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BeBits.com
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The Be operating system (BeOS) which flourished ever-so-briefly around the turn of the millenium is almost, but not quite, dead. If you think Mac users are fanatics, you should rub shoulders with these BeOS true-believers sometime. Computer Buzz is currently experimenting with a couple of Be-powered machines in our computer lab in Dallas and a couple more in our satellite office, and we have come to believe that the Be-heads are not as far off base as you might think.
In addition to being way out in front in the '90s on such OS features as multi-tasking, protected memory, and multi-threading, BeOS also offered things that even Apple hadn't yet thought of, like multiple virtual desktops and sophisticated support for at least eight or sixteen CPU chips (nowadays called "cores") all in one box. Unlike other alternative OSs such as Linux and UNIX, BeOS doesn't remind us nearly as much of Windows as it does of Mac OS 9. It was heady stuff, that BeOS.
Be, Inc is now long-defunct, and BeOS is just a warm fuzzy memory that is somehow maintained on life support on one of our favorite web sites: BeBits. Compared to most of the other web sites that Computer Buzz monitors, BeBits is pretty much a bare bones operation that eschews most of the bells and whistles that we have come to take for granted.
You can't really download a copy of BeOS at BeBits (or anywhere) because its present-day copyright owners have never released it under a GPL license, and it is not remotely old enough to pass into the public domain. But you can download just about every other piece of Be-related freeware and shareware (i.e., application packages, games, utilities, patches and upgrades for same, etc.) from BeBits, and the site offers Be-heads one of the desperately few dedicated BeOS message boards still left on planet Earth. Quality apps such as Firefox, Opera, Thunderbird, SeaMonkey, and Abiword have been ported to BeOS, so it is not by any means a useless platform.
Installation copies of BeOS can still be occasionally found on eBay for about twenty bucks. Check out the official web site and see if you might be interested. We are.
Official Website: www.BeBits.com
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