Mac OS X version 10.0, code named Cheetah and released on March 24, 2001 for a price of US$129.95, is the first official desktop release of Apple Computer’s Mac OS X operating system. Mac OS X 10.0 superseded the Mac OS X Public Beta and preceded Mac OS X v10.1.
Mac OS X 10.0 was a radical departure from the previous “classic” Macintosh operating system and was Apple’s answer to the long awaited call for a next generation Macintosh operating system. It introduced a brand new code base completely separate from Mac OS 9's, as well as all previous Apple operating systems. Mac OS X introduced the new Darwin Unix-like core and a totally new system of memory management. It proved to be a rocky start to the Mac OS X line, plagued with missing features and performance issues, although it was praised for being a good start to an operating system still in its infancy, in terms of completeness and overall operating system stability .
