Slashdot Mirror
Ten Years of BeOS
Tracker writes "BeOS was released to developers officially for the first time ten years ago. OSNews has a charming write-up about the BeOS, some interesting historical events since 1994, and a few anecdotes as well. Today, BeOS still lives on with projects like the freeware BeOS Max (built upon BeOS 5 PE), the open source re-implementation from scratch OpenBeOS and YellowTAB's commercial Zeta OS (based on unreleased and updated code of what would have been 'BeOS 6' if Be wasn't purchased by Palm in 2001)."
I think you mean 10 months and then 9 years and 3 months of irrelevance.
BeOS is one of those cool things that "could have been". It could have been amazing and taken over the desktop.
However, it was a flash in the pan.
What killed it? Lack of driver support. (I'm looking at you Linux fanatics)
And maybe its influence will be felt in the soon-to-be-released Palm OS 6 (Cobalt).
A few years back, one of the members of my Quake clan was a programmer who preferred BeOS as his platform of choice for development and other everyday tasks. He eventually went to work for Be and we didn't hear from him much after that. Nevertheless, we always gave him hell about his BeOS preference. Here are a few choice quotes from our IRC logs:
:P
This first one is particularly applicable as it pertains to the "uncorruptable" BeOS filesystem.
but you have more problems with win95 than i have ever imagined anyone having
nah...you should see some of the people on my dorm floor...
one guy had to fdisk like 5 times last semester
hehe
You CAN'T corrupt the BeOS file system
Even by kicking out the power cord
you can't play Q2 on it either
potty stop - brb
overkill.. yellow card
what, you'd rather say i was going to "the little programmer's room" or something??
I got take a BeOS
"BeOS combines the best features of all the major operating systems: the ease-of-use of the Macintosh, the power and flexibility of Linux, and Minesweeper from Windows."
-- Stu
/. ID under 2,000. I feel old now.
IMHO a very good approach, as using the Linux kernel and XFree86 will take care of the lack-of-drivers problem that the original BeOS had. Also, this will give it decent OpenGL performance for free, which was also one of the weak points of the original BeOS (and will be one of the other sucessors).
Sitting there, blinkenlights and all. Haven't used it in years, but of all the computers I have owned in my life, thats really only one of the few that I don't want to do away with.
... I always had issues with Amiga freaks and their platform worship, and being a bit of a Unix weenie I'm not really inclined to consider myself a machine fetishist, so attachment to that blue monolith, which I literally see every day as I get in my chair at the office, feels ... quaint?
Strange attachment to it
Still, I suppose I'll find a use for it. 66mhz dual-proc ppc601's (is it, i forget?), and it runs smoothly every time I've turned it on recently. I guess Linux wouldn't be out of the question for it, but I can't help this nagging feeling that there could be -other- things to run on that poor, simply nice little machine...
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
"BeOS combines the best features of all the major operating systems: the ease-of-use of the Macintosh, the power and flexibility of Linux, and Minesweeper from Windows."
..." response. The above statement is complete.
Karma be damned, that is funny.
I honestly can't think of an "oh, and maybe
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
BeOS's only real chance came before their egotistical CEO turned down apple's offer of more than they were worth. Apple went with NeXT, and Be went... nowhere.
Make's you wonder what what OS X would have been like had Apples plan to by BeOS not fallen through. BeOS had a lot of features NeXT did not have and some that are just being implemented now, such as journaled file systems found in Panther.
OSNews has a charming write-up about the BeOS
You misspelled "morbid obsession with".
Google confirms: Ruby is the world's most beloved programm
Article
Now that I read it, it wasn't even that article. It started something like "Everything Bill Gates has sold you will be obsolete" and it had the BeOS guy standing by a BeBox.
The fact that the BeBoxes had the "geek port" always put a smile on my face. the fact that the OS supported hardware designed for futzing around made me smile. I wonder why the idea never caught on to have a standard, hardware interface designed for home soldering enthusiasts (the port was designed to be physically large enough to manipulate without special equipment).
I don't really understand how the Zeta project exists.
