Are You Ready to Buy a New Car?
So you're headed down the highway. You're not in a real hurry, but the car in front of you just seems to be stuck in a school zone. There's a bit of a hill coming up, and it's a long, straight, car-free stretch of highway ahead of you. You check for traffic, put your signal on, and get into the left lane. Ready to leave Mr. Slowpoke behind, you step hard on the gas. Instead of zooming ahead into a clear driving lane, the engine races frantically, and your car just barely creeps past the other vehicle (You almost feel the need to get out and push!).

This is the feeling you frequently get when trying to create multimedia presentations with today's computer technology. The only difference is that in this car scenario you don't have to pull off to the side of the road and restart the engine due to the screen freezing up, or an illegal system crash. Although PC's have always worked hard at getting faster and better, it seems that the software programmers very quickly find a way to push the latest computer technology to the point where it just seems too slow. Faster, bigger, better computers provide a quick fix, but then a new version of some audio/video program provides a rude awakening to the limitations of your latest "awesome" machine.

Is the solution to keep building faster computers? Or maybe we should just keep using the older versions of software which seem to run faster/work better? One of my bosses always said, "Work smart, not hard!" I think this is the case here. One of the solutions to this dilemma does not involve faster hardware, or better applications software. It involves expanding the limitations which convene the two--building a better operating system. Strangely enough there's one out there. It's fast, it's cheap ($99), it works, and it's called BeOS.

Check Under the Hood
Some of this gets a little "techie", but don't be put off by it. I think you'll see the pay off for us multimedia, technolusts. BeOS offers incredible processing capabilities. Three of its most powerful features offer symmetrical multiprocessing, pervasive multithreading, and preemptive multitasking. (Yeah, that's a mouthful). Let me break these down into human form. Symmetric multiprocessing means that it can take advantage of two, four, or more processors in a single machine (up to 8). This means that instead of waiting to buy the latest Pentium 19, 12,000 Mhz processor, we just add another processor to speed things up. Pervasive multithreading simply breaks down large tasks into smaller ones which are easier to handle throughout every portion of the computer's environment (i.e. graphics, calculations, input/out functions, etc.). Preemptive multitasking means that the operating system can quickly switch between working on any of these smaller tasks regardless of the number of processors involved (Baltazar, 1999).

So what does all that mean? It means that the computer will run faster because it can break everything down into smaller tasks. And if any one portion of the computer goes down, the operating system will simply work around it, not skipping a beat. Not only is that convenient with a computer which has a single processor, but if you add additional processors to your system, the skies the limit It means that if you add more workers, the work can get delegated, the efforts of each worker become easier, the tasks get taken care of sooner, and there's a contingency plan if someone calls in sick!

Fill the Tank
Even if you're working with compressed audio files (see MPeg Layer 3), size can be a problem. And if you're working with video, you can easily exceed the limits of today's personal computers. BeOS has it within its power to handle files up to a terabyte in size! The company also claims that BeOS supports massive amounts of storage--up to 18 billion gigabytes (Gallagher, 1999)! And it uses journalling to ensure file integrity, as well as to speed up the booting process.

How many tanks are we talking here? BeOS can handle multiple data streams simultaneously. That means you can operate up to nine different workspaces (screens) at the same time, with the ability to easily pass data back and forth between programs. As well, each screen can even have its own color depth and screen resolution. This could come in handy if you've designed a web page and you want to see what it will look like in a 640x480 format, or a 800x600 format, or a 1024x768 format. You simply click on the application and drag it over to the other screen to check it out (with no delays).

Kick the Tires
Of course if it's multimedia that you're interested in, there are lots of bells and whistles here. BeOS is known as a Media Operating System. It was designed with digital content producers in mind--that's anyone who works with digital video, graphics, two-way communication, 3D graphics and animation, or digital audio. Since BeOS works directly with the computer's graphic hardware, you can easily dip into the audio or video stream, adding special effects or transitions with only a keystroke. The demo they offer allows you to create a 3d cube, drop a couple of images into it, drop a live video feed into it, and let it roll around the screen while you load and listen to an MP3 file on one workspace and play a video game on another!

Sound is also another area where BeOS shines. A program designed to run on BeOS, SoundPlay, exhibits some of the digital audio capabilities (Nelissen, 1999). SoundPlay allows pitchcontrol plus or minus 400%. It can play samples simultaneously, support multiple playlists, and automatically crossfade from one file to the next. It can play Mpeg Layer 2 and 3 audio files, and it is the only MP3 player which can play Mpeg's backward (handy for that Beatle's marathon). It also supports CD and MIDI operations.

What's the Catch?
BeOS is almost 5 years old. That's the catch. With such a young operating system, few programs exist to take advantage of its power and capabilities. Because of this, BeOS is designed to coexist with Mac or Windows operating systems (since few people would be willing to give up everything). This lets you keep what you've got, and still exercise the power of what many believe is the future of multimedia computing. And I believe that anything which helps our interactive creations to operate that much more seamlessly has got to be worth looking into.

Check with the Powers that Be
If you want more info about BeOS, check out the following sites:
BeOS -  The BeOS main Web site home page.
Central - Visit BeOS Central and find more info about BeOS than you'd care to know.
News - Get the scoop, get the skinny, find out what's meant to Be.
Real - It's the real thing. ZDNet info about the world of BeOS.
Tour - Take a tour of BeOS online and decide for yourself if the future is BeOS or Be-ware.