Apple is now selling OS X Lion and Mountain Lion via its online Apple Store. You won’t get a physical DVD or USB stick, you’ll get a code to redeem in the Mac App Store.
Despite the fact that neither operating system can be purchased through the Mac App Store, you can still buy them for $19.99 each through Apple’s website.
There are still a lot of Macs that are going strong, but just don’t have the horsepower for OS X Mavericks. So, offering Lion to owners of those Macs makes sense. It’s a little less logical to offer Mountain Lion, as most, if not all Mountain Lion machines can run Mavericks. (I personally installed a copy of Mavericks on my backup machine, a 2008 MacBook Pro, and it runs faster now than it did under Mountain Lion. -Ed.)
So, if you find yourself in need of a copy of Lion or Mountain Lion, you can grab a redeem code from Apple’s online store. (Since the code is redeemed in the Mac App Store, you will need to be currently running at least OS X Snow Leopard to redeem the code.)
One final note: If you had previously purchased either OS X Lion or Mountain Lion via the Mac App Store, just look under the “Purchases” tab, you can find them available for download there.
