10 Mar
2005
10 Mar
'05
6:26 p.m.
I picked up a Cd and manuals for BeOS today. Anybody here use it? What
do you think of it?
Joe
10 Mar
10 Mar
7:09 p.m.
On Mar 10, 2005, at 9:26 PM, Joe R. wrote:
I picked up a Cd and manuals for BeOS today.
Anybody here use it?
What
do you think of it?
Works great on my BeBox. :)
BeOS is an oddity in OS circles. It's very much what you might expect
from OpenStep, sort of. Well, if you mixed OpenStep
with a liberal
dose of multimedia. It's very strange, but in a very comforting
way.
:)
--
Kurt Huhn "A rebel I came, and I'll die just the same
kurt at k-huhn.com On the cold winds of night you will find me"
--Seven Nations
7:11 p.m.
Kurt Huhn wrote:
On Mar 10, 2005, at 9:26 PM, Joe R. wrote:
I like it. I have a dual PII-233 I run it on and it's FAST on that hardware
:) It's sort of unix-y-ish, but not really, and kind of openstep-ish, but not
really. Fun to mess with, and it has a really interesting thread/process
model and programming APIs. If you're interested in that sort of thing it
would be cool to play around with :)
--
Dan Wright
(dtwright at uiuc.edu)
(http://www.uiuc.edu/~dtwright)
"we are content if we can describe a multitude of other things in terms of...
fundamental incomprehensibilities. science is an activity that takes place on
the shore of an infinite sea of mystery."
chet raymo, "doctor seuss and doctor einstein"
I picked up a Cd and manuals for BeOS today.
Anybody here use it? What
do you think of it?
Works great on my BeBox. :)
BeOS is an oddity in OS circles. It's very much what you might expect
from OpenStep, sort of. Well, if you mixed OpenStep with a liberal dose
of multimedia. It's very strange, but in a very comforting way. :)
8:13 p.m.
Kurt Huhn wrote:
>
>On Mar 10, 2005, at 9:26 PM, Joe R. wrote:
>
>> I picked up a Cd and manuals for BeOS today. Anybody here use it? What
>>do you think of it?
>>
>
>Works great on my BeBox. :)
>
>BeOS is an oddity in OS circles. It's very much what you might
>expect from OpenStep, sort of. Well, if you mixed OpenStep with a
>liberal dose of multimedia. It's very strange, but in a very
>comforting way. :)
I'd never have thought to compare BeOS to OPENSTEP, but in some ways
I can see that comparison. Though OPENSTEP has a serious
relationship with Unix, BeOS simply attempts to be POSIX compatible.
It has a totally none Unix filesystem (IIRC, it's a database), but
like OPENSTEP, it has it's own GUI rather than using X-Windows.
I like it. I have a dual PII-233 I run it on and
it's FAST on that
hardware :) It's sort of unix-y-ish, but not really, and kind of
openstep-ish, but not really. Fun to mess with, and it has a really
interesting thread/process model and programming APIs. If you're
interested in that sort of thing it would be cool to play around
with :)
I ran one of the last developer releases a little on my PowerMac
8500/180, and it was quite impressive. Latter I used BeOS 4.5
briefly on my old dual 400Mhz Celeron, and it was awesome! The
downside is development ground to a halt. There has been some modern
activity, and there is even work being done on an Open Source version.
It would have been nice to see it continue, but after Apple bought
NeXT rather than Be, Inc. they sort of started to run out of steam.
I might be typing this on a dual 2Ghz G5 running Mac OS X, but I
can't help but thinking how much better the system would be if it had
been BeOS based, rather than OPENSTEP based. The good thing about
them buying NeXT was getting Steve Jobs back, but BeOS was a far more
efficient OS. And yes, I've run OPENSTEP and BeOS on the same system.
Zane
--
--
| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator |
| healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast |
| | Classic Computer Collector |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, |
| PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. |
| http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ |
11 Mar
11 Mar
4:44 a.m.
