[Scandalous Ion Cannon]

"This was the golden moment for BeOS. Negotiations began in earnest, but Gassée erroneously believed that he held the upper hand, and demanded US$400 million just for the rights to use BeOS. Apple, who had estimated Be, Inc.'s value at US$80 million, offered US$120 million, and later raised their offer to US$200 million. Gassée, however, held out for more. He was quoted as saying "I've got Apple by the balls, and I'm going to squeeze hard until it hurts."

http://arstechnica.com/reviews/os/zeta-1.0.ars

Last I remember Be was sold to Palm for 10 mil or so.

For the record BeOS is still my fav OS. I remember installing it on a SINGLE 180MHz 604 PowerMac and it FELT faster than OSX does today on my Dual G5. I also really liked the interface and even the latest rev of the logo before they disappeared. It also booted in second and you could dual boot a PC without having to reformat the drive.

[budster101]

How attractive. As usual Steve Jobs was right on.

[Scandalous Ion Cannon]

Originally Posted by budster101

How attractive. As usual Steve Jobs was right on.

We don't know that for sure though. I mean if we had the BeOS as the core people would not have bitched about debug code and window resizing.

[Kevin]

It's been posted many times in here before.

http://macspeedzone.com/archive/fram...idential.shtml

[Cubeoid]

Thread title mislead me. I have nothing to say, besides BeOs is cool. If you don't like it, that's great.

[Scandalous Ion Cannon]

It is nice to see that someone is still developing it even though it looks rather dated now. It seems more of a hobby now as no way in hell does it have a chance in the market.

[euphras]

Isn´t there a distro out named "Zeta" that claims to be the successor of the classical BeOS?

[CharlesS]

Originally Posted by budster101

How attractive. As usual Steve Jobs was right on.

Actually it was Gil Amelio, as Jobs didn't return until after the NeXT acquisition (as a consequence of it).

[Scandalous Ion Cannon]

Originally Posted by euphras

Isn´t there a distro out named "Zeta" that claims to be the successor of the classical BeOS?

Read the story I linked to, it has a review or Zeta.

[Millennium]

BeOS was fascinating. I ran PR2 on my old PTPro, and I occasionally wonder how things might have done if Be had been chosen as the foundation for Rhapsody.

My best guess, however, is that we'd never have gotten the chance to find out. When Apple got NeXT they got Jobs, and although many of his decisions have been questionable, it's difficult to deny that the original iMac pulled Apple out of the fire, and the iPod did it again. Without these, it's likely that Apple would have dwindled to obscurity if not outright death well before Rhapsody could be released.

[brapper]

Originally Posted by Millennium

snip

well said.

[wdlove]

We will just have to wait and see what happens.

[Eug Wanker]

Having installed BeOS 5.0 on my PC when it first came out, I never saw what the hype was about.

[Big Mac]

Originally Posted by Scandalous Ion Cannon

For the record BeOS is still my fav OS. I remember installing it on a SINGLE 180MHz 604 PowerMac and it FELT faster than OSX does today on my Dual G5. I also really liked the interface and even the latest rev of the logo before they disappeared. It also booted in second and you could dual boot a PC without having to reformat the drive.

Yeah, but what could you do with the system? BeOS was quite limited. If OS X's core were paired down significantly and a simpler display model were substituted, we can be sure it would perform in a similar fashion on the same hardware. Afterall, Be's programmers weren't manipulating supernatural forces in order to extract performance. Besides, certain OS X operations are very fast - even on slow hardware - but people naturally dwell on the negative aspects. And since Apple finally got window resizing right on faster Macs, I can't point to any system-wide, blatant performance deficiency.

[ReggieX]

BeOS was lots of hype and not a whole lot of substance.

So, Ion Cannon, what exactly did you DO with BeOS that made it your favourite? I remember being able to boot it and play a couple of QuickTime movies at the same time, and very little else. No networking, no printing, nothing.

[Scandalous Ion Cannon]

Originally Posted by ReggieX

BeOS was lots of hype and not a whole lot of substance.

So, Ion Cannon, what exactly did you DO with BeOS that made it your favourite? I remember being able to boot it and play a couple of QuickTime movies at the same time, and very little else. No networking, no printing, nothing.

