17 Comments
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Matthew's avatar

Reminds me of Digital... and digital is probably a rebranded version of be... a multitrack I/O for board rooms bought in the late 90s. It outlived the building where it was installed, they don't makem like they used too.

Ron Barr's avatar

Minor quibble - Pink was an entirely different project that later became Taligent, the joint venture between Apple, IBM and HP created to replace both OS/2 and the original Mac OS. The Blue project eventually became Copland. Source: I was a Taligent product manager.

Aaron Toponce's avatar

I've been following the Haiku development since day 1.

I purchased a BeBox from my university when they were selling them at an auction. I purchased the BeBible (which I still have to this day) and really wanted BeOs to succeed. I learned of its sale to Palm, and of its demise from The Screen Savers on TechTV, and was bummed it didn't make it.

It was a late night at home looking for BeOs software that I learned of Haiku and have been following it since. 18 years and still going strong. Too bad it doesn't have better market share to help improve the project, but I'm glad the devs haven't given up on it. I still have it installed in a VM on my laptop and I fire it up every now-and-then.

Thanks for the write-up.

Cezar "ikari" Pokorski's avatar

Ad. the Bebox interior - can someone elaborate a bit on the piece of... wood? Inside the computer?

Bradford Morgan White's avatar

That’s just the surface the computer was sitting on showing through, sorry about that.

Cezar "ikari" Pokorski's avatar

Oh got it! Part of me considered thinking this is some homage to the first Apples, for whatever reason.

I remember the times where BeOS was still a thing, but I feel like I have completely missed out on the hardware. I don't recall ever seeing it in retail. And I would be amazed by it, especially with the Blinkenlights showing the load - people pay a lot for this kind of stuff to this day!

stoltenberg's avatar

Thank You. BeOS was and Haiku is still my favorite operating system, even though i still have to switch to my mac for many daily tasks like browsing, audio editing or ui/ux. It's less the charm of »vintage computing« and more the experience of the uncomplicated and handy tool i've always wanted.

Dan Scott's avatar

I remember when you published this one last fall. Good article. Also, that Be Box looks amazing. That would be an amazing addition to the collection.

Elozor Bruce's avatar

I think some of the article is missing?

The part about choosing the name.

Bradford Morgan White's avatar

It's the second part of the article title. Gassee picked it from the dictionary.

Elozor Bruce's avatar

Shouldn't there be text between

> From an interview for Tech Head Stories, 13th December 1995:

And

> About the BeBox

Bradford Morgan White's avatar

So, the “About the BeBox” and the “About BeOS” are both excerpts from that interview by Jean Louis Gassée.

Elozor Bruce's avatar

Strange, I thought I remembered reading the whole story about why they chose Be in this article.

It might have been somewhere else, I guess.

Bradford Morgan White's avatar

There were formerly a few extra parts, but after heated controversy, some parts were removed.

Elozor Bruce's avatar

Wasn't the story something like,

Gassees partner was looking through the dictionary for a name,

Gassee asks him whether he found one, he says that he is only up to B, Gassee says 'Be is nice, end of story.'

Bradford Morgan White's avatar

That is something like what happened, yes.