One of the rarest personal computers around: the dual-processor BeBox from 1995

Be, Inc. was a company launched by former Apple exec Jean-Louie Gassee in 1990. He and a small team of elite programmers saw an opportunity to create a new computer and OS which could take advantage of all the latest technical advances, but without having to support decades of legacy code and hardware. A few years later they unveiled the BeBox, a powerful dual-processor workstation custom-built to showcase their innovative new operating system, BeOS.

BeOS is “Unix-like,” and it supported all the hottest buzzwords of the mid-1990’s: preemptive multitasking, multithreaded apps, advanced graphics and audio capabilities, and much more. It also included a really fun and innovative desktop interface which is filled with lots of whimsical touches.

The BeBox computer was designed as both a showcase for their new OS, and as a development kit to entice programmers to build apps for the new platform. It has two PowerPC 601 CPU’s (initially running at 66MHz, later upgraded to 133MHz), TONS of input/output options, and the iconic “Blinkenlights” - twin columns of LED’s which rise and fall in sync with the ‘load’ being carried by each of the CPU’s inside. Only around 1800 BeBoxes were built (1,000 of the 66MHz machines + 800 133MHz machines), and today they are considered an extremely rare and highly-collectable novelty. When it became clear that their clever OS wasn’t going to survive on their own oddball hardware, Be released versions of BeOS which could run on Macintosh and PC systems, but adoption was still very low.

It’s hard to remember now given all their success, but Apple in the mid-90s was deeply troubled, with a confusing product line and outdated operating system. There was a brief moment when it looked like Apple might purchase Be and use the BeOS as the foundation for a new version of the Mac, but in the end they opted to buy Steve Job’s NeXT Inc. and their OS NeXTSTEP, which became the basis of Mac OS X (and later, iOS / iPadOS / watchOS / tvOS, etc.). Be Inc. was later sold to Palm, Palm was later gobbled up by HP, and today Be is barely remembered.

Interestingly, Be managed to work out agreements with some major PC companies including Compaq to have BeOS installed alongside Microsoft Windows on new computers. However, Microsoft exerted massive pressure on these PC manufacturers, effectively killing the arrangement (and BeOS). Be sued Microsoft for anticompetitive practices, and Microsoft eventually settled for over $20,000,000, but by that time Be was effectively dead.

The BeOS did build a small but passionate fanbase who admired its advanced technology and quirky interface. These fans were not willing to give up even after BeOS was dead, which led to the modern Linux-based OS called Haiku - it’s fun and free, and totally worth playing with!

I wanted a BeBox desperately since I was a kid. I read a magazine article about it sometime around 1996ish in the San Francisco Virgin Megastore (a very specific memory!) and became obsessed. I finally managed to find this one on eBay back around 2007ish and snapped it up.

I pulled it from storage this past weekend to get it prepped as part of some public hands-on exhibitions in March (see below for info), and I was really bummed when it flatly refused to do anything other than blink the LED's a few times. I putzed with it for 4-5 hours, trying pretty much everything I could think of to get it to come back to life.

What seems to have done the trick was replacing the 2032 coin-cell BIOS (or PRAM? I'm not sure the correct acronym here) - it had no effect initially, but a couple hours later I tried firing up one last time and the damn thing just booted like no big deal. Crazy! My wife said she hadn't seen me smile that big in a while, and insisted on grabbing my camera to get a pic of the moment. Fun times!

One of its MANY quirks is that the "Blinkenlights" on the front have never worked in the entire time I've owned it (other than bouncing a few times as it counts its RAM at power-on)... until they mysteriously started working normally yesterday. I can only assume that something related to the battery replacement caused them to kick in, but that's totally just a guess. Either way, I'm happy to see them bouncing as intended!

We're going to be exhibiting this BeBox along with a bunch of other rare/interesting computers at two free public events at libraries around the San Francisco Bay Area in March. If you’d like to play with a BeBox (or NeXT Cube, General Magic devices, rare Apple/Mac systems, etc.), check out www.RetroRoadshow.org for event details - we’d love to see you there!