6 ms·

The reference to BeOS brings me good memories. It was a time then the world of desktop operating Systems was much bigger than today. BeOS, Syllable, SkyOS, Ath

The reference to BeOS brings me good memories. It was a time then the world of desktop operating Systems was much bigger than today. BeOS, Syllable, SkyOS, Atheos, ReactOS, QNX etc. At its time I liked BeOS phylosophy more than that of Linux and Windows, it's a shame it didn't take off.

ofalkaed 4y ago
We have Haiku which is getting quite good and Amiga is still in production, their new computer that is currently in beta testing looks pretty good, they would possibly get me to part with the money if they released a laptop.
- VyseofArcadia 4y ago
  I installed Haiku on an old netbook recently. It ran like a dream, except for kernel panicking every 5 minutes.
  - waddlesplash 4y ago
    That's not normal behavior (these days, anyway!) A lot of users are able to go months without kernel panics, especially on certain kinds of older hardware. Did you report any of these panics?
  - rebolek 4y ago
    I installed Haiku on an old Eee and yes it runs like dream and I haven't experienced single kernel panic yet. I'm thinking about installing it on something "bigger" than Eee as I was really surprised how usable and nice the OS is.
- tialaramex 4y ago
  > Amiga is still in production, their new computer that is currently in beta testing looks pretty good The Amiga "Tabor" or "A1222" is a very, very silly machine. Because they insist on PowerPC even though that's basically a long dead architecture, the best available CPU for it was the QorIQ P1022 a SOC designed to be inside say a mid-range Ethernet switch a decade ago. In the event they actually ship a product in some sort of volume (say, dozens) before NXP discontinue the processors altogether this would be far worse than a PC or Mac you could have bought in 2015 when it was conceived, and yet also far more expensive, very silly.
  - ofalkaed 4y ago
    It is very very silly of you to think they are trying to compete with modern general purpose desktops, they are attempting to fill a niche which Amiga helped create and has never quite been filled since their demise despite modern computers being so much "better." I was referring too the X5000 which is PowerISA architecture. A1222 is planned to be around $500 which is not all that expensive, X5000 is on the expensive side. Considering my use of such a computer would be to run various audio software that was designed for much slower single core machines I suspect a dual 2ghz processor with XMOS coprocessor would be quite satisfactory. It would allow me to use some software which does not play well with emulators and would probably be just about ideal for my needs when it comes to a studio computer. I suspect the A1222 project was scrapped due to shutdown fallout, chip shortages, etc but who knows, it may still happen.
    - tialaramex 4y ago
      The Amiga was one of several very popular late 1980s home computers. They all have this same rather vague nostalgic sentiment attached to them by fans, but it's true that none of them have been more preyed upon by crooks than the Amigans over the subsequent years. Nothing is going to "fill that niche" because it's not actually a niche, just your brain playing tricks on you. And the X5000 isn't "in production" in any meaningful sense. Somewhere there may be some boards on a shelf that are technically "new in box", but this is fairly old hardware from an even older design. That P5020 CPU is thirteen years old and whilst its industrial customers presumably used the second core, Amiga software does not. Amiga "developers" periodically claim that they're working very hard on that, all the way back to 2013 you can find very earnest sounding men explaining that they've mostly got it working but it is being tested by a select group under NDA. They're bullshitting, telling Amigans you just need a few more weeks a bit more money means you don't have to admit that you spent every penny and there's nothing to show for it. Maybe a miracle will happen.
      - ofalkaed 4y ago
        Amiga OS does use the second core even if the software does not, just like every modern system. Do you think it just piles every single process onto a single core? I never said the x5000 was in production, I actually said it wasn't. The closest thing to "Amiga Developers" would be Hyperion who took over the OS and has made licensing deals with 5 or 6 different hardware producers, they make no hardware themselves. Over the past decade or so at least a dozen different Amiga systems and motherboards have gone into production and sold well for what it is. Most of the hardware is sold through various online stores with a couple of those producing hardware also selling online, Hyperion only sells software; so who exactly are these evil "Amiga developers" you talk about? Or is it a conspiracy and they are all involved? If you are going to make accusations you should identify the culprit, would you blame Microsoft and everyone who makes or sells computers which run Windows because HP ripped you off?
eddieroger 4y ago
