On March 24th 2001 Apple released Mac OS X version 10.0, the first major release of OS X discounting beta and developer releases. It was code-named ‘Cheetah’ and replaced the existing classic Mac OS that had been present since the introduction of the Macintosh personal computer in 1984.
Picture from commons.wikimedia.org
Teething problems were inevitable, this was after all a major overhaul of the classic Mac operating system.
Users complained of sluggish performance and instability that led to the dreaded ‘kernal panic’ (Windows users think blue screen of death).
Just 6 months after it’s initial release in September 2001 Apple released version 10.1 (Puma) that addressed these issues and was free to existing owners of 10.0.
Going Steady
OS X has been with us for 15 years now and desktop/laptop market share is currently on rise whilst Windows, although still dominant, is falling. The current version of OS X is 10.11 (El Capitan) and was released in July 2015.
Hardcore
If you’re hardcore retro then you can still pick up a CD copy of 10.0 on EBay for £15-£20 although there aren’t many out there (perhaps due to the short life span of the version).
You’re probably also going to need something to run it on, you can get a nice Mac G4 for under a ton with monitor.
Happy retro Mac-ing, may your kernal panics be few.
