Description
BeOS is an operating system for personal computers first developed by Be Inc. in 1990. It was first written to run on BeBox hardware.
BeOS was positioned as a multimedia platform that could be used by a substantial population of desktop users and a competitor to Classic Mac OS and Microsoft Windows. It was ultimately unable to achieve a significant market share, and did not prove commercially viable for Be Inc. The company was acquired by Palm, Inc. Today BeOS is mainly used, and derivatives developed, by a small population of enthusiasts.
The open-source operating system Haiku is a continuation of BeOS concepts and most of the application level compatibility. The latest version, Beta 4 released December 2022, still retains BeOS 5 compatibility in its x86 32-bit images.
