Will Windows/Linux/OSX ever catch up to BEOS?

G

gibber

Gawd
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I'm refering specifically to this:

"Play a few QuickTime movies, a few simultaneous MP3s, an audio CD, and initiate a large file transfer. Then try accessing a pull-down menu and notice that the system doesn't feel like it's bogging down. Despite all the processing going on, your menu request still gets immediate attention. Pervasive multithreading is the key to Be's hallmark performance under heavy multitasking loads. Other operating systems do multithreading, but no one does it this pervasively, and no graphical operating system is as responsive as BeOS. New users notice the difference in the first five minutes."

From here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:BeOS#BeOS_Interface_was_notable.21_Gui_comparisons.

It's so aggrivating when your system (which is what, 1,000 times faster than the computers that were first running BeOS?) "freeze" / pause, momentarily become unresponsive...

Why can't Microsoft make an OS in which the GUI always remains responsive? If something is "busy" or wating for an interupt or what not, I want the OS to still not slow down the GUI AT ALL, also, have it TELL us exactly what we're waiting for if we're waiting for something, don't just mysteroiusly freeze up or just say the vaguely annoying "not responding"?!? :rolleyes:
 
It's nice to start from scratch and be missing thousands of features ;)
 
why can't other OS do what windows does on a daily basis? I mean being able to do pretty much anything and not have to worry about compatibility with a crapload of older stuff is pretty dang nice.....
 
I'm on a Core 2 Duo laptop (1.66 GHz) and a 5400 rpm hard drive using Intel onboard graphics (GMA950) and I can watch several Xvid videos (BeOS was compatible with a very old very crappy bitrate version of QuickTime almost a decade ago) at the same time, listen to an MP3/Ogg/FLAC/etc or several using foobar2000, an audio CD (which is nothing at all but digital data passthrough - there's no decoding going on so it takes effectively zero CPU to do that, not a good analogy), and do not only Usenet leeching, torrents, moving files to my Wife's machine where the larger storage drives are located over our network and most anything else I want and this ThinkPad won't skip a beat. And yes, I'm running Windows 7, arguably the finest version of Windows ever made.

What's your point? ;)

Besides, who the hell would actually attempt to watch several videos and listen to several audio files and an audio CD at the same fucking time?

Data?

Really?
 
I can't say I've ever had my system's GUI become unresponsive from running too many processes (with the exception of programs crashing). I guess I'm just not watching enough movies and listening to enough songs at the same time though.
 
Will Windows/Linux/OSX ever catch up to BEOS?
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I'm sorry, by this do you mean fail miserably within 6 months of its market release?

Or do you mean wait 15 years past its market release, and be reborn as some geeks weekend wet dream?

BeOS (I have a commercial release in a folder still, I DID buy it) was a pile of shit OS son. It wasn't that way because the OS, it was that way because nobody needed it. It could do all the wonderful things it did, because...plain and simple thats ALL it did.

It was akin to watching a hot naked chick dance behind a screen, and then watching as she spins around and man junk tumbles out. It was a farce.

I was an OS/2 user before BeOS. If you could remake OS/2 into a valid OS, I'd be more inclined to validate its existence over the remade BeOS
 
BeOS: The operating system of choice for the mythical creature Scylla.
 
A long time ago? Windows has let me watch movies, check email, do file transfers, rip CD's all at once and still have enough to run F@H and be responsive.

You're doing something wrong. :)
 
stiltner said:
It was akin to watching a hot naked chick dance behind a screen, and then watching as she spins around and man junk tumbles out. It was a farce.
Click to expand...

This quote makes my day. And I thankfully do not know BeOS OR seeing the above happen. Unless you're talking about Naked Gun 33 1/3.
 
To this day every Windows system I've ever seen has these little small annoying pauses where either the OS, or the program you are using is non-responsive.

My current system is a 2500K, SSD disk, 8 GB of Corsair "Dominator" DDR3 RAM running a fresh install of Windows 7 w/all the updates + Microsoft Security Essentials.

I LIKE Windows 7 for sure, it's my first choice of OS to use on a daily basis, but, it drives me nuts that PCs STILL have those little non-responsive pauses even though they are literally a THOUSAND times faster than my first computer which ran a nice GUI...

You can insult BeOS all you want but in terms of remaining responsive to the user under load it simply kicked Windows ass like a Thai kick boxer vs. a special olympic speed walker.
 
gibber said:
You can insult BeOS all you want but in terms of remaining responsive to the user under load it simply kicked Windows ass like a Thai kick boxer vs. a special olympic speed walker.
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Nobody disagreed. The issue was it's not good at much else.
 
