Follow Slashdot blog updates by subscribing to our blog RSS feed

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Be

Be Gear Up For Auction 169

Posted by Hemos from the come-and-get-it dept.
Well, if you live near the Menlo Park, CA area you should join what's evidently a number of slashdot readers at the Be, Co. auction. With the merger and dissolution of Be, all of their remaining hardware/furniture will be up for auction.
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Be Gear Up For Auction More

Be Gear Up For Auction

Comments Filter:
  • ... at these things? I keep reading stories about people paying a zillion $$$ for a PII desktop.
    • If you want an answer to this, go to ebay or Ubid or any other number of auction sites. The stuff usually gies for OUTRAGEOUS prices. Frankly, I find much better deals in the want ads...or at swap meets or even yard sales. I have no idea what it is about auctions that make so many ppl overbid. Just for the hell of it, I put in a bunch of what I thought to be reasonable bids at ebay. I didn'twin a single thing..and many items went for over twice what I bid...some even for more then you could buy them for new. THEN add shipping & handling in...
      Anyway, I can't figure the attraction out....

  • Ah, the firesale.... (Score:4, Informative)

    by syrupMatt ( 248267 ) on Monday January 07, 2002 @01:55PM (#2799088) Homepage Journal
    Having been to a number of these in my local area (nyc), I can say it is an excellent place to pick up hardcore geek toys that you would not otherwise be able to afford (cheap servers anyone?).

    But for Be, there might be an added sentimental value to items. Pick up the box that you once downloaded your favorite os from, that type of thing.

    Either way, its a sad day that we have to witness a Be firesale.
    • The day after, they'll be on sale ate Bay and some other people with money to burn will snap them up.

  • BeBox (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Tet ( 2721 ) <.ku.oc.enydartsa. .ta. .todhsals.> on Monday January 07, 2002 @01:55PM (#2799092) Homepage Journal
    It's a sad comment that even at Be, Inc., they only had 20 BeBoxen left to auction off. I used to lust after those things. I wish they'd taken off. If I was in the US, I'd seriously consider trying to snap one up at the auction.

    • Re:BeBox (Score:2, Informative)

      by Rude Turnip ( 49495 )
      I bought one a couple years ago by posting on comp.os.be and asking if anybody had one. An engineer from SF sold me his for $200.
    • What was so special about the Be hardware? I thought BeOS ran on standard PC hardware.
      • If I recall correctly (and it's iffy on the first point, but I'm certain on the second point) it was two things; 1: mutiple PowerPC processors, and 2: little LED bars on the front of the case that monitored CPU load.

      • Re:BeBox (Score:3, Informative)

        by Russ Steffen ( 263 )

        At first, BeOS ran only on a platform called the BeBox. The BeBox was somewhat similar to a PowerMac, being a dual-processor PowerPC machine. The BeBox had these cool LED CPU load bar graphs on the front, and a port on the back called the GeekPort (a huge connector with all sorts of digital and analog I/O lines and other cool stuff).

      • I think it was all standard, but it was just cool... SMP BeBoxes with the CPU Meters... it's just cool.

        Plus, everyone wanted them some years back when they were considered great perfomers, so now you get to own a piece of geek-lust history.
      • With connectors galor on the back, many more than a ATX PC. Heaps of different Audio ports, multiple MIDI ports & of course the famouse BeBox 'Geek Port'.

        Really it had 1st class hardware for its day.

      • Click here for specs (Score:5, Informative)

        by DABANSHEE ( 154661 ) on Monday January 07, 2002 @02:41PM (#2799355)
        Well a summary anyway, at "the Linux for BeBox website" [sowerbutts.com].

        Here's a quote...

        "...Be only made about 1,800 BeBoxes, I believe, and they are rapidly becoming collector's items, so you'll have to move fast. Be produced two models, which were identical in all but the processors. The first model was the Dual603-66, which was powered by two PowerPC 603 CPUs, each operating at 66Mhz. The second model was the Dual603-133, which had two PowerPC 603e CPUs. Each of these ran at 133Mhz, and in addition had twice the level 1 cache size of the CPUs in the Dual603-66. Both models of BeBox have been criticised for the lack of a level 2 cache, but it was a simple engineering choice: the MPC105 (the memory controller, bus arbitrator and PCI bridge) could either support a single CPU and a level 2 cache, or two CPUs. The performance gains due to a level 2 cache were vastly outweighed by the performance boost from a second CPU. The CPUs are soldered directly to the motherboard; one cannot swap them for faster (or, if you were perverse enough) slower processors.