I can't remember if I learned about BeOS on ZDTV or a magazine or where, but I do remember going in to Best Buy with the intention of buying it as a nascent teenager with a license. My heart broke a little that I couldn't just walk in a store and get it, but I still ordered it and learned a lot about dual booting my parents' Packard Bell thanks to Be. I loved how it was focusing on being a media operating system, with good graphics and audio processing capabilities, and I was a kid who loved music and the radio. If only it had survived.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- sjm-lbm 4y ago
  There was a version of BeOS (iirc, it was the last version they released) that could be installed in a file on a Windows9x hard drive and booted to by using a boot floppy. It really was an impressive and innovative way to get people to try a new OS, keeping in mind that most people couldn't (and still can't, to be fair) set up a more normal dual boot setup. I think they were just too close to shutting down by that point, so nothing ever really came of it.
MisterTea 4y ago
BeOS felt like it was going to become a serious modern alternative OS for the PC focusing heavily on multimedia, similar to MacOS (Be was founded by ex Apple people so it makes sense.) Unfortunately it never happened. Thy pivoted to internet appliances, Palm bought them out, the end. I still have my R4 and R5 media somewhere.
- sharikous 4y ago
  It was seriously considered by Apple as the successor of the classical MacOS but they got too greedy with the price and Apple went with a NextStep based OS. In all honesty BeOS had no leverage because they were so committed to build the successor of MacOS that they had no alternative plan
  - lproven 4y ago
    Be did get too greedy with the asking price, you're right. But that was not the only thing. Be had no particularly special story about dev tools; NeXT had the world's best, plus a charismatic, visionary CEO. Be should have gone and done a deal with Acorn, who could have done them a silent-running, passively-cooled SMP multi-ARM workstation in 1998 for less than the cost of a mid-range Mac. Acorn had cheap SMP hardware ready to go. Be had the state-of-the-art SMP workstation OS before Linux 2.2 made it able to scale usefully.
    - smm11 4y ago
      Be didn't have anything. Developers, developers, developers, right? Late 90s I was running OS X Server, Be, and NeXT. NeXT was better than OS X Server, and Be was far behind. Looked pretty, but that was about it. Funny thing is I live in a browser and text editor now, and the Be install I ran in 99 would just about do it!
      - lproven 4y ago
        > Be didn't have anything. Developers, developers, developers, right? Well, quite, yes. > Late 90s I was running OS X Server, Be, and NeXT. Early adopter, huh? OSXS only appeared in 1999. > NeXT was better than OS X Server How so? UI? I'm just curious. > Be was far behind. Looked pretty, but that was about it. I reviewed it then: https://archive.org/details/PersonalComputerWorldMagazine/PCW%20200007%20July%20Created%20From%20PCW%20Cover%20CD%20%28No%20Cover%29/page/n50/mode/1up https://archive.org/details/PersonalComputerWorldMagazine/PC... I think it was more than just a pretty face. It was a demo of how computing should be, and showed that everything else is a bloated mess. It's much worse now, of course. > Funny thing is I live in a browser and text editor now, and the Be install I ran in 99 would just about do it! Which was largely my own thought about Haiku b4. It's very close to doing everything I need.
Eric_WVGG 4y ago
Neal Stephenson's In the Beginning Was the Command Line speaks quite favorably of BeOS. He described the Windows world as being a kind of car dealership that sold clunkers, Linux as a place where anyone could walk in and buy a US Army M1 Tank, and BeOS as fully operational Batmobiles. https://web.stanford.edu/class/cs81n/command.txt https://web.stanford.edu/class/cs81n/command.txt
- lproven 4y ago
  You missed the point. You could buy a Ferrari or a Ford, but an M1 Tank that ran for 1000 miles on a cup of fuel was for free. Keys in, sitting there. Get in, drive off.
  - tialaramex 4y ago
    On the whole tanks don't have keys. Similar reason to airliners.
    - lproven 4y ago
      :-D Fair point. I merely quoted -- or at least paraphrased -- the original essay itself: « They've been modified in such a way that they never, ever break down, are light and maneuverable enough to use on ordinary streets, and use no more fuel than a subcompact car. These tanks are being cranked out, on the spot, at a terrific pace, and a vast number of them are lined up along the edge of the road with keys in the ignition. Anyone who wants can simply climb into one and drive it away for free. » https://web.stanford.edu/class/cs81n/command.txt https://web.stanford.edu/class/cs81n/command.txt This essay is so important, so valuable, and so blasted insightful, that even though I read it more than 20 years ago, I can still remember key phrases, and search for it, find it, and quote from it in seconds. It should be one of the seminal texts of the FOSS movement. And yet most people don't know it, or if they do, they don't get it and misquote it or misinterpret important points... such as here, claiming that people were trying to sell Linux up against BeOS and MacOS and Windows, when the real point was