Welcome to a saga on one of the best operating systems made.

If you’re a Be aficionado who loves anything about Be, a computer enthusiast or historian, or if you’re a Mac lover who wants to read about the hopeful candidate for OS X that lost to NeXTstep, this series was written for you. Inspiration for writing it came after I felt BeOS needed a fresh look, as both a fan of the Mac and Be. I’m really excited to have finished this, and hope that you enjoy the journey!

The post-Be era

This collection explores several unofficial releases that were made after Be, Inc. went under and before Haiku came to be. (However, please keep in mind this just covers releases that used the Be codebase, and not other system bases, such as in BlueEyedOS, Cosmoe, or Zeven.)

BeO5 Max

BeOS Max Review: Part 1 of 2: Full Overview

BeOS Max Review: Part 2 of 2: Installation

Be “Developer’s Edition” (BeDE/Vimba)

BeDE 1.1 Review: Part 1 of 4: Startup, Deskbar, desk applets

BeDE 1.1 Review: Part 2 of 4: Applications and preferences

BeDE 1.1 Review: Part 3 of 4: Development folder

BeDE 1.1 Review: Part 4 of 4: Trek through folders, odds and ends, shutting down

PhosphurOS

PhOS: Full Review

Zeta

Zeta 1.21 Review – Part 1 of 5: Startup, intro, Tracker, about box

Zeta 1.21 Review – Part 2 of 5: Deskbar and Zeta menu

Zeta 1.21 Review – Part 3 of 5: Zeta Preferences

Zeta 1.21 Review – Part 4 of 5: Opening some apps

Zeta 1.21 Review – Part 5 of 5: Finishing up with apps, Conclusion

Zeta 1.21 Review Extras: Installation

BeOS R3 – Dano series

This series was made as an exploration of the Be operating system from R3 (the first release on Intel) to R5 and the final (leaked) beta “Dano”. In addition, the series also takes a quick look at the Be website, which shows the Browser and Dock (found in pre-R3 versions) inside the review extras.

Review extras

BeOS Review Extras: A peek at the old website and pre-R3 topics

Grayscale (with colorized photos)

Releases 3.x — 4.0 were released in and were meant to live in full color. But since the graphics card wasn’t supported in my VM (even with safe graphics), these started up in black and white.

However, to give my readers the best experience of what these would have been like, I’ve added color versions of most of the photos in both reviews.

R3: Release 3.1 (2 parts)

BeOS R3 Review (Part 1 of 2): Revisiting 3.1 in gray

BeOS R3 Review (Part 2 of 2): Revisiting 3.1 in gray

R4: Release 4.0 (2 parts)

BeOS R4 Review (Part 1 of 2: The journey into gray concludes in 4.0)

BeOS R4 Review (Part 2 of 2: The journey into gray concludes with 4.0)

Full color reviews (4.5 onward)

All these releases work in full color in modern VMs, and the reviews for everything below were done in full, true color:

Release 4.5 “Genki” (3 parts)

BeOS 4.5 Review (Part 1 of 3: Desktop, queries, and apps)

BeOS 4.5 Review (Part 2 of 3: Software, Terminal, and Preferences)

BeOS 4.5 Review (Part 3 of 3: Fun with demos, and some folders)

Release 5.0 “Maui” (3 parts)

BeOS R5 Review (Part 1 of 3: Desktop, decors, and applications)

BeOS R5 Review (Part 2 of 3: Demos and Preferences)

BeOS R5 Review (Part 3 of 3: System folders, install, and finish)

Beta Release 5.1d0 “Experimental/Dano” (4 parts)

BeOS Dano Review (Part 1 of 4: Startup, new decors, and NetPositive)

BeOS Dano Review (Part 2 of 4: Deskbar, Find, Tracker)

BeOS Dano Review (Part 3 of 4: Applications and Demos)

BeOS Dano Review (Part 4 of 4: Preferences, installation, and conclusion)

In case you missed it, check out the BeOS Review Extras!

BeOS Review Extras: A peek at the old website and pre-R3 topics

Hope you enjoyed this series! 🙂

And if you like my work, (and want to help me get some more stuff out there), please link to or follow my page, or support me on Patreon!

Want to read more?

Feel welcome to visit my list of articles:

On Medium

At my blog, The OS Voyager (where I write about open source operating systems)

Here at Isometric Leaves (where I write about BeOS, Haiku, and everything in said universe)

At Byte Into Pixels (where I write about Apple stuff)