A Game Created For Ludum Dare 47. CLICK HERE: ORBITAL LOOP LUDUM DARE PAGE. Theme: Stuck In The Loop. Description: This game is about a asteroid which is rotation around a point you have to save it form colliding with asteroids and get between the gap. Zeta was located for the German and English market and is planned in the variants Home -, Developer and Deluxe edition. Zeta 1.2 was released in April 2006. New in this release is the enhanced support for SATA devices, new audio/video codecs (MP3, Ogg Vorbis, XviD), additional graphic and printer driver.
- The Zeta Orbital (itch) Mac Os 7
- The Zeta Orbital (itch) Mac Os Update
- The Zeta Orbital (itch) Mac Os Catalina
| Developer | yellowTAB / magnussoft |
|---|---|
| OS family | BeOS |
| Working state | Discontinued |
| Source model | Closed source |
| Latest release | 1.5 (February 28, 2007) [±] |
| Latest preview | n/a (n/a) [±] |
| Kernel type | Modularmicrokernel[citation needed] |
| License | Proprietary |
| Official website |
magnussoft ZETA, earlier yellowTAB ZETA, was an operating system formerly developed by yellowTAB of Germany based on the Be Operating System developed by Be Inc.; because of yellowTAB's insolvency, ZETA was later being developed by an independent team of which little was known, and distributed by magnussoft. As of February 28, 2007 the current version of ZETA is 1.5. On March 28, 2007, magnussoft announced that it has discontinued funding the development of ZETA by March 16, because the sales figures had fallen far short of the company's expectations, so that the project was no longer economically viable.[1] A few days later, the company also stopped the distribution of ZETA in reaction to allegations that ZETA constituted an illegal unlicensed derivative of the BeOS source code and binaries.[2]
Development[edit]
ZETA was an effort to bring BeOS up to date, adding support for newer hardware, and features that had been introduced in other operating systems in the years since Be Incorporated ceased development in 2001. Among the new features were USB 2.0 support, SATA support, samba support, a new media player, and enhanced localization of system components. Unlike Haiku and other open source efforts to recreate some or all of BeOS's functionality from scratch, ZETA was based on the actual BeOS code base, and it is closed source.
ZETA contributed to an increase in activity in the BeOS commercial software market, with a number of new products for both ZETA and the earlier BeOS being released.
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However, some critics point to a list of goals for the first release that do not appear to have been met (including Java 1.4.2 and ODBC support). Other reviewers point to bugs that still exist from BeOS, and question whether yellowTAB has the complete access to the source code they would need to make significant updates. https://torrentpenny.mystrikingly.com/blog/the-most-exciting-music-box-ever-mac-os.
Some changes that were made could break compilation of code, and in some cases (most notably Mozilla), break the actual application if any code optimizations are applied, resulting in much slower builds.[3]
YellowTAB promoted ZETA mainly in the German market, where it used to be sold through infomercials and on RTL Shop, and in Japan still being a beta version. Prior to Magnussoft stopping the distribution of ZETA, it was mainly distributed directly by magnussoft.
Versions[edit]
| Zeta version | Release date | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Release Candidates RC1-RC4 | October 15, 2004 | The operating system ZETA was published before the appearance of the final version 1,0 as Release Candidates (RC). The release began with RC1, and the following RC2 showed clear development progress since BeOS R5 was on the market.Among other things new hardware was supported, as well as USB devices. Starting from June 9, 2004 the third release Candidate of the system was available. Save the prince mac os. On 15 October 2004 the fourth release candidate appeared under the name Neo. This brought among other things a better hardware support by more drivers and a new Media Player. |
| Zeta 1.0 | June 24, 2005 | ZETA 1.0 became the final version of the operating system and presented at CeBIT (10. - 16. March 2005 in Hanover). ZETA has, like Windows XP, for the first time, a product activation. One gets a registration key by post and must afterwards enter these and the CD serial number in a window under ZETA, so that one may use it further. https://2019realdepositwxbcodesbonusslotslv.peatix.com. Starting from 24 June ZETA 1.0 was in the distribution; on the company-owned Website the spreading of the version 1.0 was officially confirmed on 1 July 2005. |
| Zeta 1.1 | October 17, 2005 | On 17 October 2005 a substantial update was released, bumping the version number to 1.1. With this new version it is possible to boot ZETA from a USB drive as well as a normal hard drive install. This release of ZETA also supports dual core processors. |
| Zeta 1.2 | April 22, 2006 | Briefly after the publication of the insolvency request from April 2006, the manufacturer released version 1.2. On 22 April, RTL Shop became a selling partner. This version brings some innovations, such as full SATA support and a Yahoo! Messenger is available. |