that although it was better than all the commercial competition in important ways, it was FREE and yet the people that developed it literally could not GIVE IT AWAY for nothing, up against inferior commercial OSes. And they still can't. Everyone has probably also forgotten by now that Sun bought StarOffice and tried to give it away, and nobody cared. So some forgotten Sun exec, who actually understood how businesspeople's minds work, made a discount version. It was $89.95 or something, alongside and as well as the free version. The result was a modest explosion in business uptake. A free office suite? Must be junk. But a bargain basement full-function office suite, for eighty bucks when MS Office costs a few hundreds? That's a steal! Great -- I will have that and push it out across my business! It worked. And now, Linux is on the desktop and it's a roaring success, selling hundreds of millions of units, and outselling Macs. It's called ChromeOS, and when I point this out, the geeks of HN get very angry at me, and complain, and say that I'm moving the goalposts, that ChromeOS doesn't count, that it's not really Linux. They accuse me of "bad faith": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34925697 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34925697 They call my argument "BS": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34928295 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34928295 Even one specific commenter I really respect and whose posts I find richly informative and learn from, flat out deny that it is Linux: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34971384 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34971384 Ah well. We all know Linux runs servers, routers, and most smartphones, but if it's on the desktop, and it costs money, then it's obviously not Linux. If it's a successful desktop that people like, it clearly can't really be Linux, right? Shakes head, walks away. Anyway, for better context, here's the whole passage from ITBWTCL: « With one exception, that is: Linux, which is right next door, and which is not a business at all. It's a bunch of RVs, yurts, tepees, and geodesic domes set up in a field and organized by consensus. The people who live there are making tanks. These are not old-fashioned, cast-iron Soviet tanks; these are more like the M1 tanks of the U.S. Army, made of space-age materials and jammed with sophisticated technology from one end to the other. But they are better than Army tanks. They've been modified in such a way that they never, ever break down, are light and maneuverable enough to use on ordinary streets, and use no more fuel than a subcompact car. These tanks are being cranked out, on the spot, at a terrific pace, and a vast number of them are lined up along the edge of the road with keys in the ignition. Anyone who wants can simply climb into one and drive it away for free. Customers come to this crossroads in throngs, day and night. Ninety percent of them go straight to the biggest dealership and buy station wagons or off-road vehicles. They do not even look at the other dealerships. Of the remaining ten percent, most go and buy a sleek Euro-sedan, pausing only to turn up their noses at the philistines going to buy the station wagons and ORVs. If they even notice the people on the opposite side of the road, selling the cheaper, technically superior vehicles, these customers deride them cranks and half-wits. The Batmobile outlet sells a few vehicles to the occasional car nut who wants a second vehicle to go with his station wagon, but seems to accept, at least for now, that it's a fringe player. The group giving away the free tanks only stays alive because it is staffed by volunteers, who are lined up at the edge of the street with bullhorns, trying to draw customers' attention to this incredible situation. A typical conversation goes something like this: Hacker with bullhorn: "Save your money! Accept one of our free tanks! It is invulnerable, and can drive across rocks and swamps at ninety miles an hour while getting a hundred miles to the gallon!" Prospective station wagon buyer: "I know what you say is true...but...er...I don't know how to maintain a tank!" Bullhorn: "You don't know how to maintain a station wagon either!" Buyer: "But this dealership has mechanics on staff. If something goes wrong with my station wagon, I can take a day off work, bring it here, and pay them to work on it while I sit in the waiting room for hours, listening to elevator music." Bullhorn: "But if you accept one of our free tanks we will send volunteers to your house to fix it for free while you sleep!" Buyer: "Stay away from my house, you freak!" Bullhorn: "But..." Buyer: "Can't you see that everyone is buying station wagons?" »
laurencerowe 4y ago
The release of BeOS in 1995 pretty much marked the end of desktop operating systems diversity for nearly two decades. Windows 95 had already been released and quickly cornered the market. Although we perhaps have fewer options today than in the 80s and early 90s things are pretty healthy. No one operating system is dominant in the same way. Alongside Windows, ChromeOS and macOS both have significant shares on desktop and for consumers iOS and Android are just as important.

