Anyone have any memories of the original OS X release? What was that like?
Oh yeah!
The Public Beta (10.0) was interesting to say the least. It gave you the basic idea of what OSX was like while sucking badly, all at the same time. As I recall I used to GSOD (KP) on a regular basis due to an incompatibility with most SCSI cards in both 10.0 and 10.1, including many that Apple shipped with their machines. That was when I finally gave up on SCSI for good. My Scanner didn't work, my external drives didn't work and on and on. OS9 and OSX were what pushed me to upgrade from my Performa 6400/200 to my G4/400 "Sawtooth" machine.
There was no great stampeded to get it as I recall, and I think it was free, at least initially. I know I got it for free, but we won't go there. It got a mixed bag of reviews, but most of them were "Don't change over yet, this thing sucks". All of the updates were free and the 10.1 update was free as well. They started charging with 10.2, which was when I moved to OSX full time.
I do recall standing in line at an Apple store for 10.2 and 10.3. I think I even got the free gift (OSX Panther Dog Tags) for 10.3. I just bought 10.4 at CompUSA IIRC.
As I recall there was a bigger clamor for OS8 and OS9 than OSX, at least until 10.3 came along.