        The BeBox has some amazing features. Firstly, it has both the ISA and PCI busses which are so common in the x86 PC world. This means that one can plug any standard PC peripheral into it. It also has both ATA (IDE) and SCSI 2 disk interfaces, with an external SCSI 2 port. It has a standard AT keyboard interface, a standard PS/2 mouse port, four standard 9-pin RS232 serial ports, four MIDI ports (two in and two out, for two channels), two standard PC joystick ports and 16 bit sound line in and out through RCA phono plugs and stereo minijacks for a microphone and headphones. It also has some more strange IO abilities; three InfraRed ports (for IR device control, not IrDA) and something known as the "GeekPort".

        Plus, the BeBox has one amazingly impressive feature that no other machine in the world has. On the front bezel of the BeBox, there are two bar graphs made of green lights. Each graph represents the amount of work each CPU is doing - you can tell at a glance whether the application you're running is taxing the machine's processors or not. As they say, "We don't understand the software, and sometimes we don't understand the hardware, but we can see the blinking lights!"..."
        • You wrote,
          "Plus, the BeBox has one amazingly impressive feature that no other machine in the world has."

          I know that IBM AS/400's had the little CPU meters on them. However, I don't know if they had them when the BeBox was being produced or if they still have them.
          • Tsk tsk, AS/400, that's eServer iSeries now! The AS/400 has blinking lights from (at least) when they brought out those crippled "server" models such as the 53S back in 1996. Can't remember if the older, beige boxes had them... I think they had an LCD display that did something similar.
          • I know that they had those blinking lights on the beige refrigerator sized AS/400 beast. (Full height fridge that is, not the half height black ones that they sell now.) And, the one I used a few times at console was purchased ~1988, I'm sure it was before BeBoxes.
          • Notice 'Here's a quote... ', & then the quotation marks "...the quote..."
        • Plus, the BeBox has one amazingly impressive feature that no other machine in the world has. On the front bezel of the BeBox, there are two bar graphs made of green lights. Each graph represents the amount of work each CPU is doing - you can tell at a glance whether the application you're running is taxing the machine's processors or not.

          My IBM AS/400 and NetFinity's have those...
        • Actually there are other boxes which have CPU meters. I used to use an HP server that had a 4 character LED display which gave status codes as the system booted up, and after it was running would display the % CPU busy. Unfortunatly I cannot remember the model number. However a few years later I was using 9000/800 G30's, which had the same feature, but instead implemented it as software on the console.
        • Plus, the BeBox has one amazingly impressive feature that no other machine in the world has. On the front bezel of the BeBox, there are two bar graphs made of green lights. Each graph represents the amount of work each CPU is doing

          The SGI Origin2K and Onyx2 Racks took it even longer, They had a systemcontroller (mmsc) with its own display, where you started and stopped the machine. It was nice looking at 64 CPU load bars in color. separating system,interrupt,user etc. SGI made a cheaper black and white mmsc for the origin/onyx 3000 series, so they was obviously too expensive, but cool.

        • you can tell at a glance whether the application you're running is taxing the machine's processors or not

          Not exactly. You can tell at a glance whether the sum total of your application PLUS the operating system's processes, hardware interrupts, and any other background applications are taxing the machine's processors or not. At very quiet OS and hardware moments, the blinking lights will approximate your app's CPU usage.

      • Re:BeBox (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Rude Turnip ( 49495 )
        A long time ago (1996 to be exact) Be actually made their own computers. The BeBox was a blue, stately-looking computer that ran dual PowerPC 66MHz procs (and later dual 133). The most notable feature of the BeBox was that the front has two Greco-romanesqe columns jutting out that featured vertical LED's that bounced up and down to indicate each CPU's load...aka "Das Blinkenlights." The back of the computer was loaded with all sorts of ports, serial, parallel, SCSI, MIDI and the GeekPort, which is some type of analog interface for hobbyists.