ofalkaed 4y ago

We have Haiku which is getting quite good and Amiga is still in production, their new computer that is currently in beta testing looks pretty good, they would possibly get me to part with the money if they released a laptop.

VyseofArcadia 4y ago
I installed Haiku on an old netbook recently. It ran like a dream, except for kernel panicking every 5 minutes.
- waddlesplash 4y ago
  That's not normal behavior (these days, anyway!) A lot of users are able to go months without kernel panics, especially on certain kinds of older hardware. Did you report any of these panics?
- rebolek 4y ago
  I installed Haiku on an old Eee and yes it runs like dream and I haven't experienced single kernel panic yet. I'm thinking about installing it on something "bigger" than Eee as I was really surprised how usable and nice the OS is.
tialaramex 4y ago
> Amiga is still in production, their new computer that is currently in beta testing looks pretty good The Amiga "Tabor" or "A1222" is a very, very silly machine. Because they insist on PowerPC even though that's basically a long dead architecture, the best available CPU for it was the QorIQ P1022 a SOC designed to be inside say a mid-range Ethernet switch a decade ago. In the event they actually ship a product in some sort of volume (say, dozens) before NXP discontinue the processors altogether this would be far worse than a PC or Mac you could have bought in 2015 when it was conceived, and yet also far more expensive, very silly.
- ofalkaed 4y ago
  It is very very silly of you to think they are trying to compete with modern general purpose desktops, they are attempting to fill a niche which Amiga helped create and has never quite been filled since their demise despite modern computers being so much "better." I was referring too the X5000 which is PowerISA architecture. A1222 is planned to be around $500 which is not all that expensive, X5000 is on the expensive side. Considering my use of such a computer would be to run various audio software that was designed for much slower single core machines I suspect a dual 2ghz processor with XMOS coprocessor would be quite satisfactory. It would allow me to use some software which does not play well with emulators and would probably be just about ideal for my needs when it comes to a studio computer. I suspect the A1222 project was scrapped due to shutdown fallout, chip shortages, etc but who knows, it may still happen.
  - tialaramex 4y ago
    The Amiga was one of several very popular late 1980s home computers. They all have this same rather vague nostalgic sentiment attached to them by fans, but it's true that none of them have been more preyed upon by crooks than the Amigans over the subsequent years. Nothing is going to "fill that niche" because it's not actually a niche, just your brain playing tricks on you. And the X5000 isn't "in production" in any meaningful sense. Somewhere there may be some boards on a shelf that are technically "new in box", but this is fairly old hardware from an even older design. That P5020 CPU is thirteen years old and whilst its industrial customers presumably used the second core, Amiga software does not. Amiga "developers" periodically claim that they're working very hard on that, all the way back to 2013 you can find very earnest sounding men explaining that they've mostly got it working but it is being tested by a select group under NDA. They're bullshitting, telling Amigans you just need a few more weeks a bit more money means you don't have to admit that you spent every penny and there's nothing to show for it. Maybe a miracle will happen.
    - ofalkaed 4y ago
      Amiga OS does use the second core even if the software does not, just like every modern system. Do you think it just piles every single process onto a single core? I never said the x5000 was in production, I actually said it wasn't. The closest thing to "Amiga Developers" would be Hyperion who took over the OS and has made licensing deals with 5 or 6 different hardware producers, they make no hardware themselves. Over the past decade or so at least a dozen different Amiga systems and motherboards have gone into production and sold well for what it is. Most of the hardware is sold through various online stores with a couple of those producing hardware also selling online, Hyperion only sells software; so who exactly are these evil "Amiga developers" you talk about? Or is it a conspiracy and they are all involved? If you are going to make accusations you should identify the culprit, would you blame Microsoft and everyone who makes or sells computers which run Windows because HP ripped you off?

eddieroger 4y ago

I can't remember if I learned about BeOS on ZDTV or a magazine or where, but I do remember going in to Best Buy with the intention of buying it as a nascent teenager with a license. My heart broke a little that I couldn't just walk in a store and get it, but I still ordered it and learned a lot about dual booting my parents' Packard Bell thanks to Be. I loved how it was focusing on being a media operating system, with good graphics and audio processing capabilities, and I was a kid who loved music and the radio. If only it had survived.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
sjm-lbm 4y ago
There was a version of BeOS (iirc, it was the last version they released) that could be installed in a file on a Windows9x hard drive and booted to by using a boot floppy. It really was an impressive and innovative way to get people to try a new OS, keeping in mind that most people couldn't (and still can't, to be fair) set up a more normal dual boot setup. I think they were just too close to shutting down by that point, so nothing ever really came of it.

