Half a Be

or, the sad truth of the eternal present tense

Now that we’ve all either upgraded to Snowy Leopard or are patiently awaiting Windows 7, let’s extend a moment of silence for the operating systems that didn’t make it.

Inciting text for hopeful developers can still be found in the Amazon.com review of Programming the Be Operating System. While the review carefully—and, in retrospect, with good reason—avoids any claims of longevity, it makes no frivolous assertion of the powerful features of Be’s erstwhile chef-d’œuvre:

There’s not yet a big market for creators of programs that run under the Be operating system¹, but its special capabilities may prove irresistible to experiment-minded programmers.

In 2001, Be, Inc. dissolved—it ceased to Be—but Amazon’s rosy marketing prose continues to remind us of good things long gone. Indeed, certain parts of the OS still have no equivalent in today’s systems. I studied their file system in great detail because it was so far ahead of its time. But the Internet does strange things to radical ideas. Some creations are buried and long forgotten because they are too novel, only to resurface when we’ve grown the capacity to comprehend their grandeur.