In the last year, I set up exactly one Mac with Mac OS 9.22 installed — a customer wanted to play legacy games. There are people and compatible Macs out there that want to meet, and some of those machines require specific Mac OS builds in order to run Classic.

That said, Low End Mac (as is their wont) on Monday, May 16 published OS 9 not dead yet with this interesting tidbit tacked onto the end of the article:

I was at the Apple store today, and while talking to my Genius, I mentioned my problem. He went out back and got me a shiny new set of system discs for my specific machine that they had hanging around … He also said that if one were to call AppleCare and explain the situation that they would burn a copy of the original system from the vault and it would be free except for postage.

Yes, if you want to run OS 9.x.x on a Mirrored Drive Door (MDD) or Quicksilver G4, you will need the OS Restore CDs that came with those Macs as retail versions of Classic won’t run. So, if you really need copies of the Restore CDs, AppleCare just might help you out for the cost of postage.

Also, you can still download OS 9 updates from the mothership — it’s been nearly a decade since the last update shipped and they’re still available, wow.

You’ve gotta love Apple…

What’s your take?