Copland
- Developed: 1994 to 1996
- Released: n/a
Copland was the development codename of a next-generation operating system planned to be named “Mac OS 8” upon release. It was intended to address the limitations in the Macintosh’s original line of operating systems by building a new OS from the ground up with protected memory and preemptive multitasking, with plans to add multithreading later.
The Copland project was plagued with delays due to management issues. It was shown in a public demo at Apple’s World Wide Developer Conference in May 1996 but was buggy and prone to corrupting the demo machine’s hard drives. Ellen Hancock was hired to lead the project but quickly concluded that it should be cancelled, with Apple beginning a search for a new operating system to buy instead.