< operating system > The operating system originally designed to run on the BeBox microcomputer . BeOS is good at both multitasking and real-time operation. It has a bash command shell, with ports of many GNU programs by Be, Inc. It has a GUI front end (not X ). A C++ compiler is supplied with the machine, and there are rumours of other languages being ported in the future.
BeOs eventually became used on the x86 and standard PPC .
Be, Inc. went bankrupt in 1999, after releasing the last upgrade of BeOS (R5.0.3), and was sold to Palm .
Several groups are currently (2003) attempting to create an R6 version of the OS. The most likely to succeed are Yellowtab and OpenBeOS , which is likely to be renamed.
(2003-05-30)