Man, I’m not sure BeOS was ever on the same technical footing as NeXT, but those BeBox machines were magical. I remember getting to play with one a little—an In

Man, I’m not sure BeOS was ever on the same technical footing as NeXT, but those BeBox machines were magical. I remember getting to play with one a little—an Internet acquaintance I met through IRC had one, was home on college break, and my fragile little mind was totally blown. I remember watching the fractal generator render the Mandelbrot set and top out both CPU LED bars. In my naïveté I figured that software everywhere would soon be making use of multiple processors, increasing performance linearly, and with no effort. I guess we all have lots of cores now, but writing software to use them all is still a PIA. Those felt like magical times, with one juggernaut (Windows) and a sense that any of the new computing platforms could upend everything. Nowadays, I feel less of that excitement in spite of being able to credibly choose between Linux, Mac, Windows. Maybe that’s more a function of my age than anything else. Or maybe the hegemony of mediocre web apps has just delivered us into another period of bland sameness.