Just when you thought the carnage was over, it seems that Clone War casualties are still dying... Macintouch reports that Daystar Digital, makers of the high-end Genesis MP line of clones, shut down yesterday. You may recall that Daystar's Genesis MP machines were the only multi-processor Mac OS machines on the market, not counting Apple's occasional 9500MP. The Genesis machines packed up to four high-speed 604e chips, for massively powerful performance in applications coded to take advantage of the extra processors. This line was targeted primarily at serious graphics professionals, for whom shaving every extra second off of Photoshop wait times is a worthwhile obsession.

Unfortunately, Daystar's price for a Mac OS 8 license proved prohibitively high (about $500 per machine), pushing the Genesis prices into a range where Daystar would be competing against Silicon Graphics instead of other Mac makers. Macintouch's source writes that Daystar is currently selling off all of its office and computer equipment to staff and friends. Meanwhile, it appears that another company (Tweek Digital) will be servicing the now-orphaned Genesis boxes.

Remember when we told you about the German company Omega, rumored to be working on a Mac OS 8-compatible operating system called COS? Well, they've posted a description page, complete with release date. And while some of the posted features are slightly more realistic than the features rumored thus far, we at AtAT are still having trouble keeping a straight face.

Straight from the horse's mou-- er, web page, COS offers:

• B2-class security.
• Full compatibility with Mac OS applications.
• The Mac OS interface.
• Quadruple the speed of Mac OS 8 (not quintuple).
• A microkernel architecture.
• Zero system crashes.
• Java support.
• Support for PowerPC's, 68040's, and 68030's.
• Multiprocessor support.
• Client/server networking capability, and built-in X-terminal software.
• Uses 4 MB of RAM (as opposed to the previously-rumored 500K).
• Takes up 12 MB of disk space.
• Will be released on November 13th.
• Will be downloadable for a 20-day free trial.
• Will cost $99.

Well, that's much more reasonable, isn't it?

Macintouch has posted email from an operating system engineer who assesses Omega's claims point-by-point, and concludes that the project is a hoax. But if it isn't, AtAT will be the first to recant and shell out the cash for this miracle of modern software design. ;-)

Well, we're planning a trip down to our local anime stores, because something posted to Mac OS Rumors sounds just too cool to be real. In the middle of an article about "phantom cloner" Pioneer, a source says that Pioneer "own[s] the rights to the Tenchi Muyo animation series and that a spin-off of that series, the Pretty Sammy [sic] specials, recently aired a program (90 minutes, I think) where the heroine, Pretty Sammy, and all her friends, fought Billy Standard, the software mogul, who was attempting to take over the world, including Japan. The main tool in fighting Billy? The 'Macos.'

"Any video store that specializes in Japanese Animation likely has the tape in stock, if you're interested (it's geared towards 6-8 year-old girls, so don't expect to be impressed with content)."

We can't wait to see this. ;-)