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Issue 12    October 18, 2000 News October 9, 2000 Review of BeOS 5.0 Personal & Pro Editions with GoBe Productive, www.Rebel-OS.com October 4, 2000 CEO: Be Focusing on Net Appliances, ON24, Inc. Press Releases 18-October-2000 Be Incorporated Reports Third Quarter Results Events Ricochet Partner Alliance Conference, October 18th, 5-6:30pm Exhibit demonstrations Westin Hotel, Magnolia Room 5101 Great America Parkway Santa Clara, CA eFocus, October 24, 5-9pm Manhattan Center 311 West 34th Street New York, New York Internet Device Builder, October 26 OP10 Jacob K. Javits Center, New York What it takes to Play in the Internet Device Space Speaker: Lamar Potts, V.P. of Marketing COMDEX Fall 2000, November 13 - 17 Be will showcase BeIA at COMDEX running on several devices within the National Semiconductor Information Appliance Pavilion: Las Vegas Convention Center booth NS123, level 1, North Exhibit Hall Also see Be at the Information Appliance Press Event: Wednesday, November 15, 6-10pm Alexis Park Resort 375 E. Harmon Las Vegas, NV Additionally, Be will have a conference room at the Venetian where it will host invited guests from the industry, press, analysts and trade. return to top Home Networking and Internet Appliances by Brennan Spies, Sr. Market Analyst While the idea of defrosting the chicken in your refrigerator via an Internet connection may draw smirks from the more cynical or vague smiles from those of us old enough to remember The Jetsons, the real value in having a home network that connects to the Internet probably lies along a more pragmatic path. As households come to own more than one computing device (not necessarily a PC), it will be natural that they will want to connect these device with some kind of network, either wired or wireless, in order to share resources. Multiple Internet access points, file sharing, printer sharing, and network gaming will likely be the first set of compelling reasons to invest in a home network, and other applications such as home control will likely follow further down the road. At 19% penetration, the number of U.S. households owning more than one PC has already reached a third of all households having a PC at home (63% penetration)*. Europe and Japan, each with over 50% home PC penetration and similar levels of multiple PC ownership, are not far behind. With the emergence of Internet appliances, that "second PC" doesn't have to be a PC at all, but rather can be a space-saving and convenient device for instantly accessing the Internet. In fact, the ease-of-use and convenience of computing devices will likely be the reason for owning a second "PC" and will drive the need to have a network to connect all of these PCs/devices. There are several options for creating a home network, each with its own advantages and disadvantages. The first, traditional wired Ethernet, is the fastest option but — since it involves running wires directly from computer to computer either in the open or through the walls — is impractical for all but the most motivated people to use at home. Other wired solutions that are more practical include phone line networking and power line networking. Power line networking, where you send data over the electrical wiring in your house, has current speeds of only about 300 Kbps and, until that speed increases, is unlikely to catch on. The other wired solution, phone line networks (which use existing phone lines in the house to send data), is currently more popular and much faster. First generation phone line networks achieved speeds of up to 1 Mbps with newer kits offering up to 10 Mbps. But wired solutions tether you to a location close to a phone jack or power outlet. If you want the true freedom of being able to roam anywhere in the house, wireless is the only way to go. Current solutions for home wireless involve either 802.11 or HomeRF. Prior to a recent FCC decision, 802.11 used to be the fastest solution with speeds up to 10 Mbps; after the FCC decision, which approved the use a 5-fold increase in bandwidth for HomeRF products, HomeRF can now offer speeds similar to 802.11. Adoption of either technology will now depend on the quality and affordability of the products offered. Bluetooth is another wireless technology that has received a lot of press, but has yet to be introduced as a home networking solution. So where does the Internet appliance fit into this "wired" home? It can be another client computing device — or it can be more: A Web pad that is also a "universal controller" that can be used to monitor and adjust other appliances/devices in the home, from your entertainment center to your kitchen. A component in your stereo system that can create, store and play digital music files, or go out onto the Internet to get related information, such as album liner notes or the next concert playing in your area. A game console that can be used to play opponents over the Internet or over the same home network. A radio that can be used to play any of 5,000 (or more) stations from around the world. So the idea of convergence that is central to the concept of Internet appliances becomes less about creating new devices that you've never used before, and more about integrating the capability and potential of Internet technologies into things that you already use. * Source: eBrain return to top Jean-Louis Gassée Column by Jean-Louis Gassée, CEO and Chairman There is no JLG column this week. Please look for an article in the next issue. return to top BeOS Splash Screen Icons by Jonathan Mini, Networking Engineer When you boot BeOS, you see a splash screen with various icons for a few seconds. As the boot process continues, each icon lights up in turn. The meaning of the icons is somewhat cryptic, but this article will explain what's actually going on as BeOS boots. First, the Boot Sector When you boot your computer the system ROM checks your hardware, then loads a small piece of code (512 bytes) from your hard drive that's called the master boot record. This code is responsible for selecting and loading your choice of a default OS into memory. When you first install BeOS, before the process completes Bootman appears and displays a panel where you select a default OS. A subsequent panel lets you decide to make a master boot record of your choice. When you boot again the master boot record finds the selected OS and loads another small chunk of code (again, 512 bytes) from your hard drive. This code, called the boot sector, loads the OS into memory and runs it. In this way, several operating systems that know nothing about each