I was at the Apple store yesterday, asking about Snow Leopard. I had understood earlier that it was an 'upgrade' from Leopard - but the guy in the store says it's a complete OS and has no previous requirements (except the firmware, I assume).
So there is also one being sold for $200?
Snow Leopard is available as an upgrade or as a bundled license with purchase of new hardware. To purchase it as an upgrade, you must be running Mac OS X on an Intel CPU, which implicitly limits the offer to owners of Mac OS X 10.4 or newer only. If you purchased a machine running 10.5 after June 8th, 2009, the 10.6 upgrade is available for CAD9.95, otherwise the upgrade costs CAD35.00. (Prices are taken from the Apple Store online, Canadian site. Actually, another page says the "up-to-date" program costs CAD13.00, not CAD9.95... go figure.)
Note that Snow Leopard is NOT available for purchase online as a full license. I don't know if the Apple Store sells it as such, but I doubt it because:
1) 10.6 requires an Intel processor. 2) 10.6 is available as an upgrade to ANY MAC with an Intel processor. 3) ALL MACs with Intel processors were sold with a bundled license for whatever version of Mac OS was current at the time of manufacture.
...so why would it be available as anything other than an upgrade? (Note: This is the same logic Microsoft uses to justify only selling Windows 7 "upgrade" licenses to volume purchasers - the underlying assumption is that all your PCs came with OEM licenses.)
-Adam