Mac OS 8 - A 'better than nothing' update that became a best seller

When Steve Jobs returned to the company he founded in 1997, Apple was in disarray. After two failed attempts at a next-generation operating system, the Mac had been stuck on System 7 for years. 

The acquisition of Jobs' company, NeXT, offered a solution, with its NeXTSTEP operating system, which would form the basis of Mac OS X. But that was still three years away, and the Mac platform was already on life support. 

Jobs needed to take action fast. So, he salvaged bits from former failed projects and retrofitting them onto the aging System 7. The result was Mac OS 8. It wasn't a long term solution, but it did buy his engineers the time they needed to complete Mac OS X.

Mac OS 8 proved to be a smash hit, selling 1.2 million copies in its first two weeks. The story of how this happened reveals an often overlooked side of Jobs - his ability to let go of his perfectionism and focus on what was possible, making pragmatic compromises that help to move platforms forward. 

Credits

MacOS 8 Packaging Photo: ShrineOfApple
 https://shrineofapple.com/blog/2011/10/08/mac-os-8/