On Thu, March 10, 2005 23:13, Zane H. Healy said:
I'd never have thought to compare BeOS to
OPENSTEP, but in some ways
I can see that comparison. Though OPENSTEP has a serious
relationship with Unix, BeOS simply attempts to be POSIX compatible.
It has a totally none Unix filesystem (IIRC, it's a database), but
like OPENSTEP, it has it's own GUI rather than using X-Windows.
I'll admit that it's an odd comaprison. In the greater OS world, wher you
have "Windows, Linux, Unix, BSD, and Other", I think that OpenStep and
BeOS fall under "other". They're very different from each other, but the
feel is similar - if you know what I mean....
Or not. It's tough to explain. How about "comfortably kooky". :)
--
Kurt Huhn "If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball!"
kurt at k-huhn.com -- Patches O'Houlihan
11:08 a.m.
I ran one of the last developer releases a little on my PowerMac
8500/180, and it was quite impressive. Latter I used BeOS 4.5
briefly on my old dual 400Mhz Celeron, and it was awesome! The
downside is development ground to a halt. There has been some modern
activity, and there is even work being done on an Open Source version.
I still run BeOSR5 (last one) on my PC (multi-boot system with XP,
FreeBSD, and BeOS). From what I've seen, there's still a lot of open
source development going on for it in the form of drivers and software.
I was finally able to get my Nvidia TI4600 card up much to my delight.
As for the open source version, there's actually a bunch of them:
Open BeOS - http://open-beos.sourceforge.net/news.php
FreeOS (Now Called Mockup, a BeOS/Linux mixture) -
http://www.mockup.org/faqs/whats/
Athos - http://www.atheos.cx/ Athos is peculiar in that everyone except
the author calls it a BeOS clone. ;)
There's also a new commercial version called Zeta developed by YellowTab
(former European distributor of BeOS), based on directly on BeOS.
According to one site it's based Dano/EXP's codeline (which was supposed
to be BeOS 6 but was never finished as Be sold its IP to Palm).
http://yellowtab.com/products/
Here's a review of an early beta from 3 years ago -
http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=3692
It would have been nice to see it continue, but after Apple bought
NeXT rather than Be, Inc. they sort of started to run out of steam.
I might be typing this on a dual 2Ghz G5 running Mac OS X, but I
can't help but thinking how much better the system would be if it had
been BeOS based, rather than OPENSTEP based. The good thing about
them buying NeXT was getting Steve Jobs back, but BeOS was a far more
efficient OS. And yes, I've run OPENSTEP and BeOS on the same system.
Zane
I have to agree, but then that efficiency could be because BeOS isn't
running a kludge verson of FreeBSD/Mac GUI in a MACH environment. ;)
| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems
Administrator |
Marty
12 Mar
12 Mar
12:54 p.m.
On Fri, Mar 11, 2005 at 01:08:19PM -0600, Martin Scott Goldberg wrote:
As for the open source version, there's actually a
bunch of them:
Open BeOS - http://open-beos.sourceforge.net/news.php
I believe they moved (and changed their name) to http://haiku-os.org/
Of the open source systems you mention, I think this is the only one
that's very BeOS like and alive.
FreeOS (Now Called Mockup, a BeOS/Linux mixture) -
http://www.mockup.org/faqs/whats/
Athos - http://www.atheos.cx/ Athos is peculiar in that everyone except
the author calls it a BeOS clone. ;)
I think that one is long dead.
There's also a new commercial version called Zeta
developed by YellowTab
(former European distributor of BeOS), based on directly on BeOS.
According to one site it's based Dano/EXP's codeline (which was supposed
to be BeOS 6 but was never finished as Be sold its IP to Palm).
http://yellowtab.com/products/
Here's a review of an early beta from 3 years ago -
http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=3692
They don't seem to have actually done anything important in the time
since then. Although, 1.0 is soon to be released, and maybe it will
finally get things rolling again.
Sigh. This topic always opens the gaping maw of depression.
I really, really, really loved BeOS. I ran it full time as my main
desktop OS for awhile.
