Apple announced today that Mac OS X, its next generation operating system due March 24, has officially reached gold master and has been released to manufacturing for production.
In addition to the new Aqua interface, which has drawn the most attention from users of the traditional Mac OS, the new operating system features true memory protection, preemptive multi-tasking and symmetric multiprocessing when running on the dual processor Power Mac G4. Mac OS X also includes Quartz 2D graphics engine (based on the Internet-standard Portable Document Format); OpenGL for 3D graphics and gaming; and QuickTime for streaming audio and video.
Mac OS X requires a minimum of 128MB of memory and is designed to run on the iMac, iBook, Power Mac G3, Power Mac G4, Power Mac G4 Cube and PowerBook introduced after September 1998.
Mac OS X will be available through The Apple Store and through Apple Authorized Resellers for $129 beginning March 24, 2001. The new OS will be preinstalled as the standard operating system on Macintosh computers beginning this summer.