        When PC's became more affordable and proliferated throughout the market, Be decided to stop making the BeBox.
    • For those of you who have never seen a BeBox there is a picture of one can be found HERE [arpagan.com] on the auction page. They are really cool looking. You can see the LED strips up the front legs, in the picture CPU0 is lighting one LED and CPU1 is lighting 2 LEDs.

      -OctaneZ
    • This goes back a ways, but I remember meeting one of the owners of a small ISP called "Thoughtport", that ran from Columbia, Missouri. He ran the whole ISP on BeBoxes. I think he may have been the only ISP in the U.S. to do such a thing.

      I wonder what ever happened to all of his stuff?
      I know the ISP went out of business years ago - but he had a nice collection of Be equipment there.
      • I'm from Columbia, MO - wasn't aware that Thoughtport was running Be, and I'd think that I'd have heard about it if they were 100%. It's likely that they had several there, but I doubt it was a situation where EVERYTHING ran Be.

        The most significant thing I remember about Thoughtport? They sucked ass.

        Oh, and if anyone's going to this auction and wants to grab one of the BeBoxes for me, shoot me an email:

        johnthorensenATcfswebmail.com

        -John
        • Wow, someone else out there does know what I'm talking about. Gotta love Slashdot... even the most obscure reference gets a reply!

          But yeah, I think the guy I met was named Leo. I only talked with him one time, because he was an acquaintance of a good friend of mine who was going to Mizzou.

          Anyway, I didn't hear a whole lot positive about ThoughtPort - but I did get to tour his "facility". As I recall, it was all set up in some sort of mobile home/trailer home type of thing. It may not have been 100% Be, but it was pretty darn close. I think he had some sort of web camera pointed at a fish tank in the place, and that may have been a Windows-based Intel box. I'm almost positive he had web, news, and email running on all Be Boxes though. I'd never seen so much Be stuff in one place before, or after that.

  • will this include... (Score:4, Offtopic)

    by Transient0 ( 175617 ) on Monday January 07, 2002 @01:55PM (#2799093) Homepage
    Bill dartboards
    star trek desk calendars
    paper clip art
    nerf guns
    frisbees
    etc.
    • [list of frivolous dot.com toys deleted]

      *sigh* Okay, I'm going to repeat this one last time. Not all technology companies spent money on toys or provided extras. Be is a very clear example of a company that *did not* spend on such excesses.

      Almost nothing was free at Be. No lunches, no soft drinks, no toys. NO fancy hardware. Most of the tech employees brought in equipment from home, because it was hard to requisition some kinds of equipment considered optional. When a component was needed, it was scavenged from non-working equipment.

      There were some scooters, and probably some small "toys", but they were universally purchased by employees, who have since taken them home or on to new jobs.

      I notice the original comment has been modded up as funny. You know, for many people watching an organization they were deeply committed to being disassembled, it's just, well, not funny. In this particular case, it's not funny, and it's not even close to true.

  • Somewhat Related (Score:4, Informative)

    by webword ( 82711 ) on Monday January 07, 2002 @01:56PM (#2799102) Homepage
    Palm Be Apple Triple Merger? [sfgate.com]
  • damn...i was hoping to pick up a good foosball table...

  • What about the code? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by anthony_dipierro ( 543308 ) on Monday January 07, 2002 @01:58PM (#2799111) Journal
    Are they also auctioning off the copyright to the code?
    • At the special meeting of it stockholders, held on November 12, 2001, Be's stockholders approved the sale of substantially all of its intellectual property and other technology assets to Palm, Inc. and the dissolution of Be through the adoption of a plan of dissolution.
    • The code was sold to Palm. Be has only retained some bits of hardware, furniture and the right to sue M$ in an antitrust lawsuit. Some people are suggesting that Be's massive trading volume last week is a sign of the (hopeful) lawsuit annoucement coming up.

