Anyone remember the "Be" Operating System (BeOS) ??

sure do! i was quite sad when the project was abandoned (Killed by PALM)

have you been following the haiku project?

Haiku’s 32-bit installation is binary-compatible with BeOS R5, which means applications designed for BeOS R5 will run.

[link to www.haiku-os.org (secure)]

What is Haiku?

HAIKU is an open source operating system currently in development. Specifically targeting personal computing, Haiku is a fast, efficient, simple to use, easy to learn, and yet very powerful system for computer users of all levels. Additionally, Haiku offers something over other open source platforms which is quite unique: The project consists of a single team writing everything from the kernel,

Wow. That's the actual OS Gates took and turned into MS-DOS.

You sound like a kid... I am an old IBM 360 assembler programmer.... COBOL, RPG.. moved into rhe micro computer realm in the mid-80s and never looked back.

When I started... I used punch cards. Even after I moved up to a terminal I still had to maintain my old code that was on cards up to the day I left. Actually, the day I handed in my resignation they took my terminal away and handed me several change orders, all on punch cards, because I was the last guy there who could do it. I was 22 and had been there almost four years. There being working for the state of Kansas. ;-)

Really, those were fun times. I had a Commodore C64, a 128D, and Amiga and a 66mhz Windows machine. Used them all. Ran a 5 line BBS on a Commodore. Thing had a 3.5 floppy, hard drive AND 128 megs of ram - wrote a column for Commodore World so I got all the goodies back then.

Those were the salad days.

Wow. That's the actual OS Gates took and turned into MS-DOS.

Apple ultimately chose *NOT* to go with the Be OS, and instead settled on NeXT and the NeXTStep Operating System...but why? Apple also reinstated the then-shitcanned Steve Jobs...a wise move, at least from that portion of the perspective.


The price was relatively dirt-cheap, and later Be would be subsumed by the Palm company (I really *hated* those devices) for the rather fine sum of about $11 million USD... This was almost orders of magnitude over Apple's offering, but it didn't exactly "work."

Why is that?

Congratulations to all the 30 something year olds trying to re-live your youth.

Wife, kids, mortgage breaking your balls... why not reminisce about the elegant but very half finished os that once was.

While you’re at it don’t forget the single speed fixie bike, your $2000 retro vintage compaq presario and all the other useless junk from previous decades.

It was cool but there’s a reason these things were binned.

You'll have to rewind a couple decades (if you were even born yet) to appreciate this tech demo of the BeOS on ..almost.. cutting-edge hardware of the time.


[link to youtu.be (secure)]


Having two processors on-the-cheap back then was not something easily attainable. There was a slotted Pentium II riser card that could be soldered/jumped to "restore" hidden symmetric multi-processor functionality which was deliberately sabotaged by Intel (for cost) on consumer-grade chips. I used to run dual 333MHz [overclocked] processors back when everyone else only had a single 166-233 MHz proc... BeOS would have been a godsend on that setup...

Wow. That's the actual OS Gates took and turned into MS-DOS.

Were you still shitting in diapers when Windows Me (and Windows 2000) were on the horizon? Or were you programming in assembly language for multiple platforms in the military (like I was?)

I think I have OS/2 install disks somewhere!

Actually, it was CP/M that Gates bought and turned into DOS (if I recall.)

Congratulations to all the 30 something year olds trying to re-live your youth.

Wife, kids, mortgage breaking your balls... why not reminisce about the elegant but very half finished os that once was.

While you’re at it don’t forget the single speed fixie bike, your $2000 retro vintage compaq presario and all the other useless junk from previous decades.

It was cool but there’s a reason these things were binned.

Wasn't NeXT just BSD w/ a GUI?

i remember playing several audio files at once, a task windows at that time was unable to accomplish

Congratulations to all the 30 something year olds trying to re-live your youth.

Wife, kids, mortgage breaking your balls... why not reminisce about the elegant but very half finished os that once was.

While you’re at it don’t forget the single speed fixie bike, your $2000 retro vintage compaq presario and all the other useless junk from previous decades.

It was cool but there’s a reason these things were binned.

Yup. I remember that exact same thing. True multi-tasking!

Congratulations to all the 30 something year olds trying to re-live your youth.

Wife, kids, mortgage breaking your balls... why not reminisce about the elegant but very half finished os that once was.

While you’re at it don’t forget the single speed fixie bike, your $2000 retro vintage compaq presario and all the other useless junk from previous decades.

It was cool but there’s a reason these things were binned.

Fuck that stone age bullshit!