And thus the controversy ended-- not with a bang, but a press release. For days, people have been raising their eyebrows at email messages received by the occasional Mac OS X customer, indicating that a "backlog" might cause the product not to ship when originally anticipated. Yesterday things got even weirder, as we determined that all of the initial backlog messages sent out turned out to be for Canadian customers-- until a flood of reports indicated that several U.S. residents had also received similar email during the day.

But now, the mysterious Backlog Email Mystery is just another footnote in the long, strange history of Mac OS X's journey down the road to release. Apple has just announced that its new operating system has officially reached "golden master" status, meaning that it's done and in the hands of the manufacturing gnomes, who are probably even now cranking out CD-ROMs by the hundreds. Soon those magical Happy Disks will be slapped into boxes, sealed with shrinkwrap, and shipped to slavering Mac fans all over the world. We never thought we'd get to say this and actually mean it, but... Mac OS X is almost here.

Needless to say, if Mac OS X is indeed complete and in the manufacturing stage, given that Apple's still got over two full weeks before the official March 24th ship date arrives, we can't ascribe any serious merit to those anomalous backlog warnings. It shouldn't take two weeks to make the physical media and stuff things into boxes, unless Uncle Steve is insisting on the superior quality of installer media hand-etched by trained Trappist monks and packaged in boxes individually signed and numbered by Avie Tevanian himself. Clearly those "sorry for the backorder" messages can be safely ignored with impunity-- and if they still put you a little on-edge, according to MacNN, now even Apple has finally acknowledged that "the emails many readers received yesterday" apologizing for the backorder "were sent out in error... there will be no delay."

So this is it, people: just over two weeks and counting. Frankly, it just never seemed real to us until we heard about the golden master-- and now we suddenly find ourselves giddy with anticipation. Prepare yourselves, for we are peering into the dawn of the Mac's new golden age... an age of unblazed trails, tremendous opportunities, and boundless possibilities. (Or something.)