      I emailed the auction company to find out if the items were going to also be auctioned online or just at the physical location. They haven't written me back yet...anybody here know?
  • here [slashdot.org] although this new link has the location and some of the items for sale.

    Some of the pics have an interesting backdrop [arpagan.com] I wonder what trade secrets the chair hides.. LOL
  • If anyone can get me a Aeron chair [hermanmiller.com] for under $100, I'll give'm $150 for one!

    Dotcom bust has really helped the Herman Miller company....
    • Actually, I'm not sure of that. All these chairs are all chairs that Herman miller has already sold. They aren't getting anymore $$$ from the auction of these.

      Besides, doesn't change of ownership void any warrenty they have?
      • I recently picked up two very nice chairs from Sam Clar -- almost unused, full warrantee, half price. Seems they used to have a nice business renting furniture to dot-coms. Now they have a lot of chairs in inventory that local store managers are instructed to move out at what they can get for them. Notice how sitting is this chair help speling and gramaticly correctly my slash dot postings. Comfy, though.
    • > Dotcom bust has really helped the Herman Miller company.... Yeah, they had to start laying people off [fuckedcompany.com] when all the companies that had bought two Aerons per employee started going under.

    • The dot COM bust I'm sure has been a nightmare for them (in the same way as it's been for F5, Cisco, Nortel, etc.): Suddenly instead of the smaller market buying new, they're all buying used from .COM shops that went under (and, of course, Herman Miller doesn't include a "non-transferrable" license with their chairs... :-)).

  • Forget the furniture, I want to buy the whole place! :)
  • yeah, they'd probably get a hellufalot more money auctioning the goods online.

  • Slashdotted already? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Chagrin ( 128939 ) on Monday January 07, 2002 @02:03PM (#2799138) Homepage
    Perhaps these arpagan.com people should consider bidding on a better web server.
  • I'd have loved to get my hands on a Be box. I've kept an eye out for these going on eBay and similar, but so far haven't had any luck. It's a pity they only have 20, and I doubt anyone nerdy enough to nab one there is going to be selling it any time soon. Or certainly not at a reasonable price.

    Bringing Linux or NetBSD up on a Be would be a step cooler* than running on NeXT or tricked out Amiga hardware.

    * yes, cooler is entirely subjective, insert comments about having a life, etc... But tell me you wouldn't want to at least test-drive a BeUNIX Beastie.

    • And exactly how much would you want to pay for one?

      It's easy enough for me to go over and put a bid on a couple. I could practically walk there.

      If there are people that are seriously interested, let me know. I suspect there will be more bidders on these boxen though. I don't care to make money on them, and I don't mind paying for them in advance, I just need to get an idea of what people would want to realistically pay for them.
      • If there are people that are seriously interested, let me know. I suspect there will be more bidders on these boxen though. I don't care to make money on them, and I don't mind paying for them in advance, I just need to get an idea of what people would want to realistically pay for them.

        I wouldn't think twice about dropping two grand on one. Maybe three if it's all in great shape and includes the nifty original packaging and such.

        I'm sure others would pay more.

  • Not much of a dot com auction then.
    • Exactly. Be had something they could actually sell. That's already better than most dot coms out there.

      "Uhh... we're consultants!" Yeah, like everybody and their momma, who can also get online and register YoMommaConsulting.com.

  • Auction (Score:2, Funny)

    by Kreeblah ( 95092 )
    Gee, thanks for posting this on Slashdot. There goes any chance of getting something at a reasonable price.

  • Ebonics? (Score:5, Funny)

    by crotherm ( 160925 ) on Monday January 07, 2002 @02:15PM (#2799209) Journal

    When I first read the subject, my first thought was a badly phased title written in ebonics.
    • When I first read the subject, my first thought was a badly phased title written in ebonics.



      Yes, badly phased titles have been known to fall into temporal rifts and be lost in the inter-dimensional void.

  • nothing will go on the cheap.

    I wonder if the auction itself is going to be as /.ed as the site.