I have to agree, but then that efficiency could be
because BeOS isn't
running a kludge verson of FreeBSD/Mac GUI in a MACH environment. ;)
On the flip side, I think Objective C is far nicer than C++. I know
many people disagree, but in retrospect, I'm glad OS X is what it is
rather than an updated BeOS.
--
Joshua D. Boyd
jdboyd at jdboyd.net
http://www.jdboyd.net/
http://www.joshuaboyd.org/
10 Mar
10 Mar
8:41 p.m.
Joe R. wrote:
I picked up a Cd and manuals for BeOS today.
Anybody here use it? What
do you think of it?
On a BeBox, it's Pretty Damn Fine. I tried it on a PC a few years
ago, right after v5 came out, and decided Linux was a better choice there.
It's a very different OS, and sort of a strange "fit&finish" to the
user interface. Very slick, very developer-oriented.
Doc
9:51 p.m.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Doc Shipley" <doc at mdrconsult.com>
To: <General at mdrconsult.com>
Sent: Thursday, March 10, 2005 11:41 PM
Subject: Re: Opinions? BeOS
Was there much software released for it?
Joe R. wrote:
> I picked up a Cd and manuals for BeOS today. Anybody here use it?
What
do you think
of it?
On a BeBox, it's Pretty Damn Fine. I tried it on a PC a few years
ago, right after v5 came out, and decided Linux was a better choice there.
It's a very different OS, and sort of a strange "fit&finish" to the
user interface. Very slick, very developer-oriented.
Doc
11 Mar
11 Mar
11:12 a.m.
From: "Teo Zenios" <teoz at
neo.rr.com>
Was there much software released for it?
http://www.bebits.com/
That doesn't include the commerical software.
Marty
10:12 p.m.
Martin Scott Goldberg wrote:
Mostly compatibility. I do Unix training and network stuff for a living.
Also, BeOS software was still mostly commercial, and I was poor.
Doc
On a BeBox,
it's Pretty Damn Fine. I tried it on a PC a few years
ago, right after v5 came out, and decided Linux was a better choice there.
What was your reasoning?
12 Mar
12 Mar
9:10 a.m.
Martin Scott Goldberg wrote:
Mostly compatibility. I do Unix training and network stuff for a living.
Compatibility as far as network stuff? Most of the POSIX compliant Unix
software should be able to be ported over, which is why I'm curious what
specifically you needed.
On a
BeBox, it's Pretty Damn Fine. I tried it on a PC a few years
ago, right after v5 came out, and decided Linux was a better choice there.
What was your reasoning?
Also, BeOS software was still mostly commercial, and I was poor.
Yah, I Guess you had to wait for the OS to fail and fall in the hands
of hobbyests before the non-commercial stuff came. Heh.
Doc
Marty
11:07 p.m.
Martin Scott Goldberg wrote:
Mostly I needed test-bed capability for the Linux stuff we do,
reliable presentation of remote X11 apps, and performance. On the
hardware I had, BeOS seemed notably slower than Debian.
Yeah. Now, of course, I have a bunch of commercial multimedia apps
that came with my BeBox, plus the open-source stuff. At the time, circa
v4.0, I think, it wasn't nearly that easy.
Doc
Martin Scott
Goldberg wrote:
Mostly compatibility. I do Unix training and network stuff for a living.
Compatibility as far as network stuff? Most of the POSIX compliant Unix
software should be able to be ported over, which is why I'm curious what
specifically you needed. On a
BeBox, it's Pretty Damn Fine. I tried it on a PC a few years
ago, right after v5 came out, and decided Linux was a better choice there.
What was your reasoning? Also, BeOS
software was still mostly commercial, and I was poor.
Yah, I Guess you had to wait for the OS to fail and fall in the hands
of hobbyests before the non-commercial stuff came. Heh. 
11 Mar
11 Mar
4:09 a.m.
On Thu, 2005-03-10 at 21:26 -0500, Joe R. wrote:
I picked up a Cd and manuals for BeOS today.
Anybody here use it? What
do you think of it?
