Happy birthday Mac OS X
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Tags :![Mac OS X boxes](/perch/resources/hero/img5492heic.jpeg)
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.
![Mac OS X 10.0 Cheetah About Box](https://davidroessli.com/perch/resources/blog/10-0-cheetah-about-this-mac.png)
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