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BeOS: The Alternate Universe's Mac OS X

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Re: BeOS: The Alternate Universe's Mac OS X

#361

Post by pjmlp »

peatmoss wrote: post #57
pjmlp wrote: post #20

In this alternative universe, Objective-C would have died, Swift would never happened, and C++ would rule across desktop and mobile OSes (thinking only of Windows, BeOS X, Symbian, Windows CE and what might have been BeOS based iOS). Also POSIX would be even less relevant, and very few would be buying BeOS X for doing Linux coding.

In my alternate universe, GNUStep or some other implementation of the NS APIs would have allowed Linux/BSD to rise in popularity along with a NeXT-ified Apple. Except that didn’t happen. I think in your alternate universe it’s likely we’d have seen something entirely different emerge.

I pretty much doubt that.

GNUStep still looks much like to the on the same state it used to be when I was using WindowMaker in the late 90's.

I regretted the time I once spent on the GNUStep room at FOSDEM, as the only subjects of relevance seemed to be the theme engine, as if there wasn't anything more relevant to get working properly.

Re: BeOS: The Alternate Universe's Mac OS X

#362

Post by pjmlp »

caspper69 wrote: post #353
beefhash wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also POSIX would be even less relevant, and very few would be buying BeOS X for doing Linux coding. I don't think I'd enjoy a GNU userland/glibc/Linux monoculture, quite honestly. I'm glad POSIX exists to have a slightly less moving target.

Well, the last major revision to the Single Unix Specification was released in 2008. Ever since then, Linux has basically become the defacto POSIX standard. So while glibc may not rule the roost, most POSIX OSes bend to the will of the GNU userland and the Linux monoculture in many ways. It's not really like the old days with Sun, IBM, DEC and even Microsoft with Xenix. POSIX is being washed away a little more every…

Proof being that other POSIX and Windows, now go with Linux kernel ABI compatibility instead of POSIX.

And it isn't at all relevant on mobile OSes.

Re: BeOS: The Alternate Universe's Mac OS X

#363

Post by Flow »

jerf wrote: post #299
asveikau wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But a bunch of the methods we have for securing, say, mobile phones, grew out of user accounts. Personally I don't know Android innards deeply, but when I was trying to backup and restore a rooted phone I did notice that every app's files have a different owner uid/gid and the apps typically won't launch without that set up correctly. So it would seem they implemented per-app separation in this instance by having a u…

On a similar note, I've often wondered what Commodore's OS would have turned into. Not out of some misplaced nostalgia, just curiousity about the Could Have Been. My guess is that by now in 2020, it would have at some point had an OSX moment where Commodore would have had to chuck it out, since both Apple and Microsoft have effectively done exactly that since then. Still, I'd love to peek into Amiga OS 9 descended fr…

I think AmigaOS 3 could be a nice kernel as it is. And to make it more Unix-y memory protection could be introduced but only for a new userland process with more traditional syscalls.

It's a bit how DragonflyBSD is slowly converging to.

Re: BeOS: The Alternate Universe's Mac OS X

#364

Post by somesortofsystm »

pjmlp wrote: post #347
fit2rule wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but were they as sexy as the tiBook? Like the OP, for me the tiBook was a defining moment. A unix laptop, and it also looked good? Easy, immediate purchase.

Not as colorful, http://museum.ipsj.or.jp/en/computer/work/0012.html https://books.google.de/books?id=wDlUmfY9nQsC&pg=PT11&lpg=PT... Additionally there were UNIX laptops from NatureTech https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dios0v0n9eY and Tadpole http://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/32324/Tadpole-SPARCbo... https://blog.adafruit.com/2019/04/01/sparcbook-3000st-the-co... So no, "I mean, the fact that Apple shipped a Unix…

At that time, Linux on laptops was an absolutely great choice.

None of your vendors were considered viable - far, far too expensive. However, Linux on x86 laptops at the time was amazing - portable Linux.

So when Apple joined that party, and made the hardware neat, it was an easy switch. Portable, PPC-based, Unix. This was a delightful moment.

Of course, I still have a Linux laptop around, and 20 years later .. I consider moving back to it, 100%. The ride has been good with Apple, but the horizon doesn't look too great ..