    Unfortunately, most of the stuff is just nothing-fancy standard office equipment. Be wasn't living the hi-life like the dotcoms. It's too bad they didn't make it.
  • An annonymous coward tells us that if your on the internet a huge auction is on right now at ebay [ebay.com]. Get there quick to avoid disappointment. Update: Readers have pointed out that as ebay don't run linux on their web servers [netcraft.com] this isn't really news. Sorry for wasting your time with non linux/unix news items.

  • All the cool stuff will probably be gone by now (Score:4, Informative)

    by mrroot ( 543673 ) on Monday January 07, 2002 @02:23PM (#2799256)
    A friend of mine worked for a company who went bankrupt and had an auction of their remaining assets. Strangely, alot of the really cool stuff seemed to just disappear before the auction could take place, presumably stolen by the owners, employees, or friends of each, I don't know. Certainly this was illegal and if the creditors found out there could have been a lawsuit I suppose.

    Who's job is it to make sure the remaining assets of the company make it to the auction? Ultimately the creditors are to lose (more).
    • "Who's job is it to make sure the remaining assets of the company make it to the auction? "

      Mine. Please bring all your servers by my house before the auction. ANy unsuitable ones will be discarded.
    • It's called a lock-out. Persumably by the real owners of the building that we leased, or by the court handling the case. Everyone is locked out, and all leased equiptment is returned to said leasing companies, which is where most of the good servers came from. All else, is auctioned.
    • "Certainly this was illegal...", well duh. Naturally, the possibility that at least the employees may not have been paid in a while doesn't end up on a legal pad. The last few months of almost any firm headed for liquidation frequently features a measure of sharp dealings by all involved. So, don't moan just because some half-broke hotdesked schmoh folded up his workstation and walked before you could bid $50 for it.
      • Well, if I was due my back pay, I'd sure as hell walk off with whatever I could. Be happy to give it back, but it'll cost the exact amount of back pay I'm due.

        It all depends on how much the information is worth...

      • Re:Not Stealing... just Backpay (Score:4, Funny)

        by BrianH ( 13460 ) on Monday January 07, 2002 @10:36PM (#2802096)
        This is NOT something I'd be recommending. I worked at a dotcom that folded in late '99, and since there was a big question about our final paychecks, a number of employees decided to walk out with hardware in lieu of cash. Since management didn't seem to care, and since nobody was going to be employed later on anyway, then nobody gets hurt, right? Wrong!

        What happened? Well, the liquidation company (employed by the court) realized that there was missing equipment right away. They rewound the security videotape for the building and ID'd the employees who'd walked out with equipment. The next day they called the police and had most of them arrested. IIRC, eleven of them were charged with felony grand theft, and quite a few more were charged with simple theft and burglary (a couple IT guys with keys came back the next day). Without fail, ALL of them offered to return the equipment, but they liquidator refused to drop the charges and everyone eventually plead no contest. Most of the employees were given fines and restitution FAR larger than the value of the equipment they took, a handful of the employees were put on probation, and two of the employees who re-entered the building were actually given brief jail stays (14 days IIRC).

        All of the employees learned an unfortunate lesson about property rights and bankruptcy. You see, the moment the judge OK'd the bankruptcy and liquidation, the equipment became the legal property of the COURT with controllership assigned to the liquidator. The employees had an honest grievance with Company X, but they avenged that grievance by stealing from an entity that wasn't involved in it. Legally, it's the equivalent to stealing your neighbors TV because the guy down the street took $500 from your living room. There are legal ways to deal with the guy down the street, but you have no right to steal from someone else in return.

        The ironic thing was that we were all paid within two weeks anyway, with a two month severance bonus to boot!


  • But really, why didn't Beos ever really catch on? Das blinken lights? But even Madonna used it on tour, I used it on my laptop, it had great multimedia infections.

    Maybe they needed a cuter animal to mascot for them.
    • Needed more software written for it. Of course, much more software wouldn't get written for it unless more people were using it.

      Chicken? Egg?


    • Probably because we now live in a world where the better mousetrap doesn't always win. Welcome to 2002!


      I am right there with you on this. I wish BeOS had succeeded. I wish we operated our computers in a networked environment with as much diversity as the amazon jungles, but bound together with standard protocols and known APIs. Perhaps our last hope rests with java.

