golden

adj. [prob.: from folklore's golden egg ] When used to describe a magnetic
medium (e.g., golden disk , golden tape ), describes one containing a
tested, up-to-spec, ready-to-ship software version. Compare
platinum-iridium. One may also go gold , which is the act of releasing a
golden version. The gold color of many CDROMs is a coincidence; this term
was well established a decade before CDROM distribution become common in the
mid-1990s.