My parents got a flower power iMac around that time which had both OS9 and the OSX beta. It felt cool being able to bounce back and forth between the two, especially because OSX felt so futuristic at the time.
In a way they go back even further and pre-date OS X because they had Apple "store within a store" concept in larger computer and electronics retailers. It wasn't a true Apple Store, but they had all the Apple stuff together along with (usually) Apple-trained staff and it was generally the "nicer" part of the store where it was a little neater, better furniture and lighting.
And as crazy as it is, in my small home town, they had an all-Apple Store (though not technically Apple owned), surprisingly large, all filled with Apple IIs, Apple IIIs, and starting in 1984, Macintoshes (first place I ever saw one), later ImageWriter, LaserWriter, etc. Plus walls of all Mac software and peripherals. They even had a Lisa for a while.
Yep, it's been a while! OS X was out, but still unstable, so computers still booted with OS 9 as the default. The iPod came out in November of that year, which was a huge deal in all the stores that were open at the time.
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u/TheSadMan 14h ago
Oh wow I didn't know Apple stores went that far back. For some reason I thought it was around OSX that they became a thing.