other can coexist on the same hard drive and still manage to boot. 512 bytes, however, just isn't enough room to load the BeOS kernel into memory, so the first thing the BeOS boot sector does is load the rest of itself from disk. It grabs those bits from zbeos. In addition to the code needed to load the BeOS kernel, zbeos contains the splash screen graphics, the boot options menu, and often extra drivers needed during boot. Once it's loaded, zbeos displays the BeOS splash screen with all the icons unlit and the BeOS version number. Our Friend the Kernel (Icon 1) The next step in starting up BeOS is loading the kernel into memory and starting it. While this happens, zbeos flashes the colors of a small box in the upper-left corner of the screen (you can see this especially well while loading the kernel from a boot floppy). At this time, you can press the space bar to access the boot options menu. When the kernel starts, one of the first things it does is light up the first icon (the kernel icon -- a stylized picture of an atom). Its next task is to return the machine to its preferred state; that is, to check motherboard settings, take over handling of interrupts and DMA channels, reconfigure the system clocks, check the processors and configure itself for them, and obtain a listing of the devices present on the PCI bus. Go-Go Gadget Processors (Icon 2) If you have multiple processors, the lighting of the second icon is momentous: at this point, the kernel turns the processors on (you use only use one CPU to boot). It also checks that inter-CPU messaging works as it should, and tells the processors to hold on for just a bit while it does a little more housekeeping. This consists mainly of starting the BeOS virtual memory subsystem and configuring various protection and debugging systems. Once this is done, BeOS starts the scheduler (i.e., multitasking), and becomes a hardware-protected multi-threaded preemptive system (... and the buzzwords pile up). Goodbye, BIOS (Icon 3) The kernel turns on the next icon (a stylized lightning bolt) just before letting the other processors run. At this point, BeOS is an SMP system. After that it re-enables interrupts. Up to now, the kernel has been concentrating on itself, setting things up so the processors can work properly. Now it's time to tune in to the real world and start configuring the rest of the hardware in your system. Hello, Drivers (Icon 4) After turning on the fourth icon (a stylized EEG machine), the kernel starts up the kernel_team and launches several threads needed to maintain system integrity. Then it starts the drivers linked to the kernel and those in zbeos. The drivers here are kept to a minimum, but several are needed because the kernel has reconfigured the machine in such a way that the BIOS services stored in the system ROM will no longer work, and it has to do everything itself. Disk, keyboard, and other basic drivers (such as the VESA compatibility display driver) and system services (such as support for bfs) are kept here for this reason. Mounting the Disks (Icon 5) Now that the kernel has loaded a device driver for your hard drive and knows how to locate your drives and read your filesystems (at least the one you're booting from), it proceeds to mount them. Extra Toys (Icon 6) There are many more drivers on your boot volume than are linked to the kernel or stored inside zbeos. These drivers operate your video card, sound card, network card, and other toys. Also, modules such as extra filesystem support (to access those Windows partitions, perhaps) or BONE are loaded at this point. BeOS only scans the drivers present and loads the ones it needs. In most cases, these modules are unloaded immediately, because they are not being used at the moment. Don't worry, though; the drivers are cached like all other files, so it's a snap to get them back. After scanning and loading all the drivers and kernel modules on your boot volume, the kernel enables swapping (to the swap file on your boot volume). On to Userland: the Bootscript (Icon 7) The last step in starting BeOS is launching all the servers (like the media_server) and applications like Tracker and the Deskbar. This is done with the Bootscript (similar to /etc/rc in Unix), which is kept in /boot/beos/system/boot/Bootscript. The kernel launches a shell to execute it and lights up the last icon (a stylized BeBox). At this point, you can see what the Bootscript is doing by reading through it. Among other things, it launches the app_server, which resets the video card and displays the desktop. return to top Statements contained in this Newsletter that are not historical facts are "forward-looking statements" including without limitation statements regarding the demand for, future market penetration and market acceptance of BeIA and BeOS, the shipment dates of Be's products, and the future operating results of Be Incorporated. Actual events or results may differ materially as a result of risks facing Be Incorporated or actual results differing from the assumptions underlying such statements. Such risks and assumptions include, but are not limited to, risks related to competition, market acceptance and market penetration of Be's products, ability to establish and maintain strategic relationships, the benefit of Be's products to OEM and Internet appliance manufacturers. the continued availability of third party BeOS applications and drivers, and the ability to establish and maintain strategic publishing relationships. All forward-looking statements are expressly qualified in their entirety by the "Risk Factors" and other cautionary statements included in Be Incorporated's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 1999, and other public filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The BMessage Copyright (c) 2001 by Be, Inc. All rights reserved. Be, Inc. 800 El Camino Real, Suite 400 Menlo Park, CA 94025 Tel: (650) 462-4100 Fax: (650) 462-4129 Web: http://www.be.com/ Be, BeOS and BeIA are trademarks or registered trademarks of Be Incorporated in the United States and other countries. Other brand product names are registered trademarks or trademarks of their respective holders. All rights reserved. The BMessage is sent to subscribers of one or more of the Be mailing lists. For more information about subscribing/unsubscribing, see the Be web site: http://www.be.com/world/mailinglists.html. The Be web site also offers a complete set of current and back issues of Be Newsletters: If you have any comments about The BMessage, please e-mail them to:newsletter@be.com.

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