Darkyrm Strikes Again.

Darkyrm's been silent, but he hasn't been still. He has once again updated his site with more Seeker and App_server news. Here's the full monty:

While I can't believe how busy I've been the last week or so, I can safely say that I have actually gotten something accomplished, mostly in thanks to a 2-day codefest better known to some as a weekend. Looking over Seeker's change list, I find it difficult to remember when I did so much, but there are quite a few. A Send To Seeker addon has been written, but it some more code must be written in Seeker before it can be utilized. Lots of little polishing up on the UI and such. Also, the app_server has also seen significant progress. I have just finished a rather large commit, adding classes such as ServerBitmap, ServerCursor, and the heavyweight DisplayDriver. These foundation classes are still being written, but full documentation is being written alongside the code, thanks to Doxygen. Slow and steady wins the race.

This guy just doesn't stop. And he's a teacher too!!! Great work.

New Zeta Screenshots.

OSNews posted a story about Zeta and along with it posted two new screenshots, which you can see here and here.

One of the new additions to Zeta which you can see in the shots, is the FaxIT Tracker Addon. This has been a feature many have asked before, in the Be, Inc days and now it's here, i'm sure many users out there will enjoy that.

Also, and while it's mentioned also on that story, i got this from Bernd himself last night. There'll be a ToDoIt application, which Bernd is coding. It's a PIM and while still in Alpha, it's already quite useable.

One final word... reading the comments to the OSNews' story, you can see many are complaining about the windows, the tab, the borders, the general look... well folks... i've said it many time but i'll say it again, that is just ONE DECOR, there will be several to choose from, you can use the one you like the most, so no more whining about that, ok? Stay tuned for more Zeta news soon.

BePascal Moves Forward.

A few days ago i asked one of the members of the BePascal project, in this case Eric Jourde (Baldur for those who frequent BeShare) to give me an idea of the project status and future goals. He agreed and later sent me a few paragraphs which i will now paste:

BePascal members are Olivier Coursière (aka oco) & Eric Jourde (aka baldur). The Team of FreePascal have developed a modern Pascal compiler (fpc), which is also available on a big number of operating systems. But fpc couldn't directly use the objects in BeOS' C++. It was for this reason that we created the BePascal project, to enable fpc to create some GUI under BeOS. We tried developing the same API in Pascal like the API C++ structure, to have the same BeBook reference. Our aim is to provide a Pascal development environment including:

- the call of the BeOS API.
- and in the future a RAD, like 'Delphi'

Progress of project:

The basic objects of API were encapsulated "by hand" to show the feasibility of the project (BMessage, BApplication, BForm, BHandler, BLooper...). To help diminish the quantity of work required to manually convert all the objects of the C++ API (several hours per object), we developed tools which take care of a big part of our work. Currently, these tools are far from being perfect (the sources obtained must be worked over again by hand), but make it possible to save an invaluable time. The time of translation is now less than two hours per object.

These last months, we especially worked on the tools to assist us in the conversion of headings (* h). Now that these tools start to become effective, we tackle the most awaited part our project: the encapsulation of the graphic interface. The encapsulation of BView and BButton is practically complete (screenshot).

These guys are making huge strides in their progress as you can see. The more wider choice of coding languages available for BeOS, the more wider base of coders can be atracted to BeOS. If you'd like to help them in their effort, you can reach them through the project homepage, linked above.

Running BeOS Apps in OpenBeOS.

I was checking my mail and i spotted this on the Kernel Mailing List. Axel "Basement Hermit" Dorfler has commited that fully implement the BeOS Image API. What does this mean? It means that it is now possible to run BeOS apps in OpenBeOS, as he did. Very simple ones still, but it is possible.

This is a very important development in OpenBeOS, it will now allow them to test the binary compatibility between BeOS and OpenBeOS, a goal the OBOS team has always aimed for. Very good news and one step closer to recreating BeOS.

UPDATE: This has just been posted by Axel himself on the OpenBeOS site.

UK BeOS Awareness Week.

This comes to us from fellow BeOS user Mark Round. He is trying to make BeOS more aware to people in the UK, so we're trying to give his effort a little push.

He's part of a local LUG (Linux User Group) and according to him, many members are interested in BeOS, but have "never given it a try - or they just dismissed it as it's dead". He plans to change that.

To counter that and to bring BeOS more users, he proposes the following:

With this in mind, I'm planning on doing a "BeOS" day at my local LUG. Every month, we have a meeting in a pub, and we also have a "practical" session or training days where we can each do a presentation/tutorial for our fellow members. Sometime soon I'd like to do a BeOS demo with several other BeOS fans in our group - we could demo the OS, talk about Be history, OpenBeOS / B.E.O.S etc., Yellowtab, the BFS, and loads more. I really think it'll appeal to a lot of the crowd.