This link should be relevant to the OP.
http://haiku-os.org/

I've never used BeOS or Haiku (it won't install on my system), so I can't comment on how similar they are or even how good/bad Haiku is.
 
I think everyone has missed the OP's point.

BeOS users are typically multitasking to an extreme. They use the Left eye to watch 1 movie, the right eye to watch a second, and each ear to listen to different audio books. The whole time they lip read the movies and take notes about all four on separate (and different) word processors.

This is why BeOS is superior to ALL other OS's, its the user not the GUI
 
enuro12 said:
BeOS users are typically multitasking to an extreme.
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I'm sure they do, here in 2011.

The OP's link is to a Wikipedia talk page, where people can say whatever they want. In 1999, when BeOS was around, I'm sure there were plenty of people doing heavy multitasking without these issues. It wasn't like this was new.. I could format a floppy disk in OS/2 in 1993 while still using the system (Windows didn't like this at all back then).

Of course, BeOS could be as fancy as it wanted to in 1999. It wasn't enough to save it.
 
^ NT could always format a floppy in the background but everything up to and including ME on the consumer side had issues.
 
Considering that your statement was pretty generic I had to point out the fact that yes, even the most crude version of NT could format a floppy and it was all the way back in 1993....... and have the system be responsive....funny thing is that if you look at how NT started (with video in the user level vs the Kernel level) we are right back where we started as Vista and newer OS placed the video back into the user ring again......

The reason that Windows 3.1 through ME could not be respnsive during a format of a floppy was the lack of multi threading IO (NT has always been able to write to multiple IO devices at the same time)
 
For almost all of us, why are we even having this discussion? The OS is a tool that loads the games and applications we use, that's all! :rolleyes:

IF you are a computer science student, then perhaps this discussion has some meaning. Will all the CS students please raise their hand.:p
 
I have to admit, back in the day BEOS was pretty swanky.

However Win7 at this point can do functionally do 95% of BEOS's "nerds wants list".
 
I'd flip it around and say "Will Windows/Linux/OSX/BeOS/UNIX ever catch up to AmigaOS?" since way back in early 1985 when I had an Amiga 500 with a massive 2MB of RAM (Oooo...) I was able to do the following:

- format two (not one, but two) floppies at the same time, one internal, one external, without any noticeable effect on the operation of the computer
- run multiple apps at the same time without any noticeable slowdown
- display relatively high color images that simply looked astonishing (even 4096 colors in those days offered some insanely gorgeous image quality and sharpness)
- enjoy true hardware-based multitasking which modern computers 25+ years later still don't do

and the best part of all:

- run the primary OS from a RAMdisk that was capable of surviving a warm boot AND was even bootable - the primary OS started from the RAMdisk on a warm reboot

All that, in 2MB of RAM. Today's high powered monster PCs, even quad and hex and soon octa-core beasts with gigs upon gigs of RAM and ultra-fast storage STILL can't do that sort of stuff, and they still don't actually do hardware-based multitasking - it's all preemptive in the OS itself.

And here we are thinking we're so "technologically advanced" 25+ years later and our machines still can't run an OS from RAM (host OS, so don't bring virtualization into this) or boot from a RAMdisk. Pfffhhhttttt... :D
 
My back in the day OS was OS/9, pretty slick for it's time, preemptive multi-tasking for example. But yeah, Windows 7 is simply amazing, SO much functionality, stability, compatibility and support. Everything else is just a light.
 
Jay_oasis said:
Lots of rose tinted specs in this thread.
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With the rise of smart phones and tablets and cheap laptops, I think it takes some 'rose tinted' hardware to appreciate Windows these days. The average person has no idea just how powerful and capable Windows is on the right hardware.
 
Joe Average said:
I'd flip it around and say "Will Windows/Linux/OSX/BeOS/UNIX ever catch up to AmigaOS?" since way back in early 1985 when I had an Amiga 500 with a massive 2MB of RAM (Oooo...) I was able to do the following:
Click to expand...

AmigaOS was always called "Ahead of it's time" for a reason. I really wish Commodore/Amiga would have done better and been an alternative OS right now. I'd be using it.
 
Compatibility is a big reason, but another is hardware acceleration, which I'm reasonably sure they used at that time as it was starting to become vogue in OS's circa 2000.

To better explain it, this is basically what a general OS today does when you click a drop down menu:
1. The OS redraws the status bar to signify a click.
2. The OS redraws the window beneath the mouse.
3. The OS draws the menu.
4. The OS draws the menu text
5. 2-4 happens again as text is selected in the menu.

