Back in the 1980s, a certain Apple executive in charge of Macintosh development was forced out of Apple, then went and founded a new computer company. They made a very advanced OS and their own hardware, but stopped producing hardware soon after to focus on software. Their OS was considered by Apple to be used as the basis of Mac OS X.
No, it’s not Steve Jobs and NeXT, it was Jean Louis Gassée and Be. Gassée took over as the head of Macintosh development after Jobs left and also developed the Newton MessagePad. He left Apple and founded Be Inc. intending to make a modern operating system and powerful custom hardware to run it. Those became BeOS and the BeBox.
Learn how to set up your own virtual machine with BeOS on it with available software. Nostalgia rules!
Eink, E-paper, Think Ink – Collin shares six segments pondering the unusual low-power display technology that somehow still seems a bit sci-fi – http://adafruit.com/thinkink
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.
I will always love BeOS for these kernel functions:
int32 is_computer_on(void)
Returns 1 if the computer is on. If the computer isn’t on, the value returned by this function is undefined.
double is_computer_on_fire(void)
Returns the temperature of the motherboard if the computer is currently on fire. If the computer isn’t on fire, the function returns some other value.
I will always love BeOS for these kernel functions:
int32 is_computer_on(void)
Returns 1 if the computer is on. If the computer isn’t on, the value returned by this function is undefined.
double is_computer_on_fire(void)
Returns the temperature of the motherboard if the computer is currently on fire. If the computer isn’t on fire, the function returns some other value.