Not a bad idea. And it's just that he would like for everyone else to do. If you're part of a LUG, WUG (yeah right) or any other kind of OS User Group why not try it? Even if it's just a 1/2 hour demo followed by a Q&A session, that would spread the word. The title of this news piece says UK but why stop there? Wherever you are, do that, make yourself heard. And as Mark points out "It might also be an idea to bring along copies of PE, or preferably Developers Edition (more suited for developers/hackers) to give away."

Be, Inc favoured in Judge Ruling.

In a mixed ruling today, U.S. District Court Judge J. Frederick Motz ruled in favor of Be, Inc against Microsoft who wanted their antitrust lawsuit dismissed.

One aspect of Be's case which helped the ruling was the bootloader aspect. Motz said "Regarding the inability for dual booting to get it off the ground, there is sufficient allegation for that claim to go forward,". Motz also stated, and i quote:

I am absolutely persuaded that there is enough to support a Section 1 claim" of the Be suit, Motz said. He upheld Be's claims that Microsoft drove the company out of the PC operating system business "through a series of illegal exclusionary and anticompetitive acts designed to maintain its monopoly in the Intel-compatible PC operating system market and created exclusive dealing arrangements with PC OEMs prohibiting the sale of PCs with multiple preinstalled operating systems.

Don't forget, this isn't the case itselt, this is just to see if there _is_ a case or not. So far so good. Microsoft lawyers will appeal though.

Motz also rulled against Microsoft and in favor of Burst.com in another antitrust lawsuit. Regarding Sun's case, Motz ruled in favour of Microsoft by dismissing Sun's first two counts in the suit, saying though that "There are serious issues that arise on the tying claims,"

Let's see what comes out of this. I know many of us (me included) are rooting for Be, Inc, hoping they get some compensation from what they suffered due to Microsoft's practices.

For the rest of the article, click here.

BlueEyedOS Update.

Well, this time i tricked Guillaume... and wasn't sleeping when he updated the BlueEyedOS site. I knew it would work one of these days... And here's the update:

I commited my changes in our new app_server. It includes the native window managing. It opens a new window, which will later be fullscreen and draw all the windows in it. It still has some issues, due to a lack of clipping. I hope that Tobe could help to solve it quickly as he did on the past. I also added keyboard and mouse management, then you can play BePuyo in our native window managing now. The SupportKit is now closed to completion. As you can see, Michael created an archive with the news. Happy Blue Year!

Nice progress guys, and next time i'll catch you again!!!

OpenBeOS Updates.

Straight from our buddies from OpenBeOS comes a couple of updates.

First, Issue #33 of the OBOS Newsletter is now online, feature a MIDI article, a boot process article (whitepaper) and Michael Phipps' Christmas experience. Go read it.

Also, they let us know that the code for Thread Local Storage (or TLS for short) has been commited (not that kind of commited) to the CVS repository by Axel "Basement Hermit" Dorfler. This is an important piece of the kernel and an important tool for developers. It can be useful when porting apps not designed with multi-thread in mind and also used by the BeOS kernel itself.

Baby steps, remember? Bit by bit, it's moving forward. Good things (not just OpenBeOS) are coming our way.

A Letter From A BeOS Disciple.

Here is the letter from Ted that I promised would go up, as noted earlier in the webcam commentary submission. Cudos to Ted, Kancept, and everyone involved. I'll let Ted take over now. ;)

I would like to start with a huge thank you to all the great BeOS people who were concerned about my health.

Especially those who took the time to write a letter, emailed or sent a postcard. Last but not least to Kancept for that generous offer to support me financially with his special webcam sale, and to the people who purchased them.

Words alone aren't enough but here it goes...

Thank you all very much Dudes and Dudettes, it sure helped me to gain some strength to recover.

At the moment I am at 75% of full recovery and will still be looking at several months before I am at my usual "annoying" self again.

Yet starting of today I have decided to slowly re-integrate back into the communety. It might be five minutes or an hour, maybe even a whole day, or just a simple email to one of the userlists, depending on how I feel. I hope to be more and more active during the first few months of this new year. The last 15% will be the hardest though as I need to get back into shape again; something I was very proud off. That will be the hardest, due to the training, excercise and sports I must do. My body lost a lot of weight and volume, and I must get back in shape.

