Late 80’s if I recall correctly?
When MSWin 3.x was taking off.
Was it just bad timing?
Nope, 90s. Win 9x era.
Here’s the thing - if Apple were to just sell the OS and not hardware (which they really can’t, if they allow cloning/commercial use of OS X on regular PC hardware - history says that few will buy it), OS X would have to cost *at least* $400 or more just to cover development costs.
Who’s going to buy a $400 operating system for their home computer????
Emulators
Before true clones were available, the Atari ST could be converted into a Mac by adding the third-party Spectre GCR emulator, which required that the user purchase a set of Mac ROMs. The Amiga could also be converted into a Mac with similar emulators.[citation needed]
Since Apple Computer never manufactured a 68060-based Mac, the fastest way to run native 68000 Mac OS applications on real hardware was to run it on an Atari or Amiga with a 68060 upgrade.
There was also a software emulator for x86 platforms running DOS/Windows and Linux called Executor, from ARDI. ARDI reversed engineering the Mac ROM and build a 68000 cpu emulator, enabling Executor run many (but not all) Macintosh software, from system 5 to system 7 with good speed.
The migration from 68000 to PowerPC and the difficulties to emulate a PowerPC in x86 platforms killed the continuity of the project.
The first Macintosh clones
Apple's strategy of suppressing clone development was successful. From 1986 to 1991, several manufacturers created Macintosh clones, including the portable Outbound; however, in order to do so legally, they had to obtain official ROMs by purchasing one of Apple's Macintosh computers, remove the required parts from the donor, and then install those parts in the clone's case. This resulted in very expensive, relatively unpopular clones.
Apple could safely say that its share of the Macintosh computer market was not in danger and even granted value-added reseller status to the creator of the Colby Dynamac portable clone.
A Brazilian company called Unitron is thought to have developed a Macintosh clone with 512KB of RAM and some custom chips made by National Semiconductor.[5] The clone was not widely sold because Apple pressed the American government to create commercial sanctions preventing international sales of this computer. To this day it remains a mystery whether the Unitron Mac's ROMs were reverse-engineered or merely copied.[6]