BeOS 4.x

BeOS was an OS developed to run on the BeBox hardware, a custom PowerPC based platform optimized for multimedia I/O. Early prototype hardware was based on the AT&T "Hobbit" microprocessor. The OS was first released in October 1995 for the BeBox, followed by a port to the Apple PowerPC platform the next year. An Intel x86 port of the OS began in March 1998 with version R3. The last version released was R5.1 in November 2001 for x86 only. BeOS is POSIX compatible but is not a UNIX derived operating system

Be was purchased by Palm (later acquired by HP), and the OS was abandoned. Former Be developers took the source code for 5.1 and created Zeta, which ceased distribution due to legal concerns.

The Haiku operating system was created as a clean room open source re-implementation of BeOS.

BeOS was used in some embedded applications, such as the iZ technology RADAR 24 and RADAR V professional audio recorders.