I would imagine they're rare for several reasons:
- 8.6 was a free update, it was relatively small (34MB), and the internet was pretty popular by then (albeit most of us had dialup). So there was less need for a whole new OS disc than there ever had been in the past.
- I did a quick search of Mac models and I found only two that originally shipped with 8.6 and didn't require a special add-on ROM file; so only two Macs required (or could use) a generic/universal 8.6 disc, meaning that there was little incentive to produce universal 8.6 discs.
- The speed with which Apple went from 8.5 to 8.5.1 to 8.6 to 9.0 probably left them little time to produce retail boxes with 8.6 on them.
- IIRC Apple never produced an actual "OS 8.6" retail package. If anything, it was the same green OS8.5 box, with an "8.6" sticker on it (similar to how they indicated that some 8.5 and 9.0 boxes actually had 8.5.1 or 9.0.whatever on the installer CD). I imagine it would have been a marketing nightmare to produce an actual 8.6 box (though I could be wrong - perhaps they're floating around out there).
M
- 8.6 was a free update, it was relatively small (34MB), and the internet was pretty popular by then (albeit most of us had dialup). So there was less need for a whole new OS disc than there ever had been in the past.
- I did a quick search of Mac models and I found only two that originally shipped with 8.6 and didn't require a special add-on ROM file; so only two Macs required (or could use) a generic/universal 8.6 disc, meaning that there was little incentive to produce universal 8.6 discs.
- The speed with which Apple went from 8.5 to 8.5.1 to 8.6 to 9.0 probably left them little time to produce retail boxes with 8.6 on them.
- IIRC Apple never produced an actual "OS 8.6" retail package. If anything, it was the same green OS8.5 box, with an "8.6" sticker on it (similar to how they indicated that some 8.5 and 9.0 boxes actually had 8.5.1 or 9.0.whatever on the installer CD). I imagine it would have been a marketing nightmare to produce an actual 8.6 box (though I could be wrong - perhaps they're floating around out there).
M