MisterTea 4y ago

BeOS felt like it was going to become a serious modern alternative OS for the PC focusing heavily on multimedia, similar to MacOS (Be was founded by ex Apple people so it makes sense.) Unfortunately it never happened. Thy pivoted to internet appliances, Palm bought them out, the end. I still have my R4 and R5 media somewhere.

sharikous 4y ago
It was seriously considered by Apple as the successor of the classical MacOS but they got too greedy with the price and Apple went with a NextStep based OS. In all honesty BeOS had no leverage because they were so committed to build the successor of MacOS that they had no alternative plan
- lproven 4y ago
  Be did get too greedy with the asking price, you're right. But that was not the only thing. Be had no particularly special story about dev tools; NeXT had the world's best, plus a charismatic, visionary CEO. Be should have gone and done a deal with Acorn, who could have done them a silent-running, passively-cooled SMP multi-ARM workstation in 1998 for less than the cost of a mid-range Mac. Acorn had cheap SMP hardware ready to go. Be had the state-of-the-art SMP workstation OS before Linux 2.2 made it able to scale usefully.
  - smm11 4y ago
    Be didn't have anything. Developers, developers, developers, right? Late 90s I was running OS X Server, Be, and NeXT. NeXT was better than OS X Server, and Be was far behind. Looked pretty, but that was about it. Funny thing is I live in a browser and text editor now, and the Be install I ran in 99 would just about do it!
    - lproven 4y ago
      > Be didn't have anything. Developers, developers, developers, right? Well, quite, yes. > Late 90s I was running OS X Server, Be, and NeXT. Early adopter, huh? OSXS only appeared in 1999. > NeXT was better than OS X Server How so? UI? I'm just curious. > Be was far behind. Looked pretty, but that was about it. I reviewed it then: https://archive.org/details/PersonalComputerWorldMagazine/PCW%20200007%20July%20Created%20From%20PCW%20Cover%20CD%20%28No%20Cover%29/page/n50/mode/1up https://archive.org/details/PersonalComputerWorldMagazine/PC... I think it was more than just a pretty face. It was a demo of how computing should be, and showed that everything else is a bloated mess. It's much worse now, of course. > Funny thing is I live in a browser and text editor now, and the Be install I ran in 99 would just about do it! Which was largely my own thought about Haiku b4. It's very close to doing everything I need.

Eric_WVGG 4y ago

Neal Stephenson's In the Beginning Was the Command Line speaks quite favorably of BeOS. He described the Windows world as being a kind of car dealership that sold clunkers, Linux as a place where anyone could walk in and buy a US Army M1 Tank, and BeOS as fully operational Batmobiles. https://web.stanford.edu/class/cs81n/command.txt https://web.stanford.edu/class/cs81n/command.txt

