Actually, Be, Inc. is a very easy company to work with. A year or so ago I contacted them about doing a port to the Alpha archtecture. If I'd had a real business plan, instead of being some shmo who thought it would be cool to see the BeOS running on the Alpha architecture, I'm sure Be would have let me do the port.
If SGI contacted Be, and was willing to provide an engineer or two to help with the port, I bet Be would be more than willing to support the Visual Workstations.
Even though I can't afford it, if the Visual Workstation ran the BeOS, I'd buy one.
FinalScatch is cool for DJs, but I'm more interested in seeing the pro audio tools that are ready to go as soon as Be releases R4.5.
A major part of what is going to make the BeOS the Media OS is it Low Latency. The T-RackS review over at leBuzz (http://www.lebuzz.com/archive/tracksreview.html) has a comparrison of running T-RackS under the BeOS and Windows. Because of its low latency the BeOS version is MUCH more usable than the Windows version on the same hardware.
(leBuzz is the place for information on audio on the BeOS.)
I used to think typcasting was an engineering trait, but I think it really is a general human trait. We can't help it. In order to understand our complex world we categorize things so they are easier to maintain in our brains.
The reason people typecast OSes the way they do is because of the problems that are best solved by the OS. Linux/FreeBSD/etc are strong server OSes. They are way too hard to setup and maintain as a desktop OS. Especially in comparrison to Windows or the MacOS. So it gets typecast as a server OS.
The MacOS gets typecast as a toy OS because of its crashability and its running on doofy looking machines. B-)
Windows gets typecast as a general purpose desktop OS becasue you can do most anything with that a desktop user may want to do. Its relatively stable and as long as you have decent hardware and don't plan on changing it, Windows is relatively easy to install and setup. (Unless you run into a problem. Then it can rather difficult to fix.)
The BeOS on the other hand doesn't provide any solutions over what other OSes provide today. It is not compelling other than being easier to install and maintain than Windows. As easy to use as the MacOS and as stable as Linux. (Almost.) It doesn't solve any problems. Yet. Hopefully in the next few months it will solve a lot of problems for those who work with audio. There are a lot of really sweet programs poised to be released for the BeOS that fold/spindle/mutlate sound. This is the reason for typcasting the BeOS as THE MediaOS. It is not the Media OS yet, but if things keep going the way they are. It will be.
Having said all that I should also say I'm a BeOS developer (#1234) and zealot. It really is a good general purpose OS.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, Be, Inc. is a very easy company to work with. A year or so ago I contacted them about doing a port to the Alpha archtecture. If I'd had a real business plan, instead of being some shmo who thought it would be cool to see the BeOS running on the Alpha architecture, I'm sure Be would have let me do the port.
If SGI contacted Be, and was willing to provide an engineer or two to help with the port, I bet Be would be more than willing to support the Visual Workstations.
Even though I can't afford it, if the Visual Workstation ran the BeOS, I'd buy one.
geoff
FinalScatch is cool for DJs, but I'm more interested in seeing the pro audio tools that are ready to go as soon as Be releases R4.5.
A major part of what is going to make the BeOS the Media OS is it Low Latency. The T-RackS review over at leBuzz (http://www.lebuzz.com/archive/tracksreview.html) has a comparrison of running T-RackS under the BeOS and Windows. Because of its low latency the BeOS version is MUCH more usable than the Windows version on the same hardware.
(leBuzz is the place for information on audio on the BeOS.)
geoff
I used to think typcasting was an engineering trait, but I think it really is a general human trait. We can't help it. In order to understand our complex world we categorize things so they are easier to maintain in our brains.
The reason people typecast OSes the way they do is because of the problems that are best solved by the OS. Linux/FreeBSD/etc are strong server OSes. They are way too hard to setup and maintain as a desktop OS. Especially in comparrison to Windows or the MacOS. So it gets typecast as a server OS.
The MacOS gets typecast as a toy OS because of its crashability and its running on doofy looking machines. B-)
Windows gets typecast as a general purpose desktop OS becasue you can do most anything with that a desktop user may want to do. Its relatively stable and as long as you have decent hardware and don't plan on changing it, Windows is relatively easy to install and setup. (Unless you run into a problem. Then it can rather difficult to fix.)
The BeOS on the other hand doesn't provide any solutions over what other OSes provide today. It is not compelling other than being easier to install and maintain than Windows. As easy to use as the MacOS and as stable as Linux. (Almost.) It doesn't solve any problems. Yet. Hopefully in the next few months it will solve a lot of problems for those who work with audio. There are a lot of really sweet programs poised to be released for the BeOS that fold/spindle/mutlate sound. This is the reason for typcasting the BeOS as THE MediaOS. It is not the Media OS yet, but if things keep going the way they are. It will be.
Having said all that I should also say I'm a BeOS developer (#1234) and zealot. It really is a good general purpose OS.
geoff