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BeOS lives on. Relevant quote from Neil Stephenson’s In the Beginning was the Command Line [1], a fun commentary on early Mac, Windows, Linux, and BeOS competit

BeOS lives on. Relevant quote from Neil Stephenson’s In the Beginning was the Command Line [1], a fun commentary on early Mac, Windows, Linux, and BeOS competition. ”On the other side of the road are two competitors that have come along more recently. One of them (Be, Inc.) is selling fully operational Batmobiles (the BeOS). They are more beautiful and stylish even than the Euro-sedans, better designed, more technologically advanced, and at least as reliable as anything else on the market--and yet cheaper than the others. With one exception, that is: Linux…” [1] https://web.stanford.edu/class/cs81n/command.txt https://web.stanford.edu/class/cs81n/command.txt

bobajeff 2y ago
Yeah, it didn't matter that it was cheap because you still had to install it and most people even today don't modify the OS their PC comes with. I think BeOS had a restriction that they legally couldn't sell computers because of a situation with Apple similar to restriction that NeXT could only sell workstations.
- jonhohle 2y ago
  Be sold computers - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BeBox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BeBox After porting to x86 they had issues getting preinstalled on OEMs because of the OEMs contract with Microsoft which prevented the OEM from selling PCs with any other operating system. https://www.theregister.com/2002/02/20/be_inc_sues_microsoft/ https://www.theregister.com/2002/02/20/be_inc_sues_microsoft... I’ve never heard that they were restricted by Apple in any way (which may have been possible since Gasse and Sakoman left Apple to start Be). Do you have any reference?
  - actionfromafar 2y ago
    I have some vague shadows of memories relating to PPC BeOS.
    - jonhohle 2y ago
      How sweet the late 90s would have been with BeOS on a fast PPC!
      - hypercube33 2y ago
        Didn't they sell a dual socket PPC BeBox?
        greendave 2y ago
        Dual 66MHZ 603 CPUs at first, and later dual 133MHZ 603e CPUs. For the time interesting, but hardly head and shoulders above the 200MHZ Pentium Pros of the same era.
      - adastra22 2y ago
        If Jobs didn't return to Apple, that's probably what we would have got. Their exit strategy ended up being to get bought by Apple and provide BeOS as the new Mac OS X. Apple went with Jobs + NeXT instead.
  - bobajeff 2y ago
    No. I don't have any sources just vaguely remember reading (or watching?) something that mentioned that. I think it was like a non-compete agreement or something. It could all be just my imagination though.
  - tialaramex 2y ago
    The thing to know about the BeBox is that it's a cost centre. Every single Be fan who purchased a BeBox to "support the cause" drained limited cash and support from Be Inc. The idea is twofold, this demonstrates what to build, if you're making a new workstation you shouldn't care about what works well in Windows (not this) because SMP is the future, and this demonstrates how it's used, with the breakthrough applications that do not exist in 1995 on software like Windows 3.x or (Classic) MacOS. So if you buy this and it goes in your spare bedroom because it's cool, maybe you run the demo to show a few friends, you've cost Be money and not helped them towards their goals. What they want is a two man indie startup buys a BeBox and uses it to invent Zoom, or Blender, or at least Portal or something. Something that creates a significant demand from real users for Be's actual product, an operating system, and which is hard to replicate for the existing 1980s-style single CPU operating systems Be wants to compete with. Ideally for JLG, this product attracts attention from Cupertino. If Be Inc. flops but Apple hire him back as new CEO, that's fine. If they buy Be Inc. and he gets to cash out and prove he was right too that's even better.