  • A little nostaligia for you (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Blackjax ( 98754 ) on Monday January 07, 2002 @02:27PM (#2799281)
    Here is how they looked in 1998, when hope was dawning. http://web.archive.org/web/19980101-19981231re_/ht tp://be.com [archive.org]
  • ...according to the auction page, there aren't any.

    But you can get an almost-as-ancient Apple "Proforma" computer, and a Laserwriter II!

    - A.P.
  • http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/12/26/052721 3&mode=thread
  • We have an original BeBox in the lab. Since it is very unlikely that any newer version of BeOS will be available for it in the future, we are looking for a copy of the last released version of the OS that will run on a BeBox. Can anyone out there help?

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday January 07, 2002 @03:07PM (#2799516)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • I felt the same way when Commodore went out of business in 94 - it wore off in like 4 years though - although sometimes I feel really nostaligic. Everything you could say about BeOS you could say about AmigaDOS - elegant, fast, efficent, and compact.


  • I'm sure www.be.com [be.com] is worth some dough!

  • http://www.arpagan.com/auctions/2002Jan16/pics/ind ex.htm [arpagan.com]

    PS: if the link doesnt work then your browser isnt standards compliant.
  • There's nothing quite like an auction to parcel off someones hopes and dreams OT I know but I'm going to miss Be

  • It's really a shame they didn't make it (Score:5, Insightful)

    by osgeek ( 239988 ) on Monday January 07, 2002 @03:35PM (#2799678) Homepage Journal
    Yesterday, booted into BeOS for the first time in over a year.

    Such a snappy OS. Everything is so amazingly responsive.

    Then, I opened up a project I had been working on, an SNMP console. The APIs to the system were such a pleasure to use. Everything was an object, and every window ran in its own thread. Just from building the basic app template, you gained services and abilities that Mac, Windows, and Linux still don't have without a lot of inelegant effort.

    If you love software development, as I do, the BeOS was a technological masterpiece in a world of mediocrity. Learning to develop for it was truly a joy that you'd have to experience to appreciate.

    It really made me sad to think that all of that is now gone.

    I played around with the interface one last time, then I rebooted into windows and wiped my BeOS partitions.

    Very very sad.
  • That's just great. You just slashdotted an auction.

    I mean, beside the fact that everything will be more expensive now because of the many bids, as other readers, have pointed out, just imagine an auction, SLASHDOTTED.

    The auction room packed with people, people waiting outside, people making constant HTTP GETs, sorry, that's requests for getting in, the auction becoming not so responsive etc.

    Mirrors anyone?
  • Bill dartboards
    star trek desk calendars
    paper clip art
    One underappreciated O/S, incl. source.
    nerf guns
    frisbees
    etc.

  • BeIA (Score:1)

    by Chase ( 8036 )
    Hey, if anyone picks up a Clipper [arpagan.com] , please let the good folks over at the MSN Companion [linux-hacker.net] discussion know. We would really like to get our hands on the BeIA image that is on the internal SanDisk. It should be compatible with the Compaq iPaq IA-1.

    We can also help you get a clean image of the internal SanDisk.

    Thanks,

    Chase

  • Don't Expect Much (Score:5, Informative)

    by ewhac ( 5844 ) on Monday January 07, 2002 @06:10PM (#2800852) Homepage Journal

    First, I'd like to thank the Slashdot editors for publicizing this auction, thereby assuring that every item will be bid up well over retail by over-enthusiastic tourists, shutting out budget-minded unemployed guys like me. *sigh*

    Oh well, there's probably a few things you should know about the stuff up for auction. First off is that Gassée ran a tight fiscal ship. As such, you aren't going to find Aeron chairs or 26" flat panel displays everywhere. Fact is, the standard developer workstation was a single processor Frankenbox in a generic beige ATX minitower, with a 16" (nominal) monitor and $5 keyboard. A typical RAM installation was 128M, with 64M also being common. So you're not going to see 21" Viewsonics in great numbers. Nor are you going to see 1.4GHz Athlon machines; just about everyone used 266-700MHz Pentium machines. The sound card of choice, when there was one at all, was an ISA-based Soundblaster descendant.