It may only look like the OS is only redrawing a portion of the window but it's actually is redoing the entire screen. Hardware acceleration goes a long way in reducing a lot of the redrawing that occurs, but there still is a level of software acceleration that is allowed on most OS's for compatibility, or to allow different GPUs to have various levels of acceleration. As a side note, this also explains why some things like iOS or MacOS can feel smoother because they have less or no baggage to deal with compatibility wise.

So to put it in shorter terms, if Windows/Linux/OSX/BeOS/UNIX basically told it's userbase we are only going to support 3 GPU period. Everything else is does not exist in our eyes then yes they probably would be just as fast and responsive as BeOS was.
 
The most amazing thing about Windows may be its backwards compatibility. Your everyday Windows pc will run pretty much any dos/Windows app made in the last 20 years, and run it well. Try that on any other OS.

This is also what's holding Windows back. If they could write an OS from scratch (as legions of haters always keep wanting) trust me it would be best in class. You only have to look at stuff MS Research works on (which rarely makes it into commercial products) to get an idea.
 
MrCrispy said:
The most amazing thing about Windows may be its backwards compatibility. Your everyday Windows pc will run pretty much any dos/Windows app made in the last 20 years, and run it well. Try that on any other OS.

This is also what's holding Windows back. If they could write an OS from scratch (as legions of haters always keep wanting) trust me it would be best in class. You only have to look at stuff MS Research works on (which rarely makes it into commercial products) to get an idea.
Click to expand...

Windows 8 while being fully backwards compatible will have an entirely new UI and architecture that will only be supported for Windows 8. In many ways Windows 8 is Windows 7 and an entirely new OS, the best of both worlds at least on paper.
 
But the compatibility with the past is still there. Having a new UI won't change that. Even with ARM versions there will be some level of software compositing as they can't ensure that there won't be a tablet/netbook out in the market that has an low end GPU that can't handle what they want to do. Hell, there's even rumor that they are going back and adding software compositing to Windows Phone Tango to allow dirt cheap feature phones. Compatibility isn't always about supporting the past, it can be to meet a price point too.
 
Windows 8 is much more than a new UI. Yes it's backwards compatible but the new UI is based on an entirely new rendering engine, tile UI based apps are totally incompatible with current versions of Windows which is a very clear break from the past and something that's never happened with Windows before.
 
I've been a Beta tester...and even an Alpha tester for Microsoft on a couple of their OS's before.


I was fairly excited about Win 7. Win 8 not so much, so far...
 
Same way most of us do, I suppose, either apply directly (which is the more recent way with an email to [email protected] - and I'm not saying that'll work for anyone, but it did in the past when it was active), or by being friends with people at Microsoft, etc. I've been a "beta tester" for Microsoft products since oh, 1978 or so, and have kept up the friendships with several people that actually are still with the company and have been since those beginning days so long ago.

The Connect website at http://connect.microsoft.com is a newer way to get involved with a lot of products pre-release. I recently participated in the DaRT (Diagnostic and Recovery Toolkit) from Microsoft, which used to be known years ago as ERD Commander by Sysinternals - a company of truly smart folks that Microsoft finally just bought and merged with their primary company.

While you can't apply for and get accepted to every single beta program that Microsoft offers just by becoming a member of Connect, it's worth joining and participating with whatever they do offer if it's something you're interested in because it "gets your name in the hat," so to speak. If you participate and submit some good bug/usage reports, people there will take note of it, which could lead to the valuable invites to other beta programs like the upcoming Windows 8 one.

It's not expected that the first beta of Windows 8 will be a public one; instead it'll be private like previous versions, but if they get to a beta 2 or 3 build, leading into Release Candidate stage, that's when we can expect to see a public release that anyone can get involved with.
 
Joe Average said:
It's not expected that the first beta of Windows 8 will be a public one; instead it'll be private like previous versions, but if they get to a beta 2 or 3 build, leading into Release Candidate stage, that's when we can expect to see a public release that anyone can get involved with.
Click to expand...

That's not what I'm hearing though most stuff I've heard is rumor. A number of people are saying that Microsoft is trying to fast track Windows 8 to be ready to release in Q2 2012, if that's the case then I would imagine that this is the first and only beta followed by an RC like Windows 7.
 
What pisses me off about modern software is how it is so demanding for nothing. You look at old operating systems that did the same things today's operating systems do and they did it fine with very low specs. "But now we have [some feature]" So? That's like saying Windows 95 had an updated version of solitaire compared to windows 3.11... it's still just a program that does something. An upgraded version does not mean it has to use more resources, not to mention a new program or feature is not or should not actually be running all the time. I can understand games using more resources as they actually do WAY more processing due to increased graphics and what not, but simple programs like word processing and the OS shell itself, there is zero reason why it should use more resources.

