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Seizing a BeBox just can't be legal. Where's he gonna get a new one? So sad!

GUI screenshots.
http://www.aci.com.pl/mwichary/guidebook/interface s

Englebart's famous 1968 demo.
http://sloan.stanford.edu/MouseSite/1968Demo.html

Acorn Archimedes GUI
http://homepage.tinet.ie/~lrtc/computers/acorn_ro/ acorn/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A225785

Knowledge Navigator.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_navigator

Apple II GS
http://applemuseum.bott.org/sections/computers/IIg s.html

BeBox
http://www.bebox.nu/history.php

8-1/2: The Plan 9 Window system
http://plan9.bell-labs.com/sys/doc/8%BD/8%BD.pdf

Genera
http://www.geocities.com/mparker762/toys.html

Video Interviews of Early Pioneers
http://www.invisiblerevolution.net/

GUI News
http://interfacelift.com/news/

ZUI's
http://www.cs.umd.edu/hcil/piccolo/applications/in dex.shtml

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it was originally a PowerPC OS

Well, to be pedantic, it was originally written for AT&T's Hobbit processor, then ported to PowerPC a few years in, before they actually shipped anything.

I've been a Handspring Treo 180 user for a while now and regularly use iSync and the Hotsync tools to back up my Treo and synchronize my Addressbook and Calendar with the Mac OSX built in apps. I couldn't be happier with the whole configuration and interoperability of the two devices. Personally I think its the best damn thing since slice bread and I pity the masses who still have a separate devices with addresses, numbers and calendars in their mobile phone, PDA, home computer, work computer with out a single button solution to synchronize all that data.

My next purchase of the next generation Treo device will be dependent on the fact it will be able to interchange data as easily as it has my Treo 180 has in the past with my Apple Powerbook running OSX. By only supporting Windows in the future , Palmsource effectively is giving the Microsoft monopoly a distinct advantage, while Palmource loses its advantage of being the only PDA vendor for the OSX platform. I feel that Palmsource is only helping Microsoft establish itself as the only dominate player in the consumer computing arena.

Sincerely,
-Diganta

One can speculate this to be a case of Bad blood or a case of industry karma. I guess the ex-Be OS executives could be getting back at Apple for shutting out Be OS development beyond the 604 processors on the Mac. I'm a huge Be OS admirer and still refer back to Scot Hacker's columns on Byte magazine to understand the way a truly modern OS should run and be responsive under heavy workloads. I think its ironic that Be OS who's microkernel originated to run on the AT&T Hobbit processor (Newton PDA prototypes) will now end up going back into a PDA. Funny how that works right?

I'm also very disappointed with PalmSource decision to stop development for the Mac OSX platform. I've been a Handspring Treo 180 user for a while now and regularly use iSync and the Hotsync tools to back up my Treo and synchronize my Addressbook and Calendar with the Mac OSX built in apps. I couldn't be happier with the whole configuration and interoperability of the two devices. Personally I think its the best damn thing since slice bread and I pity the masses who still have a separate devices with addresses, numbers and calendars in their mobile phone, PDA, home computer, work computer with out a single button solution to synchronize all that data.

Neo Saves the day. He wakes up to find that he was in a matrix inside a matrix. He wakes up from both matrices only to find that in reality he is...*GASP* Jean Louis Gasse. He instantly takes the blue pill and returns to being a svelte young Hollywood star...

Yeah, but it was a pretty sweet piece of hardware for the time. IMHO the magic of Be was the BeBox, not the user interface. Gotta love that geek port! I was really hoping it'd become the next Amiga.

Instead, it just skipped the "success" stage and went straight to Amiga's "defunct" stage. *sigh*

Why stop there? Port it back to the AT&T Hobbit chip!!

Pretty much anything, I'd guess. I'm assuming it to be inspired by the original geek port.

First off, let me say that I get the joke...Haha, but you have to understand why these ARE valid "Rumors" in the case of OS/2 and AmigaOS.

First, Amiga Inc. exists and they have a product. The Amiga (both hardware and software) is/was still a great system.

As for OS/2...it still exists. And guess what they're using for their Web Browser. See, IBM made promises to alot of developers when OS/2 was released, and they put lotsa effort and $$$ into loking some of their bigger clients into OS/2 solutions. This is just good business sense.

It's interesting in noting that around the time that the C= officially died and before Gateway really showed any interest, the BeBox was being touted as a good alternative to AmigaOS ... It's also worth mentioning that the origonal BeBox and the AmigaOne are similar in design (use standard PeeCee hardware to achieve all the benefits of a closed arcatecture).

Those boxen looked cool, had blinkenlights on the front, and most importantly, the GeekPort! I'll miss them.

Farewell, Be!

Thanks! I just Google'd and found a site with some cool pictures of the beast. I can see that das Blinkenlights are indeed a key feature! :-)

BeBox pictures

I recently sold for $1119.00 the BeBox that I bought my freshman year for $600 used. This marked first time I've ever bought a computer and it increased in value. Here's the eBay auction: http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem& item=1302540562

Though this auction could be nifty, I don't think you're going to find any BeBoxes laying around Be Inc. mainly due to this little tidbit: Interesting history: David [Cantrell] obtained this BeBox from Be's offices in Menlo Park, CA. It was being discarded and he "rescued" it from the trash heap with the help of a former Be employee. It lacks the CPU load LEDs on the front, but other than that, it's still in great shape.
http://www.bebox.nu/beboxnames.php and scroll down to see the original post.

You did good work with BeOS and will be missed by many.

• PostScript hits the market ~1982
• Project Athena announced 1983
• Project Athena starts 1984
• X (X1) released June 19, 1984
• NeWS is released ~1985
• X11R1 released September 15, 1987
• Be evaluates NeWS as the windowing system for their intended OS in 1991