    Second, towards the end, there were virtually no functional BeBoxes left. Even the internal build machine was decommissioned when PowerPC BeOS was internally deprecated, around the middle of 2001. Those that were left were used primarily as serial debugging terminals.

    Third, there is a ton of junk at Be. Dead monitors, dead motherboards, dead hard drives, dead PCI cards, bad RAM, etc. We ran sutff into the ground there. At one point we had 18 dead monitors lined up in the hall (which were slated for a massive roof disposal, but I convinced management to have them recycled instead). We knew where all those piles of crud were, and to avoid them. If the last of the Be people didn't throw it out, I'm sure the auction people can't tell the difference, and will try and sell paperweights alongside the good stuff.

    And fourth, the former employees got first crack at all the good stuff.

    What all this basically means is that you can be sure that all the BeBoxes that are left are either broken or incomplete (or, in some instances, empty cases being used to hold up bookshelves).

    As for the good stuff that remains, I call dibs on the 'scope and logic analyzer :-).

    Schwab
    Former employee of Be, Inc.

    P.S: Whoever ends up with the espresso machine better take damn good care of it, or I'll come after your ass.

    • "At one point we had 18 dead monitors lined up in the hall (which were slated for a massive roof disposal, but I convinced management to have them recycled instead)."

      Thank-you. There's a couple pounds of lead [google.com] in computer monitors. One hardly needs that going into the landfills.

      [HTML version of PDF provided courtesy Google.]
      • you could of recycled 'em AFTER throwing 'em of the roof...

        I think thats the reason Be Inc failed, if a video of 14 monitors flying of the roof was included in BeOS r5PRO I think many many more copys would of been sold.

        mlk, (see sig...)

        • Believe it or not, I actually thought about doing it that way.

          Then I looked at the array of monitors lining the hall, and imagined the huge pile of shattered plastic and glass they would become post-roof disposal. Cleaning up just four monitors was a real hassle. Cleaning up 18 would have taken hours. Plus, there was a significant probability that, as the impact zone became a non-flat heap of monitor debris, one of them would have taken a bad bounce and gone sailing through the windows of the Chuck E. Schwab office on the ground floor.

          Further, recycling a monitor isn't as simple as recycling an aluminium can. Careful disassembly is required. Sometimes the monitor can be brought back to life by replacing a bad component (in which case, roof-disposing it was a horrible waste).

          So, while it would have been a magnificent sight -- and, honestly, if David Letterman had asked us to do it, I would have agreed -- I just couldn't see releasing that much toxic material into the local environment. I knew I sure as hell didn't want to clean it up.

          Schwab

    • Re:Don't Expect Much (Score:2, Informative)

      by natenate ( 172771 )
      At one point we had 18 dead monitors lined up in the hall (which were slated for a massive roof disposal

      For those who didn't quite get the ``roof" reference:
      http://cibo.dhs.org/hold/movies/clips.zip [dhs.org]

      They included these clips (since R4.5), and other sundry pieces of media on every BeOS CD sold, including tribute songs:
      http://cibo.dhs.org/hold/sound/songs.zip [dhs.org]

      It was truly a special thing to be a part of (even if your part was miniscule).

  • Imagine! (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    "This is the very chair, the very desk, and the very phone used by Jean Louis G-ass-e when he told Apple he was worth $400 million and they could piss off... and I got it for twenty bucks, slightly less than what Palm paid for Be"
  • I wish I had a Be Pocket Protector.
  • this cube [arpagan.com] has the rummored copy of BeOS r5 for G based PPC's on?

    However buys it (or the iMac [arpagan.com]), please replay...

    I wish I have the cash for a BeBox [arpagan.com].

    mlk
  • I wonder if the e-villa's and various other IA's are production level equipment or if they have cool stuff on them..

    Hopefully someone will buy a couple of the desktop pc's and find out that they have tons of sourcecode to BeOS.. hehe.. I wish..

Slashdot Top Deals

He has not acquired a fortune; the fortune has acquired him. -- Bion

Close