lproven 4y ago
You missed the point. You could buy a Ferrari or a Ford, but an M1 Tank that ran for 1000 miles on a cup of fuel was for free. Keys in, sitting there. Get in, drive off.
- tialaramex 4y ago
  On the whole tanks don't have keys. Similar reason to airliners.
  - lproven 4y ago
    :-D Fair point. I merely quoted -- or at least paraphrased -- the original essay itself: « They've been modified in such a way that they never, ever break down, are light and maneuverable enough to use on ordinary streets, and use no more fuel than a subcompact car. These tanks are being cranked out, on the spot, at a terrific pace, and a vast number of them are lined up along the edge of the road with keys in the ignition. Anyone who wants can simply climb into one and drive it away for free. » https://web.stanford.edu/class/cs81n/command.txt https://web.stanford.edu/class/cs81n/command.txt This essay is so important, so valuable, and so blasted insightful, that even though I read it more than 20 years ago, I can still remember key phrases, and search for it, find it, and quote from it in seconds. It should be one of the seminal texts of the FOSS movement. And yet most people don't know it, or if they do, they don't get it and misquote it or misinterpret important points... such as here, claiming that people were trying to sell Linux up against BeOS and MacOS and Windows, when the real point was that although it was better than all the commercial competition in important ways, it was FREE and yet the people that developed it literally could not GIVE IT AWAY for nothing, up against inferior commercial OSes. And they still can't. Everyone has probably also forgotten by now that Sun bought StarOffice and tried to give it away, and nobody cared. So some forgotten Sun exec, who actually understood how businesspeople's minds work, made a discount version. It was $89.95 or something, alongside and as well as the free version. The result was a modest explosion in business uptake. A free office suite? Must be junk. But a bargain basement full-function office suite, for eighty bucks when MS Office costs a few hundreds? That's a steal! Great -- I will have that and push it out across my business! It worked. And now, Linux is on the desktop and it's a roaring success, selling hundreds of millions of units, and outselling Macs. It's called ChromeOS, and when I point this out, the geeks of HN get very angry at me, and complain, and say that I'm moving the goalposts, that ChromeOS doesn't count, that it's not really Linux. They accuse me of "bad faith": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34925697 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34925697 They call my argument "BS": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34928295 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34928295 Even one specific commenter I really respect and whose posts I find richly informative and learn from, flat out deny that it is Linux: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34971384 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34971384 Ah well. We all know Linux runs servers, routers, and most smartphones, but if it's on the desktop, and it costs money, then it's obviously not Linux. If it's a successful desktop that people like, it clearly can't really be Linux, right? Shakes head, walks away. Anyway, for better context, here's the whole passage from ITBWTCL: « With one exception, that is: Linux, which is right next door, and which is not a business at all. It's a bunch of RVs, yurts, tepees, and geodesic domes set up in a field and organized by consensus. The people who live there are making tanks. These are not old-fashioned, cast-iron Soviet tanks; these are more like the M1 tanks of the U.S. Army, made of space-age materials and jammed with sophisticated technology from one end to the other. But they are better than Army tanks. They've been modified in such a way that they never, ever break down, are light and maneuverable enough to use on ordinary streets, and use no more fuel than a subcompact car. These tanks are being cranked out, on the spot, at a terrific pace, and a vast number of them are lined up along the edge of the road with keys in the ignition. Anyone who wants can simply climb into one and drive it away for free. Customers come to this crossroads in throngs, day and night. Ninety percent of them go straight to the biggest dealership and buy station wagons or off-road vehicles. They do not even look at the other dealerships. Of the remaining ten percent, most go and buy a sleek Euro-sedan, pausing only to turn up their noses at the philistines going to buy the station wagons and ORVs. If they even notice the people on the opposite side of the road, selling the cheaper, technically superior vehicles, these customers deride them cranks and half-wits. The Batmobile outlet sells a few vehicles to the occasional car nut who wants a second vehicle to go with his station wagon, but seems to accept, at least for now, that it's a fringe player. The group giving away the free tanks only stays alive because it is staffed by volunteers, who are lined up at the edge of the street with bullhorns, trying to draw customers' attention to this incredible situation. A typical conversation goes something like this: Hacker with bullhorn: "Save your money! Accept one of our free tanks! It is invulnerable, and can drive across rocks and swamps at ninety miles an hour while getting a hundred miles to the gallon!" Prospective station wagon buyer: "I know what you say is true...but...er...I don't know how to maintain a tank!" Bullhorn: "You don't know how to maintain a station wagon either!" Buyer: "But this dealership has mechanics on staff. If something goes wrong with my station wagon, I can take a day off work, bring it here, and pay them to work on it while I sit in the waiting room for hours, listening to elevator music." Bullhorn: "But if you accept one of our free tanks we will send volunteers to your house to fix it for free while you sleep!" Buyer: "Stay away from my house, you freak!" Bullhorn: "But..." Buyer: "Can't you see that everyone is buying station wagons?" »

laurencerowe 4y ago

The release of BeOS in 1995 pretty much marked the end of desktop operating systems diversity for nearly two decades. Windows 95 had already been released and quickly cornered the market. Although we perhaps have fewer options today than in the 80s and early 90s things are pretty healthy. No one operating system is dominant in the same way. Alongside Windows, ChromeOS and macOS both have significant shares on desktop and for consumers iOS and Android are just as important.