    - walterbell 2y ago
      > Every single Be fan who purchased a BeBox to "support the cause" drained limited cash and support from Be Inc. Did they sell the hardware at a loss? > If you buy this and it goes in your spare bedroom because it's cool, maybe you run the demo to show a few friends, you've cost Be money and not helped them towards their goals. If the hardware earns a small profit, and the enthusiast does not call the vendor for support, but creates blogs/video/media to generate user/developer/partner demand, that should be net positive for the vendor. > What they want is a two man indie startup buys a BeBox and uses it to invent Zoom, or Blender, or at least Portal or something. Something that creates a significant demand from real users for Be's actual product, an operating system, and which is hard to replicate for the existing 1980s-style single CPU operating systems Be wants to compete with. A variation of this text/sentiment should be included on the marketing page for every hardware "dev board", including Qualcomm SDXE dev device from ex-Apple team, that is attempting to compete with Apple Silicon and x86 PCs. https://www.arrow.com/en/products/c8380-12c-mp-32g/thundercomm https://www.arrow.com/en/products/c8380-12c-mp-32g/thunderco...
    - 2y ago
- mycall 2y ago
  For those who do like to modify their OS and appreciate the beauty of BeOS, there is a merge of Haiku with Genode [1]. It is pretty active and has much promise. [1] https://chiselapp.com/user/ttcoder/repository/genode-haiku/index https://chiselapp.com/user/ttcoder/repository/genode-haiku/i...
  - renox 2y ago
    Haiku on Genode seriously?? What's needed is Haiku on Linux, but no it would be too sensible..
School-Cotton 2y ago
As someone who's never used it, what is so great about BeOS? I mean concretely, not in figurative language like this.
- caycep 2y ago
  if I recall, (and someone correct me if I'm wrong), it had deep multithreaded support/design, more so than any other desktop OS at the time, so it could run more simultaneous processes and apps w/o getting bogged down. at least I think there was a demo claiming this.
  - diegocg 2y ago
    This was true at the time, but at the time Linux wasn't preemptive, had bad SMP support and no good threading implementation. BeOS was designed for SMP hardware, was preemptive and had good threading support, but besides that there is nothing really especial about it. "pervasive multithreading" simply consisted in using threads a lot (for 90's definition of "lot"). Creating and managing the threads by hand. In 90's C++. Modern operating systems have caught with that and gone beyond of what beos did.
    - adastra22 2y ago
      I wouldn't say there was nothing special about it, given the limitations at the time. Having threads spawn quickly, and quickly move between threads so fast as to have no visible user latency was one hell of a feat on BeOS hardware--a 66MHz PowerPC dual-CPU system, IIRC. But yeah, it's something we take for granted today.
      - amy-petrik-214 2y ago
        yea it was cool dual CPU hardware: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BeBox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BeBox those two green lights on the front were CPU load per each CPU. and the geekport reminscent of Raspberry pi only later did they port it to x86, similar to NeXT.
      - 2y ago
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

