked components. This ruling has unfortunately sounded the death knell for enterprising and surprisingly plucky upstart outfit, Psystar, who showed what could be possible with an open mind and technical skill. UPDATE after the jump.

As makers of the Mac OS X, Apple reserves the right to make it exclusive to the hardware it manufactures. The operating system goes on to drive the company's Mac desktops, workstations and notebooks. Manufacturers of Mac-alternatives (we don't mean PC by that), computers that use Mac OS X had started to mushroom. Due to the retail availability of Mac OS X, hardware manufacturers could easily get a hold of the software, and perhaps even evade measures by Apple to secure the software's exclusivity to its hardware, by means of trusted platform modules. Apple has either shut down, or is in the process of shutting down, such manufacturers.

Psystar is one of the few such companies left. Despite an ongoing legal battle with Apple, the company is continuing to make Mac-alternatives, and is ready with its latest offering: Open(3). The desktop comes with a wide range of components to choose from, to customize it before purchase, Mac Pro style. On offer are several models of Intel processors: Core 2 Duo E7400, E8400, Core 2 Quad Q8200, and Q8400. Up to 4 GB of RAM can be chosen. Entry-level NVIDIA GeForce graphics cards, up to 1 TB of storage, a 20X DVD Writer, with Blu ray drive as an option, make for the rest of the mix. Prices start at US $599, and can end up as high as $2000. Apple's move to go x86 surely made its legal team busier, not that there were no Mac-alternatives before that.