This was back when I was using OS8 on the mac.

I was impressed how FAST the system was even in comparison to OS8. The OS also looked and worked better than OS8.

I mainly used it for surfing & email (still the most popular thing to do today) because that was a rather unstable experience on OS8.

[osxisfun]

For the record;

No Rhapsody, No Steve. No steve, No Imac, No Imac, No resurgence of apple hw sales, No resurgence of apple hw sales no OSX shipping in volume, no OSX shipping in volume, no Ipod, no iPod,

apple would have been dead any of these things did not happen

and of course be felf faster, it did not have all the bells and whistles of the our current OS. (you know, like quartz, printing, adobe or macromedia giving a rats ass about it...

[Scandalous Ion Cannon]

OSX in no way saved Apple. The iMac brought it into the black and the iPod made them a household name again.

[Eug Wanker]

BeOS was fast because it didn't do anything.

Originally Posted by Scandalous Ion Cannon

OSX in no way saved Apple. The iMac brought it into the black and the iPod made them a household name again.

OS X saved Apple. The iMac saved Apple first, but without OS X Apple would have been in deep doodoo again. BeOS would have been better than OS 9, but that's not saying much.

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by Scandalous Ion Cannon

OSX in no way saved Apple. The iMac brought it into the black and the iPod made them a household name again.

I disagree. If Apple was still on OS 9.9.9, it would be dead. A fan platform, but irrelevant.

Don't underestimate all the good PR that Apple get's from the Unix and developer community. Apple's OS without apps is nothing. Do you really believe we would have all the apps we have today it Apple still fidled with OS 9 ?

-t

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by Eug Wanker

BeOS was fast because it didn't do anything.

Didn't do anything? It provided an operating system for your computer. OS X doesn't "do" a whole lot, either!

[Scandalous Ion Cannon]

Originally Posted by Eug Wanker

BeOS was fast because it didn't do anything.
OS X saved Apple. The iMac saved Apple first, but without OS X Apple would have been in deep doodoo again. BeOS would have been better than OS 9, but that's not saying much.

Yes OSX is 100% important but it isn't want brought apple back. I mean so so so many pro shops still use OS9. OSX was the cherry on top and helps legitimize Apple.

People ran out to buy the iMac and iPods, not OSX. OSX is just something that is expected from Apple.

Sorta like most people will buy a new car based on features and looks but not because the engine works the way it should.

[Eug Wanker]

Originally Posted by Chuckit

Didn't do anything? It provided an operating system for your computer. OS X doesn't "do" a whole lot, either!

Sure it does. NeXT OS back then was more mature than BeOS was by a long shot IMO. And it had all of unix to draw upon. Software porting from the various *nixes helped OS X immensely. Porting to BeOS would have been that much harder.

I believe NeXT OS was definitely worth $400 million (especially since it included Jobs). BeOS was not worth half that IMO. Be should have jumped at the $200 million offer they got, but didn't.

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by Scandalous Ion Cannon

Yes OSX is 100% important but it isn't want brought apple back. I mean so so so many pro shops still use OS9.

That's hardly an argument.
I know companies that still run Win 98. Or operate their operation by SAP R/2.

-t

[Kevin]

Originally Posted by osxisfun

No Rhapsody, No Steve. No steve, No Imac, No Imac, No resurgence of apple hw sales, No resurgence of apple hw sales no OSX shipping in volume, no OSX shipping in volume, no Ipod, no iPod,

I heard the iMac was in planning before Steve took over.

[Powerbook]

Originally Posted by Kevin

I heard the iMac was in planning before Steve took over.

Exactly! That's how it goes in hardware development anyway. The first "pure" Steve Jobs computer was the Power Mac Cube. We know what happened to it...

PB.

[davesimondotcom]

I still have a BeBox Dual 603/66. Haven't booted it in years. The BeOS was a good toy, but without the (promised at the time) Photoshop and a few other things, it was niche. Gobe Productive was cool. NetSurfer was a very fast browser, but couldn't do much.

The really cool part for me was the file system. Saving live queries like "Unread Mail" as an icon on my desktop was hot.

As far as NeXT vs. Be, Apple made the right choice. I haven't ever heard that the iMac was in planning before Steve, but I really think that Steve changed the company from a defeated group of "hey, we did that first" kind of people into a triumphant "hey, look what we're doing now" group.

