Running on an X86 or PPC architecture, Be (BeOS) was developed by a group led by an Apple exec and programmers that were laid off after the Newton handheld ceased to be. With PPC architecture and a vision for a multimedia OS that incorporates SMP (mother boards with more than one CPU for heavy loads) from the get go, Be came into existence at the same time as windows 95, in the form of the legendary "be-Boxen". Somewhere along the line, Amiga smarts were in the pipeline too, probably helping with the multimedia capabilities. Be went under a few months ago, and since I had bought a $65 shrink wrap box and book set over a year ago and had a short while to try it out, I did, though I was not intending to keep using it unless there were spectacular results.

Using a Cyrix MII-300 and 64 Megs RAM, about the minimum system requirements, I installed it from CDROM. Be has its own partitioning and boot loader software included, and its own file system, BeFS, which is mostly a journaling file system, which permits queries of many file attributes, and most importantly, allows enormous multimedia files not found elsewhere, like one file for 30000 years of video, if you can find enough RAM to play it!

Because it is a small player, Be had not yet gotten drivers for my all-in-one tv/ video grabber card, or my particular IDE CDRW drive. It thought my SB 16 Pro soundcard was an AWE 64, but worked fine. I was disappointed these were not recognized, because Be is bundled with cd-burner and video-editing and tv software, as well as the Poorman web server, mp3 and mpeg players, and audio recorder, webcam software, a web browser that doesn't yet have java, and a package manager called Software Valet. Be Pro also comes with BeIDE, a programming tool. Another neat feature was the DiskProbe, which can be used to peek and poke data in any files or on whole drives, even on other partitions, like say your dual-boot MS Windows in its native format, something handy for true geeks trying to debug.

Be is not a multi-user system, but it is networkable to an extent, if you buy the clients and servers from a third party. Be comes with NetPositive, the simple web browser, BeMail for e-mail, and ftp and telnet and the Poorman web server, and trial versions of WebPostMaster and GimICQ (teleconferencing). Be knew my network card, and through a DSL router I was able to download a bunch of trial versions and demos and freeware from bebits.com, beware.com and bezip.com to try out its multimedia capabilities. Only the best ones will be mentioned. But first, let me say that overall performance was good, the OS unrecoverably locked up only once, and that I wish my video capture and TV card worked so I could evaluate and maybe use the video apps. Most that I tried out would not start without a recognizable video capture card. That being the case, once again I explored MIDI and virtual softsynth programs, using my Casio MIDI keyboard. Of about 25 apps, here are the best. Many need to be compiled for PPC or X86, so even though the aim of Be was to be identical for either hardware platform, there are small differences in each version after compiling.

3DMix comes bundled. It is a GUI-based mod tracker program, and the fact that it is bundled merits special recognition.

dBeSquencer is a nice sequencer that can chain with other MIDI synth apps or synths or MIDI keyboards.

Dynamic Composer 0.2 is a nice program that combines both mod tracker features like samples played in layers and sequences with filters and so on, and also hybridizes with MIDI devices for both input and output. It is a fine program at only version 0.2. Possibly a Windows version.

RACK OM 747 is an excellent rhythm machine, using samples and MIDI too, and makes cool sounds with its filters and basic synthesizer. It is your one stop shopping at the MIDI supermarket, and reminds me a lot of music by Blondie. Can bog down the system and would benefit from SMP.

Originally an Amiga application, XRS 1.11 is a nice drum machine and MIDI authoring software, though primitive.

Objekt Synth is a nice virtual synth, modular though without the make-pretend patch cables, but makes great sounds. It can really overload the computer with some very complex calculating. Windows version too.

Soundplay is a nice wav and mp3 player that extends the functionality of the basic media player, including filtering effects and playing backwards and more.

SynC Modular, which I reviewed for Windows a while back, is a modular virtual analog synth with rack modules and virtual patch cables. Great sounding, I drove it with either the MIDI keyboard or the dBeSequencer. Add program communications with an external Nord modular synth, and you get the old Windows version.

Graphics applications were not particularly special, but these 3 stand out. Note that Be did not even recognize my Canon BJC-2000 inkjet. Only HP inkjet lines have drivers.

Moho, also available on Mac, and similar to Corel Move, makes cartoon animations, not 3D, but very nice. This app never crashed, doing its heavy paces without complaining.

OrnamentTool, also available for Windows and Mac, makes tesslations, but only with rectangular symmetry patterns. Some are very beautiful.

Xaos, a fractal generator and flythrough program, with presentation capabilities, is not a particularly versatile fractal generator program, but its flythrough zooming modes are impressive on a fast computer, and there is a nice interactive tutorial on fractals.

Overall, I would keep BeOS 5.0 Pro, if the company were still in business and more hardware device drivers for my hardware were forthcoming. I somehow feel that many of these good multimedia applications with nowhere else to go will soon be ported to Linux.