bobajeff 2y ago

Yeah, it didn't matter that it was cheap because you still had to install it and most people even today don't modify the OS their PC comes with. I think BeOS had a restriction that they legally couldn't sell computers because of a situation with Apple similar to restriction that NeXT could only sell workstations.

jonhohle 2y ago
Be sold computers - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BeBox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BeBox After porting to x86 they had issues getting preinstalled on OEMs because of the OEMs contract with Microsoft which prevented the OEM from selling PCs with any other operating system. https://www.theregister.com/2002/02/20/be_inc_sues_microsoft/ https://www.theregister.com/2002/02/20/be_inc_sues_microsoft... I’ve never heard that they were restricted by Apple in any way (which may have been possible since Gasse and Sakoman left Apple to start Be). Do you have any reference?
- actionfromafar 2y ago
  I have some vague shadows of memories relating to PPC BeOS.
  - jonhohle 2y ago
    How sweet the late 90s would have been with BeOS on a fast PPC!
    - hypercube33 2y ago
      Didn't they sell a dual socket PPC BeBox?
      - greendave 2y ago
        Dual 66MHZ 603 CPUs at first, and later dual 133MHZ 603e CPUs. For the time interesting, but hardly head and shoulders above the 200MHZ Pentium Pros of the same era.
    - adastra22 2y ago
      If Jobs didn't return to Apple, that's probably what we would have got. Their exit strategy ended up being to get bought by Apple and provide BeOS as the new Mac OS X. Apple went with Jobs + NeXT instead.
- bobajeff 2y ago
  No. I don't have any sources just vaguely remember reading (or watching?) something that mentioned that. I think it was like a non-compete agreement or something. It could all be just my imagination though.
- tialaramex 2y ago
  The thing to know about the BeBox is that it's a cost centre. Every single Be fan who purchased a BeBox to "support the cause" drained limited cash and support from Be Inc. The idea is twofold, this demonstrates what to build, if you're making a new workstation you shouldn't care about what works well in Windows (not this) because SMP is the future, and this demonstrates how it's used, with the breakthrough applications that do not exist in 1995 on software like Windows 3.x or (Classic) MacOS. So if you buy this and it goes in your spare bedroom because it's cool, maybe you run the demo to show a few friends, you've cost Be money and not helped them towards their goals. What they want is a two man indie startup buys a BeBox and uses it to invent Zoom, or Blender, or at least Portal or something. Something that creates a significant demand from real users for Be's actual product, an operating system, and which is hard to replicate for the existing 1980s-style single CPU operating systems Be wants to compete with. Ideally for JLG, this product attracts attention from Cupertino. If Be Inc. flops but Apple hire him back as new CEO, that's fine. If they buy Be Inc. and he gets to cash out and prove he was right too that's even better.
  - walterbell 2y ago
    > Every single Be fan who purchased a BeBox to "support the cause" drained limited cash and support from Be Inc. Did they sell the hardware at a loss? > If you buy this and it goes in your spare bedroom because it's cool, maybe you run the demo to show a few friends, you've cost Be money and not helped them towards their goals. If the hardware earns a small profit, and the enthusiast does not call the vendor for support, but creates blogs/video/media to generate user/developer/partner demand, that should be net positive for the vendor. > What they want is a two man indie startup buys a BeBox and uses it to invent Zoom, or Blender, or at least Portal or something. Something that creates a significant demand from real users for Be's actual product, an operating system, and which is hard to replicate for the existing 1980s-style single CPU operating systems Be wants to compete with. A variation of this text/sentiment should be included on the marketing page for every hardware "dev board", including Qualcomm SDXE dev device from ex-Apple team, that is attempting to compete with Apple Silicon and x86 PCs. https://www.arrow.com/en/products/c8380-12c-mp-32g/thundercomm https://www.arrow.com/en/products/c8380-12c-mp-32g/thunderco...
  - 2y ago
mycall 2y ago
For those who do like to modify their OS and appreciate the beauty of BeOS, there is a merge of Haiku with Genode [1]. It is pretty active and has much promise. [1] https://chiselapp.com/user/ttcoder/repository/genode-haiku/index https://chiselapp.com/user/ttcoder/repository/genode-haiku/i...
- renox 2y ago
  Haiku on Genode seriously?? What's needed is Haiku on Linux, but no it would be too sensible..

School-Cotton 2y ago

As someone who's never used it, what is so great about BeOS? I mean concretely, not in figurative language like this.

caycep 2y ago
if I recall, (and someone correct me if I'm wrong), it had deep multithreaded support/design, more so than any other desktop OS at the time, so it could run more simultaneous processes and apps w/o getting bogged down. at least I think there was a demo claiming this.
- diegocg 2y ago
  This was true at the time, but at the time Linux wasn't preemptive, had bad SMP support and no good threading implementation. BeOS was designed for SMP hardware, was preemptive and had good threading support, but besides that there is nothing really especial about it. "pervasive multithreading" simply consisted in using threads a lot (for 90's definition of "lot"). Creating and managing the threads by hand. In 90's C++. Modern operating systems have caught with that and gone beyond of what beos did.
  - adastra22 2y ago
    I wouldn't say there was nothing special about it, given the limitations at the time. Having threads spawn quickly, and quickly move between threads so fast as to have no visible user latency was one hell of a feat on BeOS hardware--a 66MHz PowerPC dual-CPU system, IIRC. But yeah, it's something we take for granted today.
    - amy-petrik-214 2y ago
      yea it was cool dual CPU hardware: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BeBox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BeBox those two green lights on the front were CPU load per each CPU. and the geekport reminscent of Raspberry pi only later did they port it to x86, similar to NeXT.
    - 2y ago

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]