ZETA-OS

Adirondack · Post #1by **Adirondack** » 27.11.2006, 22:17

Does anybody know or even use the operating system ZETA?
Is it worth a try?

Adirondack

Malenfant · Post #2by **Malenfant** » 27.11.2006, 22:37

http://arstechnica.com/reviews/os/zeta-1.0.ars

Looks like BeOS reincarnated. I can't really see it getting anywhere in this day and age though.

Post #3by **selden** » 27.11.2006, 23:54

Like AmigaDOS, it's time has come and gone. :-(

If the original companies of either of those operating systems had actually been able to continue their development, I suspect the current computer landscape would be rather different.

I enjoyed using both of them.

Malenfant · Post #4by **Malenfant** » 28.11.2006, 00:10

selden wrote:Like AmigaDOS, it's time has come and gone.
If the original companies of either of those operating systems had actually been able to continue their development, I suspect the current computer landscape would be rather different.

Heck, I thought OS2/Warp was kinda cool

. But none of these alternative OSes really do or did anything different to MacOS, or Linux, or Windows. Those three have got most of the bases covered, and have the advantage of having a lot of support - so why use anything else?

Post #5by **selden** » 28.11.2006, 00:50

That's true now, but it wasn't then.

AmigaDOS was a leader in realtime graphics. Software developed by NewTEK on Amigas was used to generate the 3D computer graphics used in the TV program "Babylon 5" for example.

Similarly, a few years later, BeOS was well ahead of other operating systems in its realtime multithreaded audio and video support as well as having a filesystem based on database technology.

But (simplifying) both operating systems were orphaned when their companies went out of business. And that was the end of them. Many of the ideas that they pioneered have since reappeared and are now readily available on other platforms.

Malenfant · Post #6by **Malenfant** » 28.11.2006, 01:45

selden wrote:That's true now, but it wasn't then.

AmigaDOS was a leader in realtime graphics. Software developed by NewTEK on Amigas was used to generate the 3D computer graphics used in the TV program "Babylon 5" for example.

True. And this program is now available as Lightwave9 for the PC or Mac (I've got it. Very complicated program, I've barely scratched the surface of it! The latest version is rather exciting, it sounds like it can actually render real photometric functions!).