Imagine how fast Windows 2000 would be on today's hardware. The only reason I switched from Windows 2000 to XP at the time was because software was starting to be incompatible. if they would have simply built XP, Vista, and 7 like Windows 2000, just add the compatibility for newer software, imagine how fast it would be, and it would still accomplish the same tasks.
 
Joe Average said:
I'd flip it around and say "Will Windows/Linux/OSX/BeOS/UNIX ever catch up to AmigaOS?" since way back in early 1985 when I had an Amiga 500 with a massive 2MB of RAM (Oooo...) I was able to do the following:

- format two (not one, but two) floppies at the same time, one internal, one external, without any noticeable effect on the operation of the computer
- run multiple apps at the same time without any noticeable slowdown
- display relatively high color images that simply looked astonishing (even 4096 colors in those days offered some insanely gorgeous image quality and sharpness)
- enjoy true hardware-based multitasking which modern computers 25+ years later still don't do

and the best part of all:

- run the primary OS from a RAMdisk that was capable of surviving a warm boot AND was even bootable - the primary OS started from the RAMdisk on a warm reboot

All that, in 2MB of RAM. Today's high powered monster PCs, even quad and hex and soon octa-core beasts with gigs upon gigs of RAM and ultra-fast storage STILL can't do that sort of stuff, and they still don't actually do hardware-based multitasking - it's all preemptive in the OS itself.

And here we are thinking we're so "technologically advanced" 25+ years later and our machines still can't run an OS from RAM (host OS, so don't bring virtualization into this) or boot from a RAMdisk. Pfffhhhttttt... :D
Click to expand...

Personally I think Windows caught up with AmigaOS around the time of XP. It still doesn't boot in 10 seconds like AmigaOS 3 did from the hard drive on my Amiga1200, it uses an insane amount of RAM, disk space and CPU power to do stuff that my 68030 @ 50 MHz and 18MB of RAM had no problems with etc... But I wouldn't want to go back to AmigaOS these days. Functionally, Windows has far surpassed AmigaOS.

AmigaOS used preemptive multitasking, just like Windows does today. The difference is that the Amiga did this in 1985, ten years before Windows 95 (which only did this partially), and 16 years before Windows XP and OSX.
 
JimmiG said:
AmigaOS used preemptive multitasking, just like Windows does today. The difference is that the Amiga did this in 1985, ten years before Windows 95 (which only did this partially), and 16 years before Windows XP and OSX.
Click to expand...

True, but the reason that Amigas were so smooth and so fluid even running at 7.14 MHz (the original A500 had that clock speed on the original Motorola 68000 CPU) was the fact that the hardware itself was multitasking from the ground up. It's tough to explain these days, because most people assume that today's monster PCs and whatever are doing multiple things at the same time and, while it seems like that's the case from the general perspective, they're not - it's still all being done one task at a time from the hardware perspective.

But Jay Miner, the "Father of the Amiga" and the original designer of the actual motherboard and component setup, knew from the start he had to create something practically magical to stand out from the crowd. So he chose a hardware configuration including the audio and video circuitry that allowed for true hardware-based multitasking before the design teams even got into development of the OS that would take advantage of what that hardware was actually capable of and offering to accomplish.

Like I said, it's very tough to explain how the hardware-based multitasking works in today's world because machines are so fast it just gives the impression everything is multitasking, but it's not - it's still done one cycle at a time from the hardware standpoint even on the most bangin' PCs that exist today.

I know Apple loves that "Think Different" slogan, but honestly, the only personal computers that have ever lived up to that philosophy from the moment they came into existence (and still do many years later) are the Amigas. There's never been anything else like them, and I seriously doubt there ever will again. They weren't just an example of someone "thinking differently" about the basic concept and design of a personal computer, they - meaning Jay Miner and the developers - actually made it into a physical product.

It wasn't called "The Amazing Amiga" for no good reason. ;)
 
Today's PCs can do multiple things at once.......if they could not then you could not have smooth audio playback and mouse movement. You can thank the PCI bus for the most part as it allows multiple bus master device communication at the same time by interweaving the data (although some cards like creative labs sound cards could not play nice and hog the bus disrupting the bus (does VIA ring a bell?).....this was the best single advancement in terms of PC I/O device communication everything since PCI has been a result of what they learned from it......

The Amegia just like today's machines use hardware accelleration (ie the cpu send the command and the hardware did all the work) thus offloading the work form the CPU to the device in question and freeing up CPU for other use....resulting in a better overall experence.....
 
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