March 24, 2001: Release the Hounds!… er, Cheetahs: Mac OS X Arrives

If you had $129 and a lot of spare time, the first release of OS X was built for you. It was slow, didn't do much, and at the very least, appeared five years too late. On the positive side, at least the successor to the classic operating system finally existed.

Steve Jobs had promised a system so beautiful "you could lick it," and OS X was beautiful as long as you just looked at it. Trying actually to do anything with OS X was an exercise in frustration. The majority of early adopters found themselves spending the lion's share of their time in OS 9.

In retrospect, Cheetah was a decent first attempt at an operating system and as a discounted product it would have been a good deal. At $129 it was one of Apple's weakest offerings. Those who just had to get a glimpse of the future got it on March 24, 2001.