Happy birthday Mac OS X
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is the 20th anniversary of the launch of Mac OS X, now called macOS Big Sur (11).
I haven’t been using Mac OS X for twenty years, but I did install the initial beta, and every version since, eventhough at first I essentially booted into Mac OS 9 when I wanted to get things done. I believe I switched for good on its second iteration Mac OS X 10.2 (Jaguar).
Many features were missing at first, and performance was terrible, but it felt like the future (and according to Steve Jobs, its candy-gloss UI was “lickable”). I especially loved the fact that Unix was underneath, and that you could open a terminal and launch a shell on your own computer. I was accustomed at the time to use zTerm to connect to my University’s mainframe or ssh into my web hosting provider. I could now run my favourite development tools right on my personal computer!
“We made the buttons on the screen look so good you’ll want to lick them.”
– Steve Jobs on Mac OS X’s Acqua user interface, January 2000
It took a little while to switch completely, but I never looked back.
It’s amazing to see how much of the initial release is still here in one form or another today. The Dock is still very much the same. It has a few added features today such as stacks and recent apps, but it is still very much the same in its essence.
Happy birthday Mac OS X ❤️
Happy 20th Birthday Mac OS X! I still remember when we named you. In a small room in IL1. When Steve slashed a large X on the wall and smiled. Look at how far you’ve come from a young Cheetah.
— Scott Forstall (@forstall) March 24, 2021
It’s really a weird experience rewatching Steve introducing the Dock for the first time, as it was my code that was running here. To say I was terrified for the whole length of this segment is underselling it. I don’t think I’ve seen this since.https://t.co/ru7dVnkGV9
— James Thomson (@jamesthomson) March 24, 2021
Today is the 20th anniversary of the release of Mac OS X 10.0. If you'd like to look back at my writing on the subject, here's a collection of links: https://t.co/Y6oDKND8wN
— John Siracusa (@siracusa) March 24, 2021
Read more
- Jason Snell’s post “Mac OS X turns 20”
- OS X, 20 Years Later
- It’s been 20 years since the launch of Mac OS X
- Mac OS X at 20: The OS That Changed Everything
- Mac OS X: An act of desperation that formed the foundation for the modern Mac
- Today is the 20th anniversary of the release of Mac OS X
- You’ll find links to John Siracusa’s Mac OS X in depth eviews on “OS X Reviewed”. I use to look forward to these reviews almost as much as the new OS itself!
- Checkout screenshots on Mac OS X 10.0 Cheetah