Technical Reference:
BeOS Programming
Learn to program for the BeOS.

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More to come.

The Meaning of Life, Or Just This Site. ;^)

What is this site here for? Why do I run a BeOS web server? Why do I use BeOS for that matter? I guess I'll try to explain what this is all about.

It all started late in the spring of 1999. I had been running my own computer retail business for over two years and Windows 98 was my primary OS. Needless to say Windows was problematic at best. I found I was re-installing Windows every few months on average. With all the updates, drivers, and software I was using it could blow an entire day quite easily. Owning and operating a business takes a lot of time so wasting it reloading Windows seemed crazy. There had to something better. I had tried Linux a couple times but honestly it was worse than Windows and could be quite confusing if you didn't want to spend alot of time learning it.

I had remembered hearing about an operating system called BeOS from some Mac users I had converted to PC's so I fired up my handy dandy search engine and searched for BeOS. I found a link to BeDepot where I quickly ordered BeOS R4.5.

In June of 1999 the way I looked at computers changed forever when I recieved my copy of BeOS and installed it. It came with a limited edition of Partition Magic so I shrunk my Windows partition and made a partition to install BeOS on. In minutes I was running BeOS. Fastest OS install I had ever seen and by far the easiest. The only bad thing at the time was that my Sound Blaster Live card wasn't supported. No sound didn't stop me from using BeOS and I quickly found it to be an amazing operating system. A few months later the 4.5.2 update added support for my Sound Blaster Live card and I started encoding MP3's in BeOS. I found BeOS to be faster and more stable than Windows and I was able to live without a lot of my Windows applications. I continued to use Windows but more and more I found ways to use BeOS for most of what I needed. Installing and using less applications in Windows prolonged the life of my Windows installs and made life a little easier. BeOS was on my computer to stay.

Well new versions of BeOS have come and gone along with the beloved company that made BeOS. Now along with many other BeOS users I hold out hope that OpenBeOS will be completed in a timely manner so I can continue to use the OS I have grown to enjoy so much. The future of BeOS looks pretty good.

I have grown tired of games so I have been spending much more time in BeOS lately. I have been spending the extra time learning new things like C++ and HTML. I decided I wanted a web site to store and share the information I gathered and learned so I setup Apache on one of my BeOS computers and started making this site. I hope it helps other people to get more use and enjoyment out of BeOS. John Slevin aka Zaranthos email: Zaranthos at bemail.org

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