website/content/museum/bebox.md

title, categories, types, origins, years, cpus, params

title	categories	types	origins	years	cpus	params
BeBox	Computers	Professional Computer	U.S.A.	1995	Two RISC-based PowerPC 603	name image company company_name specs tabs forum_thread photos emulators links oc_id source BeBox /media/museum/photos/be_bebox_syqtem_s1.jpg /companies/be Be label value NAME BeBox label value MANUFACTURER Be label value TYPE Professional Computer label value ORIGIN U.S.A. label value YEAR October 1995 label value END OF PRODUCTION 1997 label value KEYBOARD Standard PC-AT label value CPU Two RISC-based PowerPC 603 or 603e label value SPEED 66 or 133 MHz label value RAM Up to 256 MB (up to 8 72-pin SIMM modules) label value ROM Unknown label value TEXT MODES 80 columns x 25 lines label value GRAPHIC MODES 640x480 to 1600x1200 label value COLORS 256 to 16.7 million label value SOUND 16-bit stereo sound system - Dual MIDI channels label value SIZE / WEIGHT 21 (W) x 39.8 (H) x 46.1 (D) cm label value I/O PORTS 4xserial, Parallel, 3xInfrared, SCSI II, 2xjoystick, 2xMidi, GeekPort label value BUILT IN MEDIA 3.5'' 1.44 MB FDD, SCSI & IDE HDD label value OS BeOs label value POWER SUPPLY Built-in 240W PSU label value PERIPHERALS 3 x PCI and 5 x ISA card slots label value PRICE Unknown photos emulators links 1112 title subtitle text image COMPLETE SYSTEM Picture taken from a Be brochure. Notice the two LED Bar-graphs that showed the processor work loads. /media/museum/photos/be_bebox_system_s2.jpg title subtitle text image MOTHERBOARD DIAGRAM /media/museum/photos/be_bebox_motherboard_s1.jpg title subtitle text image BEOS GUI INTERFACE /media/museum/photos/be_bebox_beos_s1.jpg title url platform text MESS http://www.mess.org Multiplatform The newest MESS version can emulate the BeBox title url text Beatjapan.org http://www.beatjapan.org/mirror/www.be.com/products/bebox/dual603spec.html Mirror of be.com, the official Be web site, now closed title url text BeBox Zone http://www.bebox.nu/ The BeBox Zone offers a wealth of information about the BeBox 1142 url date https://web.archive.org/web/20230604181440/http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=1142 2023-06-04

In October 1995, Be, Inc. unveiled its first (and last) computer, the BeBox.

Be was founded in 1990 by Jean-Louis Gassé, former manager of the French Apple subsidiary.
For almost 5 years, 12 engineers from Apple, NeXT and Sun designed the BeBox and its operating system, BeOs. The total design cost was about US$9 million.

BeBox hadware was based on a dual PowerPC 603 C.P.U. running at 66 MHz (later 133 MHz). The motherboard was not really innovative but featured a large range of Input/Output ports, including IDE and SCSI HDD interfaces, standard PC card slots, MIDI, audio, infrared ports plus a special GeekPort for hardware experiments.

The Be Operating System was also developed from the ground up. It aimed to be an alternative to the "Heavy weight" Windows and Mac OS's, which were handicaped by backward compatibility hardware and software issues.
BeOs was a clear and clean multi-processor (up to 8), multi-threading, multi-tasking, GUI-based operating system, optimized for digital media management.
The first BeBox machines were mainly intended for use by software developers, BeOs was delivered with Metrowerks CodeWarrior and C++ languages.

In spite of its numerous advanced features, the BeBox never met the success expected by its designers, mainly because it was compatible with nothing else in the computing industry. Less than 2000 machines were delivered between October 1995 and January 1997, when production ceased.

In 1996, BeOs was ported to Apple PowerPC machines but Apple eventually preferred the NeXT basis for its future Mac OS X. Two years later, BeOs ran on Intel machines.

Because of the small size of the company and the competition from much larger competitors, the Be adventure finally ended on Novembre 2001 when the company sold all of its intellectual property and technology assets to Palm. Just before this happened, J.L. Gassé offered for free the lastest version of his OS (R5) to Intel PC users.
Nowadays, Although marginal, BeOs is still alive, and new releases and updates are regularly announced by the BeOs community.

We need more info about this computer ! If you designed, used, or have more info about this system, please send us pictures or anything you might find useful.