In a way my family (wife and kids) were happy that I was sick, not for the desease, but rather for the time I spent with them these last 8 months. Time which was greater than the total sum I had spent with them in the previous 5 years combined.

I blame BeOS for that (in a positive way). It's addictive. I never had so much fun in computing as the glory days of the Amiga, about two decades ago.

Now as you all know these were turbulent months, actually the whole year was, for OpenBeOS and several BeOS Business initiatives. Some had to close down, some are in the process of closing and some will be gone in the future. The only good things that came from this is that new oppertuneties will arrive in future times, unfortunately and unwillingly thanks to those failures.

I hereby take this opportunity to call (yes again) all arms to help BeOS in what it deserves to become. An operating system that responds immediately to the user, with hardly any hassle or crashprone behaviour, or other narcissism. The way computing was meant to Be in the first place. No more than a normal everyday car that takes you from point A to point B.

Now in these dark ages I want to bring your attention to one of our greatest supporters of all times.

GOBE Software.

These people supported us through every bit and byte even though Be Inc. didn't and couldn't. Now Gobe faces a problem; they can't live anymore from their product(s) and they have to leave the BeOS due to facts all known to us by now.

I would like to endorse the initiatives from BeUnited.org and Simon Gauvin even more. According to many of the Gobe users in their mailinglists (which is still up btw for as long as it is) most of them are very dedicated to see Gobe Office continue in some form if posseble. So too are the employees of Gobe.

With that in mind, I would ask Kancept to redirect all the intended mon(ies) for me towards the Gobe Productive 3 open source movement. I feel they need it more than I do.

This same request goes for all the people that owe me money . If you are the least bit decent, I ask that you donate what you owe me towards the GP3 open source movement. I have still several hundreds of $ USD of outstanding bills from customers of mine abroad and I like to see that money donated to that same initiative too. So if you have a heart in your soul think of the X-mas spirit and pay off your debts.

I also call upon people who deserved the priviledge to receive free hardware donations from me. BeOS developers and productive people who deserved it due to their work they did at no charge for us all as a community, I call upon your X-mas Spirit to donate some extra money to the GP 3 open source movement.

To the Gobe people i like to wish them strength and hope, and many thank you's for those years you were here.

To everyone, I thank you, for thinking of me and my family.

Have a wonderfull Christmas and a Happy New Year.

With the outmost respect,

Ted Leeuwesteijn (a.k.a. Zathros)
BeOS Deciple, Advocate & BeForever User

Beunited Standards News.

The beunited.org Standards Portal has been a busy place since it was launched. It has now passed the 200 member mark (211 to be precise), who are spread out through the world and discussions forum has been a lively place.

And speaking of standards, the first review period is about to end. Several RFCs, including People files and bookmarks will end their discussion time in the next 5 to 7 days. After that, and as is defined, they are sent to the Standards Committee for a vote. The results will later be announced at the Portal.

So if you want your voice to be heard and want to be involved in the choosing and defining of the future Standards, head over to the Standards Portal, register and let your voice be heard.

Webcam News & Commentary.

Straight off the wire, direct from the man himself, I now present the latest news regarding the Webcam Drive, and what it means for all of us...

Adam writes...

Well, It's happened! We've reached out 50 cameras. Why have I started this all you might ask? well, here's the skinny.....

BeOS has always been known for it's closeness and tightknit communtity since it's inception. Many times we've helped each other out. When it was found out that one of our community members "Zathros" was needing help we sprang to the call.

Many people had been asking about my webcams for a while. The company I order from upped the amount I had to order. Well, since Zathros needed some help, and people needed the cams, this was the perfect thing. I started a Camera Drive. I hacked the price on cams and set it all up. Thanks to everyone on BeShare and various BeOS websites, we pimped out enough cams to make the minimum purchase number.

So, now all the info is getting out and we hope to have it all distributed before the end of January and aid sent out to Zathros. I'll post the numbers once everyone receives their camera....

Adam McNutt
BeShare: Kancept
BeDev ID: 22507

So there you have it. Well done all. I'll be posting a letter soon from Ted "Zathros" Leeuwesteijn, as he has some very special words to share with everyone who has been so supportive of him.

OBOS Translation Kit Reaches Beta 1.

Good news come to us from the Translation Kit Team. Their puppy has reached Beta 1. Let me post the news bit straight from the OpenBeOS site:

The OpenBeOS Translation Kit BETA 1 is now available. It contains the Translation Kit library, BMP translator, StyledEdit files translator, TGA translator and the source and project files for all of the above. Also, the BMP and TGA translators should have more capabilities than the BMP and TGA translators that came with BeOS R5.

