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BeBox: The 90s PC That Foresaw Modern Tech
11 Feb
Summary
- The BeBox featured dual 67 MHz PowerPC processors, a precursor to multi-core.
- Its custom BeOS was built for multitasking before Windows.
- Microsoft's actions led to Be Inc.'s demise, but Haiku OS lives on.
In the mid-1990s, Be Inc. introduced the BeBox, a pioneering computer featuring dual 67 MHz PowerPC processors. This hardware, coupled with its custom BeOS, was designed from the ground up to handle multiple processors and threads simultaneously, a capability that consumer versions of Windows did not offer until Windows 2000.
The BeBox's innovative dual-CPU architecture and multitasking operating system foreshadowed modern multi-core processors and multi-threaded software. Despite its advanced concepts, the BeBox commercially failed, partly due to Microsoft's restrictive practices against PC manufacturers.
Be Inc. later transitioned to software, releasing BeOS for Macintosh and then x86 compatible hardware. However, Microsoft's actions led to a lawsuit and a $20 million settlement. Though BeOS was eventually sold to Palm and faded, its spirit continues in the open-source Haiku OS.