I remember a Wired interview with Steve in 1996 or so in which he proclaimed that he had an idea that would "save Apple." No specifics. But I have a sneaking suspicion his idea was to sell NeXT to Apple, or somehow get back in charge, and bring the world iMac.

[osxisfun]

Originally Posted by Kevin

I heard the iMac was in planning before Steve took over.

Are you sure? I heard otherwise. And if they did it would have looked like the Centris 6110avblahblah


Oh and on the OSX not being important? excuse me? do you think we would still have seen apple's successfull return if we were running os9?

They are all pieces in a puzzle that only steve could put together.

[osxisfun]

> believe NeXT OS was definitely worth $400 million (especially since it included Jobs). BeOS was not worth half that IMO. Be should have jumped at the $200 million offer they got, but didn't.

Bingo. and the rest they say is history...

[Mastrap]

Originally Posted by Kevin

I heard the iMac was in planning before Steve took over.

Interesting. Where did you hear that?
We tend to forget just how revolutionary the first iMac was.

[Eug Wanker]

The iMac was released when Jobs was in power. Even if the iMac design process was started before he got there, you can be sure Jobs had a lot of say in what the final product looked like.

Even just that the iMac was legacy free suggests to me the Jobs effect on it was very significant.

[Kevin]

Well the clamshell see through newton thing was out before Steve.

They had used colored translucent plastics on the top of the G3 towers before Steve.

I am sure the iMac was a design made, that Steve loved.

[zizban]

Apple really paid for Steve, though the NeXT Stuff was awesome as well. You can't put a dollar value on the PR of having one of your founders back, even as an advisor, especially if that founder is the amazing and baffling Steve Jobs.

[typoon]

From what I understand I think I read it somewhere that Gil Amelio stated that they had the iMac in the pipeline before Jobs came back.

[mdc]

to add my 2c about BeOS.

back before i switched to mac OS i always tried other operating systems, to see if i could find one that could do all the tasks i did on windows, while enjoying the os.
i have never been a fan of linux, i've tried to use it so many times, but i have never actually sat down and learnt it, and thus when it breaks, i'm screwed.
BeOS was the only other os that i used for a long time, and did not boot to windows for. There was something about the OS that i really liked and all the html coding i was doing at the time was no challenge for BeOS (obviously).

unfortunately when it came to other tasks the software wasn't there for BeOS. Flash in particular, so dual booting to windows started, and then BeOS got resigned to "a toy to pay with, when i wasn't busy."

MacOS is the first OS that i have been able to use that has never required me to have windows available. :thumsup:

[Millennium]

Originally Posted by Scandalous Ion Cannon

Yes OSX is 100% important but it isn't want brought apple back. I mean so so so many pro shops still use OS9. OSX was the cherry on top and helps legitimize Apple.

Many "pro shops" (i.e. those not employing Thalo.net subscribers) have switched. The reason OSX isn't what brought Apple back is that Apple was that the iMac and its ilk had already done it several years before. OSX might have brought Apple back if it had come out a few years earlier, but it didn't, and Apple needed saving sooner than that.

[goMac]

Originally Posted by Kevin

I heard the iMac was in planning before Steve took over.

No, it wasn't. What Apple was planning was a completely diskless network client Macintosh. And by diskless I mean no optical and no hard drive.

[Kevin]

Originally Posted by goMac

No, it wasn't. What Apple was planning was a completely diskless network client Macintosh. And by diskless I mean no optical and no hard drive.

I've read all kinds of things. Nothing has been substantiated.

But here is a interesting read

In his first month as "interim CEO," Steve began walking around the office carrying a sleekly curved piece of white foam. It was the model for the size and shape of a computer, which would eventually become known as the "iMac," for "internet Macintosh." It was the creation of Jonathan Ive, who was 30 and looked more like a scruffy bicycle messenger or skateboarder than the chief designer at a major manufacturer of consumer products.

While the physical look of the iMac had been conceived before Steve took over, everything else about the computer was still uncertain. Steve's thinking was strongly influenced by his friendship with Larry Ellison as well as their unspoken rivalry. He believed the future belonged to stripped-down machines, called "network computers," or NCs, that would connect to the Internet and cost only half as much as PCs. Larry had even started his own company, Network Computer Inc., to try to cash in on the idea.