I have been using these files on my system for a while now, and I figured it would be best to release them so others could test them and provide feedback.

You can download the ZIP file from here.

Very good news indeed folks. OpenBeOS keeps progressing nicely. Stay tuned.

Audio News Pack.

This pack comes straight to you from our friends over at LeBuzz.

They bring us several news bits, including a new Audio Card Driver API that Marcus Overhagen (of among other projects the OpenBeOS Media Kit) is coding. This new API should help get rid of some of the multi-source, multi-channel limitations inherent in older BeOS APIS.

Also, BeOSRadio is seeking some more bandwidth. They have a steady (and fast) server in Sweden, thanks to Procton (a really nice guy) but need a server to help bring BeOSRadion to the American continent. They wish to maintain Procton's server to server Europe, Africa and Asia (although i'm sure if local server opportunity should arise, they wouldn't say no). So if anyone can deliver what they're asking for, please Dane Scott.

Last but definitely not least, they are building the "Ultimate TuneTracker Computer". They want to build it from parts available everywhere, and wish to keep it under 1GHz, so that no patch for new CPUs needs to be applied. And don't forget, as they say, they want it to be STABLE, STABLE, STABLE. For suggestions, once again Dane Scott.

For all of this and more, click on their link at the top of the article.

Return from Far Away and News Updates.

Well, i'm back, in case the title wasn't clue enough. I'm back from Spain (hola à todos), more specifically sunny Valencia. So... Happy New Year everyone! Now on with the round of updates.

In the OpenBeOS world, people aren't sleeping their days away. The MIDI Kit team has reached Milestone 1, which basically means they now have their own midi_server and libmidi2.so. Incomplete still, but it's a very good advancement for the Kit.

Also, Ingo Weinhold and Tyler Dauwalder (with the help of Axel Dorfler) are beginning to define the Device API, they decided how to go about it, they will make the API as a collection of kernel modules (kernel mode libraries) that export device specific information. More information about it check the OpenBeOS site.

PostMagic is also progressing quite nicely. Nathan is in currently implementing the changes to bring PM up to version 0.3. There's also a new screenshot and he expects to have version 1.0 around July, which are great news.

Darkwyrm has also been a busy boy... then again, when isn't he. He's commited a rudimentary ScrollBar class to the tree and he's still writing the specs for the server, which is coming, steadily. He has also updated Seeker, which is now up to beta 5, with lots of bug fixes and some new features. Seeker now has it's own little room over at his site, point your browsers here.

Phew... that's it for now. Two more things before i let you go back to your lifes. First, thanks for making December our 2nd biggest month so far. We had just over 10 thousand unique visitors with over 390 thousand hits, so THANKS EVERYONE. Also, i feel 2003 will be a very good year for 2003, stay tuned, it'll be a wild ride. This is Daniel, signing off for now, till next time...

It's Hammer Time... BeOS will run on Athlon64 and Opteron According to AMD

With a jump to 64bit architecture heading our way very soon, many of us are wondering if our beloved OS will run on these new beasties, the x86-64 architecture from AMD and Intel's 64bit VLIW Architecture. Well some of the wait is over, according to an article appearing on Digit Life it appears as well as many other OS's AMD have tested BeOS in both 4.5 and 5.0 flavours on the Hammer (Opteron/Athlon 64) architecture. Well I guess it comes as no suprise, much as 16bit operating systems such as MS-DOS continued to run when we moved to x86-32bit, it would be expected that a 32bit OS would run on a new 64bit extension to the x86 architecture.

What benefits will we be seeing in BeOS? This is a question which only the future will answer. Currently with a 32bit kernel, 32bit environment and 32bit applications x86-64 doesn't seem to offer much. Using one to run purely BeOS r5 would be like upgrading your 4 cylinder car to a V8 and then taking the spark plugs out of four cylinders (well it'll probably run smoother) seemingly a waste. To add further disappointment it's likely that the first of the x86-64 processors will have dramatically lower clock speeds than their 32bit counterparts. But it's not all bad, improvements of the architecture suggest that we should see a minor increase in power per Mhz over the 32bit AthlonXP processors and the Opteron series promises superior SMP performance even in 32bit mode for configurations of 2 to 8 processors as well as a larger L2 cache of 1MB which should really help cut down on latency under heavy multitasking.

Further performance increases will be up to the resourcefulness of the BeOS community, wether we'll see a 64bit kernel in either Zeta, OpenBeOS or one of the other BeOS clones is something only time will tell and then its a matter of hoping that the rest of the OS will follow across to 64 bit code and take developers with it.