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by ageektrapped 5088 days ago
Is there somewhere I can go to check if my Macbook is one of those? I have to start buttering up my boss if I need a new one. (Xcode updates sure force upgrades. I was just fine with Snow Leopard, except iOS 5.1 wouldn't build without the latest Xcode, which is Lion only. Grrr.) Now this.
2 comments

   iMac:~ Flow$ ioreg -l -p IODeviceTree | grep firmware-abi
       | |   "firmware-abi" = <"EFI64">
   iMac:~ Flow$ 
EFI64 means ok for ML.
And the reverse, not OK for ML, looks like this:

    % ioreg -l -p IODeviceTree | grep firmware-abi
        | |   "firmware-abi" = <"EFI32">
on an old (white polycarbonate) iMac.
As long as your CPU is 64-bit it seems one can use "hackintosh" techniques to run ML anyway.
If you have Lion, go to the Apple menu -> About this Mac. Then click on the "More Info…" button. The model year should be listed under the model, on the right.

If you don't have Lion, I think you can still get that info from the window that comes up when you click "More Info…", but I forget where (and don't have a machine running Snow Leopard handy ATM).

EDIT: The required models are listed by Apple (linked in the article): http://www.apple.com/osx/how-to-upgrade/