Steve decided that the iMac would be a network computer. "We're going to beat Ellison at his own game," he told his Apple colleagues, who were surprised to see Steve secretly delighting in the competition with his best friend.

http://www.assureconsulting.com/books/stevejobs.shtml

[davesimondotcom]

Originally Posted by Scandalous Ion Cannon

Yes OSX is 100% important but it isn't want brought apple back. I mean so so so many pro shops still use OS9.

I'd have believed this three years ago, but not anymore. With all the new Mac shipping with OS X, Photoshop, etc. in their 3rd revisions, any shop worth it's salt is on OS X by now.

[Mastrap]

I've recently been working in a shop that was still using Quark 4 and OS 9. I am leaving tomorrow and Indesign is now installed on every single workstation.

[ASIMO]

Originally Posted by Eug Wanker

Having installed BeOS 5.0 on my PC when it first came out, I never saw what the hype was about.

You could have a floating cube with a different video running on each façade, man. Think about it.

[Kevin]

The BeBoxes were nice. It had audio and midi interfaces built right in.

[budster101]

Your work is done there. Go InPeace...

[Gamoe]

Originally Posted by turtle777

I disagree. If Apple was still on OS 9.9.9, it would be dead. A fan platform, but irrelevant.

We cannot know how things would have turned out if we had had the BeOS as the core of the next gen. Mac OS instead of NeXTStep. But the BeOS had a plethora of more advanced features than Classic Mac OS. They weren't on the same level. It would definitely not have been Mac OS 9.9.9. Though I agree that the UNIX roots of Mac OS X have helped out the platform as well.

Can't say about the iMac, except that I've heard the same. But, (as mentioned prior) do consider that Apple's first curvy, translucent plastic computer came before Jobs, the eMate 300. That was such an excellent computer for its intended use. Of course Jobs killed the Newton platform, promising a device to fill the void of the eMate, and never delivering. And yes, my 8600 (not even a G3 model) has a green-ish, translucent-ish release button atop, which looks rather odd, considering the rest of the computer is classic Apple "beige".

[davesimondotcom]

Originally Posted by Mastrap

I've recently been working in a shop that was still using Quark 4 and OS 9. I am leaving tomorrow and Indesign is now installed on every single workstation.

Really funny story.

About a year ago, I got the ad specs from a magazine that said something like:

Files should be Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, PageMaker, QuarkXPress or Macromedia Freehand. NOTE: We do not accept Adobe EndDesign files.

I wasn't sure if it was on purpose or not. If it was on purpose though, they would have called PageMaker by its proper name: RageMaker.

[Superchicken]

OS X wouldn't have saved Apple. If Apple's instal base had continued to shrink and if the iMac hadn't visibly brought Apple back into the lime light, we'd be even more screwed. The iMac, iBook, and other cool looking machines brought Apple to people's eyes, using OS X was what kept them.
Really... we should be thanking Ives...

[Kevin]

Originally Posted by davesimondotcom

Really funny story.

About a year ago, I got the ad specs from a magazine that said something like:

Files should be Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, PageMaker, QuarkXPress or Macromedia Freehand. NOTE: We do not accept Adobe EndDesign files.

I wasn't sure if it was on purpose or not. If it was on purpose though, they would have called PageMaker by its proper name: RageMaker.

Not sure, all I know is the CS2 version of InDesign rocks.

[Eug Wanker]

Originally Posted by ASIMO

You could have a floating cube with a different video running on each façade, man. Think about it.

Yeah, but you couldn't do much else.

[ASIMO]

Originally Posted by Eug Wanker

Yeah, but you couldn't do much else.

What are you talking about? You could spin it, rotate it, turn it, move it, and then when you got bored with that, you could spin it, rotate it, turn it, and move it in the OPPOSITE direction. It provided me with literally seconds of entertainment.

[Sarc]

I wonder, I have some old hardware (450MHz PII 64MB) at the office. Since it's portrayed as such a lightweight system, I wonder if I could make a decent FTP server for periodic backups using Zeta.
The benefit ? staying away from Windows' security flaws and Linux's complicated personality.