For the effect this had on Apple, see:

https://www.folklore.org/Stolen_From_Apple.html

Bearing in mind that Jobs famously intended to "knife the baby," referring to the cash flow from the 6502 machines, it is ironic that he fought to stop this clone.

I remember this phrase from a stage play, The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs, but Google shows this source:

https://www.theregister.com/1998/11/06/were_talking_about_kn...

The play doesn't even have its own wiki.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Daisey#The_Agony_and_the_...

He also put a stop to the clone PowerMacs when he returned to Apple in the 90s.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_clone

Yeah, but the Apple ][ was so vital to Apple's survival/cash flow that they made a disastrous deal:

https://www.folklore.org/MacBasic.html

and the PowerMac clones weren't doing anything interesting and were simply cannibalizing Mac sales, cutting into Apple's profits --- really wish at least one of them had made a tablet unit w/ a Wacom digitizer, but that was too small a market as Axiotron found when they did the ModBook (which I still regret not buying).

Good artists copy, great artists steal ...

Please provide one example of "art" which Franklin originated.

I mean, if you put a Mac or MacOS in a museum next to Picasso, that would make many people cry.

When people think of a Mac as "art", we call that an occupational hazard.

So if you call a Mac art, you might as well call any computer art.

I can remember the 16-page _Newsweek_ ad quite vividly --- the Mac was something special, and even its spiritual successor, the NeXT Cube did not reach the level of artistic flair which the Mac hit as a quick perusal of:

https://www.folklore.org

would argue.

Moreover, it made the cut at at least one museum:

https://www.moma.org/collection/works/3742?artist_id=10295

(and there are 24 other items by Apple in that collection)

and yes, they have a Picasso as well:

https://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/5530

Anything can make the cut at MOMA. The gigantic disaster of OLPC is enshrined as "art" there too: https://www.moma.org/collection/works/155757