| Zeta 1.21 | Based on the product information from magnussoft, ZETA 1.21 a minor upgrade to ZETA 1.2. This is also the first version of the product to be labeled 'magnussoft ZETA' and to be sold by magnussoft. This version included the MakeMe IDE[4] Since September 7, 2006, magnussoft is taking pre-orders of ZETA 1.21[permanent dead link] https://coolyfiles613.weebly.com/a-companion-mac-os.html. ; on September 25, 2006 a downloadable Live CD of ZETA 1.21 was released. Existing ZETA users are able to upgrade by ordering an upgrade CD for 10 euros. It is not known whether magnussoft will provide updates to 1.21 via software download. According to an interview with Rene Weinert of magnussoft, magnussoft owns only the rights to sell ZETA, and development is being done by an independent developing team which includes Mr. Bernd Korz (the former CEO of the now bankrupt yellowTAB). This confirms that, contrary to the widespread belief, prior to this interview, ZETA is not being developed by magnussoft, but by an independent development team, of which little is known so far. | |
| Zeta 1.5 | February 28, 2007 | The version includedSamba-Client / WilmaCon, AudioTagger, PeopleEditor, multi-user support, Intel Extreme x9xx support and other drivers and fixes. It was announced an upgrade to R1.21 only, and began shipping February 28, 2007. On April 5, 2007 distribution was discontinued. |
Criticism[edit]
ZETA and yellowTAB have been surrounded by controversy. Critics of yellowTAB questioned for a long time the legality of ZETA, and whether yellowTAB had legal access to the sources of BeOS;[5][6] it is now known that yellowTAB could not have developed ZETA to the extent that they did without access to the source code, but doubts remain as to whether yellowTAB actually had legal access to the code or not.
Furthermore, critics did not see ZETA as real advancement of BeOS, but rather as an unfinished and buggy operating system loaded with third party applications that were either obsolete, unsupported, or non-functional. https://heretfiles560.weebly.com/lone-troopers-mac-os.html. This was particularly true in the initial releases of ZETA, and it was in clear conflict with the attention to detail that BeOS used to stand for, disappointing the BeOS community who at one point had high expectations for ZETA. While yellowTAB did clean up the selection of bundled applications in following versions, ZETA remains somewhat unstable when compared to other modern desktop operating systems.
But perhaps the most criticized practice by yellowTAB was its tendency to make claims that turned out to be either half truths or vague enough that they could not be confirmed. Not only did yellowTAB announce certain developments that never materialized (such as Java, and ODBC among others), but it would also support certain capabilities beyond what ZETA was actually capable of (e.g., compatibility with MS Office). According to sources close to yellowTAB, this is believed to have led to a high return rate from customers that bought ZETA from the German RTL TV shopping channel, and the reason for which RTL eventually stopped selling the product.
There was some criticism within the greater BeOS community regarding the lack of a 'personal' edition of Zeta. This is a somewhat controversial standpoint, given the history of BeOS and Be Inc. Throughout the life of the Intel version of BeOS, Be Inc regularly created and distributed BeOS demo discs on CD. The discs were somewhat crippled and would not mount a BFS partition nor would they install to a physical hard drive. They served as a test for hardware support and a taster for the Operating System. Zeta was offered in a similar way – demo discs with similar limitations were made available. Unfortunately, many in the BeOS community, especially those who came to BeOS post the demise of Be Inc, tended to have an issue with the 'crippled' demo discs. The controversy is as follows: the final commercial release of BeOS, Revision 5, included a freely distributable 'virtual' BeOS installation. The installer created a virtual BeOS image in a file on the host OS, and the computer could then boot into BeOS using a boot disk or via the installation of Bootman (the native BeOS boot manager.) Be Inc intended this release to be a taster and to draw users into buying the Professional edition, which was fully installable to a physical hard drive partition. Unfortunately, many users discovered that it was a trivial task to install the personal version to a real partition, and so Be Inc ultimately lost much of the sales potential for the product. Both YellowTab and Magnussoft learnt from this, and therefore did not offer a version of Zeta that could be installed without purchasing a license.
German language – the Zeta initial builds and much of the packaging was geared towards a German-speaking audience. This was reduced in later versions, but the first few BETA releases and release candidates had many oddities where Zeta would fall back to German, no matter what locale was set.