Re: BeOS: The Alternate Universe's Mac OS X

#365

Post by paulddraper »

tclancy wrote: post #144
AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Security from what? Do user accounts really provide much benefit in the personal computing space? Where the median user count is 1? Neither OS had the kind of security that is really useful today for this usecase, which is per-application.

Wouldn't the median need to be over 1? I get your point but am feeling pedantic today.

No.

For example, suppose five computers have 1 user, 1 user, 1 user, 3 users, 300 users. The median is 1 user.

The claim of "median 1 user" just means more than half of computers has a single user.

Re: BeOS: The Alternate Universe's Mac OS X

#366

Post by rusk »

mtrower wrote: post #348
rusk wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I grew up with it too ... I disagree with your categorical boundaries. The distinctions you draw are purely technical .

purely technical ? You can't go above or below anything; no two objects can exist at the same X/Y; height doesn't exist in any true fashion (the attribute is used purely for rendering --- there is no axis!). How is the existence of the third axis in a supposedly 3D environment purely technical ? With only two axis, it is literally a 2D space, which gives some illusion of 3D as an implementation detail --- not the oth…

It isn't "literally" a 2D space. It is "topologically" a 2D space in that you could represent it as a 2D space without loosing information. It doesn't provide 6 degrees of freedom but it is very much experienced as a 3D game environment.

EDIT also, using the term "literally" to talk about 3Dness when it is all rendered onto a 2D screen, is fairly precarious. No matter how many degrees of freedom, or how rendered, it will never be "literally" 3D, in the literal sense of the term.

Re: BeOS: The Alternate Universe's Mac OS X

#367

Post by nguoi »

T-hawk wrote: post #215
all2 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's curious to me. Doom is specifically not 3D. Was it a publishing issue (that Doom and co weren't produced for the Amiga), or a power issue, or something else?

Doom's 3Dness or lack thereof only mattered to programmers. Players didn't care, to them Doom looked entirely 3D.

Players didn't have to aim up to shoot something above them

Re: BeOS: The Alternate Universe's Mac OS X

#368

Post by rayiner »

zokula wrote: post #182
rayiner wrote: post #28

Oh man! I first tried BeOS personal edition when it came on a CD with Maximum PC magazine. (Referring to same demo CD, though the poster is not me: https://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=1067159&s... . Also, how crazy is it that Ars Technica’s forums have two decade old posts? In 2000, that would be like seeing forum posts from 1980.) I remember being so happy when we got SDSL, and I could get online from…

BeOS did not use a microkernel, it was a straight-up up boring monolithic kernel.

People at the time described the kernel as a microkernel, including the O’Rielly book: https://www.oreilly.com/openbook/beosprog/book/ch01.pdf. It ran networking for example in user space.

Re: BeOS: The Alternate Universe's Mac OS X

#369

Post by rvz »

jonny_eh wrote: post #166
chipotle_coyote wrote: post #129

I was another former Be "power user." And I think that was probably accurate -- if you weren't in the "BeOS lifestyle" during the admittedly short window that it was possible, it's hard to understand how much promise it looked like it had. When I tell people I ran it full-time for over a year, they wonder how I managed to get anything done, but... - Pe was a great GUI text editor, competitive with BBEdit on the Mac -…

You may have hinted at it, but I think Apple's subsequent turnaround after acquiring Next was mainly due to their founder, Steve Jobs, coming back to Apple.

That's true, but most keep forgetting that even before his comeback, Apple was very close to filing for bankruptcy and who knows what would have happened without the intervention from Gates. Microsoft was the only juggernaut who's fate was never doubted in the 1980s - 1990s.

NeXT hardware also failed but was the rightful choice for Apple over Be due to getting NeXTSTEP and Jobs again. But even after the war is over, we're now all generals.

Re: BeOS: The Alternate Universe's Mac OS X

#370

Post by joshspankit »

navjack27 wrote: post #222
Accujack wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bear in mind that resolutions back then were much lower than now, and not all computers had 24 bit color frame buffers. Video cards ran one monitor for the most part, with no others attached. Be had well written multi threading and preemptive multitasking implemented on a clean slate - no compatibility hacks required. That meant it worked well and was quick/responsive. There were still limits, and the OS didn't have…

I mean maybe. I was running 1600x1200 on my monitor back then.

Also we had actual 32bit colour, not this 24 + 8 alpha. You could actually look at a rainbow gradient without banding.
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