From Kreig.Zimmerman Sent Fri, May 29th 1998, 14:11
From Kreig.Zimmerman Sent Fri, May 29th 1998, 14:11
Well, strictly speaking, it's not a "MacOS"... Be was a company founded by Jean-Louis Gassee, formerly of Apple Computer, about four years ago. The BeOS is their attempt to build a next-generation "multimedia" operating system, specifically tuned for video/graphics/audio work. In 1995 Gassee offered Be for free to Apple, saying that their Copland/MacOS 8 project might fail and thus they might want a back-up. Apple refused, but Copland was eventually cancelled in late 1996. BeOS was intended to run on the "CHRP" (Common Hardware Reference Platform) platform which initially was to include, running on the PowerPC chip: Solaris, Copland/MacOS 8, OS/2, Windows NT, AIX, BeOS. Most companies who signed on were just hedging their bets against Intel losing a lead in the microprocessor race... at the time some people were predicting the Pentium/x86 couldn't get past 90 MHz!! Proven wrong, the whole concept fell apart, leaving Apple and Be as the only CHRP supporters... Late 1996. There are several Apple cloners, BeOS is able to run on most of these machines in spite of the lack of true CHRP availability. December 1996: Apple buys NeXT computer thanks to the fancy footwork of Steve Jobs, over Be, who was rumored to be Apple's real target for months. OpenSTEP, NeXT's OS, will soon become MacOS X in late 1999. Meanwhile, Apple kills cloning and returns to a closed platform because, hey, no other OS vendors will support CHRP: IBM basically kills OS/2 just as it's finished in a war between its Intel-powered personal computer unit and its PowerPC-backing server unit (you can still order it, apparently), Microsoft won't port NT 5.0 because IBM and Motorola refuse to foot the bill (although NT 4.0 is available), Solaris never materializes, AIX runs on its own proprietary subset of PowerPC machines. So Be recently ported its OS to Intel-platform computers. Go to www.be.com... you can buy the DR or even download it. And like I said, yes, Virginia, it now runs on Intel machines... ______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________ Subject: Re: (idm) MP3 from a turntable... Author: xxx@xxxxxxxxx.xxx at SMTP Date: 5/28/98 4:45 PM > first off, what the hell is a BeOS computer? :D I've never heard of it, and > I'm a CS major.. but I'm just curious about that.. BeOS is a mac OS. it looks pretty bitchin, as far as multimedia mac OSes go. .Bil. IAMaCOPIER