1994
In early 1994, Peter Potrebic joined the Be team and was given the
responsibility of maintaining and enhancing the class libraries. According to
Steve Horowitz, under Peter's watchful eye, the application framework saw a
number of significant enhancements, including an improved application messaging
system and the addition of threading classes.
During release 2 of the BeOS Peter was absolutely zealous in tracking down a
number of extremely difficult bugs, which resulted in the system reaching a
level of stability that had never been seen before. Be's technical writers, Don
Larkin and Doug Fulton also helped tremendously to make sure that the design of
the class libraries and APIs were coherent and consistent.
Shortly after Peter joined the team, another engineer named Robert Polic was
hired. Robert started out by helping Benoit with the graphics server and then
went on to work on many different levels of the system, from the SCSI and video
drivers to many of our utility applications, such as IconWorld, CDPlayer,
Keyboard, and all of the preferences applications.
By this time the team had grown large enough that certain development tools,
such as source control and a bug-tracking system, became essential. Ming Low,
who had been in charge of all of the BeOS builds, developed both of these tools
and many others to keep the development effort running smoothly as the team
grew. As the team grew, so did Ming's responsibilities, which included system
configuration, network debugging, testing, and helping with each release of the
software.
Up until July, all the software was running on the Hobbit BeBox - a machine
with dual AT&T
Hobbit CPUs and 3 AT&T DSP chips on the motherboard. AT&T's Hobbit
chip was,however, never a widely used processor, having originally
beendeveloped for small mobile computing devices. Apple used it in prototypes
of its Newton PDAs, but settled
on the ARM processor for its final product.
The major market for the chip in the early 1990s was Eo, a startup company
(which had significant AT&T backing) building tablet sized computers running Go
Corporation's PenPoint OS.
After poor sales, the Eo project had its plug pulled in
July 1994.
This left both Be and AT&T in a precarious position. The Hobbit processor
line no longer had a definite market, and Be, still months away from shipping,
was not yet in a position to be able to guarantee AT&T a market with their
BeBox. Predictably, AT&T ended production of the Hobbit line, and
ultimately ended their time in the processor market completely.
When AT&T cancelled the Hobbit processor, Be Inc was faced with an urgent
need for a new processor. According to Be developers, "the PowerPC line seemed
appealing on a number of fronts". It offered good performance for the price and
had the backing of major industry players (ie. Apple, IBM and Motorola),
meaning it was unlikely to follow the Hobbit line into extinction.
In hindsight, there has been quite some controversy over Be choosing to use
PowerPC processors instead of x86 processors. Here at the BeBox Zone, we have
pieced together our spin on why Be
chose the PowerPC.
The first revision of the PowerPC based Be machine was designed by Glenn Adler
and was nothing more than PowerPC add-in cards for the existing Hobbit based Be
machine. As such, it contained seven processors (2 PPCs, 2 Hobbits, 3 DSPs),
although the five legacy processors of the Hobbit box did little actual work.
This hybrid machine gave the Be developers the chance to start the port of BeOS
to the PowerPC.
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