Do they own the code? If Be was sold to Palm, how are these guys continuing work from the BeOS codebase? Was the OS sold separately, and if so, then who cares about the Palm deal?
Or is the whole Zeta thing owned by Palm?
...but I think I've finally done it. OSX has a lot of nice features that are comparable to what BeOS brought to the table (for example, Carbon is on par with the BeOS APIs, and both are worlds ahead of Win32).
One thing that is still unmatched is the responsiveness of BeOS's GUI. I was running BeOS on a PII-300 in 1999, and none of today's operating systems can match the responsiveness I had, even on today's fastest machines. Window resizing and scrolling were rock-solid and flicker-free. As much as I love OSX, resizing and scrolling feel sluggish. Windows is better, but prone to flicker and outright delays if the application is busy doing something. The GUI in BeOS never missed a beat, largely due to pervasive multithreading of the core infrastructure.
Be played a heck of an end game, but when you look back at Microsoft's antitrust lawsuit with the DOJ you'll find soem interesting things. Microsoft pointed to the existense of BE as evidence of competition in the OS field. At the time, Be was still focused on trying to win over apple fans. A be executive replied that it was a joke. Be didn't compete directly with Microsoft. Then after the trial Be launched a lawsuit against microsoft using the microsoft's own evidence against them.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
So, OK, I've read now a dozen smug barbs against BeOS fanatics.
My guess is 99% of you never did anything more than boot it, realize it had no good web browser and then returned to windows/linux/bsd/whathave you.
What I want to say is I spent 4 years using BeOS as my primary platform. Why? Because I don't like using a system I am uncomfortable developing on. [ Yes, I'm talking about you, Win32] BeOS's ease-of-use and user focus were secondary to it's having an API and clarity of development which blew my mind.
I gave it up for linux, when I discovered Qt, and now I'm on Mac OS X, which is from an API standpoint actually better. Amazing.
So, I'm rambling here but the thing is, beOS made it *easy* to write amazing things. Not many systems can claim that, except maybe Cocoa.
Case-in-point: I had a dell laptop with a trackpad. I hated having my insertion point jump around when I typed and brushed the trackpad with my thumb. So I decided to write an input-server plugin to discard those events. How long did it take me to write it? *One* hour. Not because I'm a genius programmer -- I'm not. it was because beOS was a well-designed coherent system with APIs that made sense *across* the board, and excellent documentation from nape to nuts.
My plugin: http://bebits.com/app/1344
lorem ipsum, dolor sit amet
- AtheOS is no longer developed, and the codebase has not been updated in several years.
- Syllable is our community-driven fork of AtheOS, which was started two years ago.
- AtheOS domain lapsed and is now hosting a knock-off website hawking drugs
We're halfway through development of Syllable 0.5.4, which like all previous releases of Syllable, will rock. We support a whole bunch of hardware, have developed the codebase heavily and for those of you who were familiar with Kurt Skuans style of working with AtheOS, we have a far more open development model. All are welcome to contribute. You can even download a LiveCD if you want to give it a spin.Syllable : It's an Operating System
Why BeOS, you crazy SOB? Well, it's a P225, so BeOS flies on it - it boots in 20 seconds (90% of that is POST) and I dont have to worry about antivirus, spyware, trojans or other Windows crap. It's fast, and does what it's supposed to, and no one will be installing Solitare on it. :)
I am finding the built-in terminal lacking as far as term emulation goes, so I'll keep an eye out for updates.
If it goes down, they're back to running to the PC - (Win98 minus IE and Outlook Ex, plus Firefox and Thunderbird), but I haven't had many problems with BeOS yet.
And what the hell, we've got the equivalent of the Battlestar Galactica armada in old-ass computers, BeOS should be getting its time along Mac OS X, 9, 7.x, Windows 98, XP, and did I mention we have our inventory system running on SCO Unix? ;)
You do need a horde of developpers to get drivers, which you either have to pay or entice with a truly open model. Be did neither.