It's pretty slick for the time, although I suppose all the nicer
features have been copied now within modern OSes. The integration
between desktop and command-line shell is nicely done.
I picked up a dual 133MHz Bebox a while back which I took over to
Bletchley, but I just haven't had time to play around with it much
since.
Far as I'm aware, there are quite a few free apps and utils out there
for the OS. I'll have a look tomorrow when I'm at the museum and see
which version of the OS it is that ours runs. I know the standard web
browser on our one barfs at just about anything and badly needs an
upgrade (although I think you can put Firefox on there)
Overall, nice classic OS (running on nice classic hardware in this case
- even if it doesn't quite fall within the ten year rule :)
cheers
Jules
5:47 a.m.
Jules Richardson wrote:
On Thu, 2005-03-10 at 21:26 -0500, Joe R. wrote:
Amen. Any system with *four* MIDI ports ain't your nephew's PC. ;)
I have several commercial multimedia apps written for BeOS PPC. They
came with the box, and I haven't done much with them past "ooh,
Shiney!", but they seem to be pretty tightly desinged.
As far as I can tell/remember, commercial application support wasn't
wide, but tended to be toward the high-end, especially in multimedia.
Doc
I picked up a Cd and manuals for BeOS today.
Anybody here use it? What
do you think of it?
It's pretty slick for the time, although I suppose all the nicer
features have been copied now within modern OSes. The integration
between desktop and command-line shell is nicely done.
I picked up a dual 133MHz Bebox a while back which I took over to
Bletchley, but I just haven't had time to play around with it much
since.
Far as I'm aware, there are quite a few free apps and utils out there
for the OS. I'll have a look tomorrow when I'm at the museum and see
which version of the OS it is that ours runs. I know the standard web
browser on our one barfs at just about anything and badly needs an
upgrade (although I think you can put Firefox on there)
Overall, nice classic OS (running on nice classic hardware in this case
- even if it doesn't quite fall within the ten year rule :)
8:16 a.m.
On Fri, March 11, 2005 8:47, Doc Shipley said:
Jules Richardson wrote:
Amen. Any system with *four* MIDI ports ain't your nephew's PC. ;)
Don't forget the D/A convertors and the 5v and 12v output from the
GeekPort. That 5V availability means I don't have to find something else
to power PIC projects. While I haven't found a use for the D/A pins, I'm
sure I can come up with something. :)
--
Kurt Huhn "If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball!"
kurt at k-huhn.com -- Patches O'Houlihan
12 Mar
12 Mar
12:56 p.m.
On Fri, Mar 11, 2005 at 12:09:17PM +0000, Jules Richardson wrote:
It's pretty slick for the time, although I suppose
all the nicer
features have been copied now within modern OSes. The integration
between desktop and command-line shell is nicely done.
If they have been copied, people don't seem to be using them. I'm
specifically thinking of the file system data base features, which I
believe ReiserFS is supposed to be capable of.
It could be fun to try to backport such things to vintage unixs.
--
Joshua D. Boyd
jdboyd at jdboyd.net
http://www.jdboyd.net/
http://www.joshuaboyd.org/
11 Mar
11 Mar
11:22 a.m.
I picked up a Cd and manuals for BeOS today. Anybody
here use it? What
do you think of it?
Joe
When you install it, be sure and get the updates for it at BeBits.com.
Likewise, if you have any hardware that's not being recognized, check with
OpenBeOS (http://open-beos.sourceforge.net/news.php) for drivers. Since
they're trying to make their version fully binary compatible with BeOSR5,
their stuff installs in to actual BeOSR5 nicely.
As for what I think of it, on the PC environment I have it on nothing
compares to stability and speed for multimedia. It also loads pretty
quick.
Marty
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doc＠mdrconsult.com -
dtwright＠uiuc.edu -
healyzh＠aracnet.com -
jdboyd＠jdboyd.net -
julesrichardsonuk＠yahoo.co.uk -
kurt＠k-huhn.com -
rigdonj＠cfl.rr.com -
teoz＠neo.rr.com -
wgungfu＠csd.uwm.edu