If Machiavelli lived today, his quintesential book would be called "Il Executivo", not "Il Principe"
The Raven
Stephenson sure has a way with words:
When Ronald Reagan was a radio announcer, he used to call baseball games by reading the terse descriptions that trickled in over the telegraph wire and were printed out on a paper tape. [...] This is exactly how the World Wide Web works: the HTML files are the pithy description on the paper tape, and your Web browser is Ronald Reagan.
Not sure about Mozilla, but that certainly explains IE's memory problems.
Linux is different because 1) there's now a huge pool of free (beer) GUI software so users can give it a real shot
So instead of buying applications, they have to download and/or compile them. It's still getting a whole bunch of new applications that are mere shells of the commercial implementations they're trying to emulate. You may as well not even consider them in the equation.
2) even before those apps came along, there were plenty of text-only apps that met the needs of Unix users of the day. Those were available for BeOS, too, but the users who wanted the ultimate GUI didn't care whether bison and nn were available.
Linux is different because it has the same GNU text apps that all the other UNIX-clones have?
The only, ONLY way Linux is different is that it is Open Source. The hacky desktop emulators Linux has are completely horrible, yet nobody will change them, except innovative people like those hacking on Y-Windows. Otherwise, Linux is just a haven for anti-"M$" zealots who think computer operating systems are something to actually expend energy being religious over. To the rest of the world that actually has a life, there are more important things to consider--like getting their work done (as opposed to spending four hours getting godawful XMMS not to skip with a standard soundcard).
"Sufferin' succotash."
after BeOS, using Mac OS pre-X was painful and boring. Windows felt clunky, and Linux felt too unpolished. after BeOS i chose Linux (then BSD a couple of years later) as my primary system, but i've always lamented the compromises in some areas. i didn't, however, miss having applications to do my work (the main reason i never went very far with BeOS). i still have and use the powermac 8500 i ran BeOS on, it now runs NetBSD.
thanks to all of the amazing Be engineers, you guys made something truly inspiring. you made people remember how exciting it is to see emerging systems and usable desktops. in many ways we're all still trying to catch up.
1995 sucked!
Then an audacious person introduced a dual-CPU developer machine with a nifty new OS with hardly any legacy constraints. It was shockingly unfathomable. It was idealistic and hopeful, in a time when that sort of attitude was deader than it had ever been. It sure cheered me up.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Microsoft killed Be, but it seems that /. just killed Zeta
Is there anything better than clicking through Microsoft ads on Slashdot?
Why did BeOS fail? I dont know all the reasons, but here are my ideas.
.. and you have a product that you're going to sell against Microsoft - then dont piss off the resellers and VARs out there by making THEM pay for trying it..
When BeOS was coming out with their RC's that people had to PAY to get, I sent them an email. Said basically "I'm a reseller. I resell and recommend operating systems to my customers. I understand that you have a superior product and I'd like to take a look at it. Would you please either provide me a download or send me a CD."
No matter how many times I asked, I was always referred to the "Pay us money and we'll send you an RC."
Screw that. If you're trying to make it
For that matter, I'd have rented a copy of it..Or put it up on my credit card as security for me having to ship the CD back to them..
= Grow a brain...
Ah, this article brought back a lot of old memories... My favorite part:
Yes, 4.5.2 really was the best BeOS ever, as well as the best OS period. I had it running on 2 boxes, day and night, for months upon months. One of the computers had all my music stored in its database-like filesystem. It used to play these hundreds of songs just about 24 hours a day, to be paused whenever I left and resumed when I came back. This was next to several Linux and FreeBSD boxes, very "heavy" in terms of all the software that ran on them... I'll never forget how the computer I had configured as a NAT firewall ran X with XEarth in the background, and a ton of unnecessary processes at the same time... or how there was some weird bug in KDE back then, I think I had version 1, that caused the GUI to go completely crazy while the VM would go on these disk grinding frenzies, which would last about 30 minutes before the computer regained its sanity, and it routed packets perfectly through all of this crap. I have always liked these OSes, but I have to admit that I always enjoyed working with BeOS a lot more than these other operating systems, all of which I swear by. BeOS just had this feeling, as the author of the article said... I don't think that any other OS will reproduce the spirit, culture, and fluidity of this fine piece of software.Ooooooooh well.