Version 1.0 of Zeta included a badly thought out activation component, which requires a code to be entered and authenticated via a remote server before the nag screen will stop and full functionality is restored. The nag is fairly easily circumvented by replacing the executable called with a stub executable, but the activation was incredibly poorly executed and often failed. The activation was removed by the 1.21 release.
Zeta had no legal rights to distribute the BeOS software, much less open source any of it, as the rumours had it.
[.]
The main reason that there hasn't been a public statement previously is that dealing with this matter legally, in Germany, is an expensive undertaking and--given the apparently small amount of funding behind Zeta in its various incarnations--we'd only be in a position to spend significant money and legal time to make a point.
[.]
We have sent 'cease and desist' letters to YellowTab on a number of occasions, which have been uniformly ignored. If Herr Korz [Bernd Korz, Former CEO of yellowTAB] feels that he holds a legitimate license to the BeOS code he's been using, we're completely unaware of it, and I'd be fascinated to see him produce any substantiation for that claim.
Cease of distribution[edit]
A cease of distribution letter was posted by Magnussoft on 5 April 2007.[2]
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- ^ZETA-os.com: Continuity of magnussoft ZetaArchived 2007-10-30 at the Wayback Machine, March 26, 2007
- ^ abZETA-OS.com: Magnussoft cease distribution of ZetaArchived 2007-10-07 at the Wayback Machine, April 5, 2007
- ^'Is O3 too much? or where is Zeta users feedback?'.
- ^Staff, OSNews. 'Tutorial: ZETA's MakeMe'.
- ^Staff, OSNews. 'YellowTAB Zeta RC1 Review at ZetaNews > Comments'.
- ^'Bits of News – Zeta Officially a Dead Fish'. Archived from the original on 2007-05-06. Retrieved 2007-04-04.
- ^Staff, OSNews. 'Access 'Completely Unaware' of Legitimate Zeta License'.
External links[edit]
- ZETA 1.5 Review – Reviewed by Thom Holwerda for OSNews
Some of the old classics are still true
Apple's adverts for its iOS devices represent an amusing twist on the platform battles of old. There's an app for that™. For once, Apple has the upper hand when it comes to application counts: the App Store is the world leader when it comes to sheer number of applications.
When it comes to conventional computers, however, the winner remains Windows. Especially in areas like office/productivity software and gaming, Windows is the standard by which all others are measured. It tends to win for hardware support, too—Windows has more options, more industry support.
Application count isn't the be-all and end-all, of course. Having 20,000 applications hasn't done much to help Windows Mobile. And Mac users have long argued that the number of applications doesn't much matter, as long as the applications are all good, which is true, to a point (though curiously, they seem to be less willing to make that argument when talking about phone software).
But sometimes having one good application isn't enough. Games, for example, are nonfungible (at least to some degree): the fact that Mac OS X has Portal is of no relevance to me when I want to play Borderlands. Portal is a perfectly good game, don't get me wrong. It just doesn't scratch the same itch as Borderlands.
You get a similar thing with productivity software, too. Sometimes, I actually need to open an Office document and have it work exactly as it does in, well, Office. iWork can't do that for me. Nor even can Microsoft's own Office for Mac (though things should be better in the 2011 version that's going to be out any day now). There's a whole wide world of software out there, and compatibility with that software counts for a lot. Some might argue that running Windows in a virtual machine is an adequate alternative, but if I'm going to do that, well, I might as well just cut out the middle man and run Windows directly. At least that way I only have one system to maintain and one user interface paradigm to put up with.
The Zeta Orbital (itch) Mac Os Update
The cult of personality
If Apple hadn't bought NeXT in 1996 and returned Steve Jobs to the position of CEO in 1997, it's likely that the company wouldn't exist any longer. And even if it did exist, it wouldn't be the powerhouse it is today.
But the downside to this is that Steve runs Apple as if it were his own personal fiefdom. And the bad things about the platform—many of them are due to Steve.
AdvertisementThe focus has been on iOS devices because iOS devices are what Jobs wants—indeed, it looks like Steve never really wanted a computer, he just wanted a gadget. A tablet, a phone, both locked down, heavily restricted, with all their content bought through Apple's channels. Appliances.
The secrecy? Steve likes to do his thing on stage, and he can't do that as well if we know what he's going to say.
The Zeta Orbital (itch) Mac Os Catalina
Stiffing developers? Steve feels slighted by Adobe because Flash doesn't run as well as it probably should, so he is willing to shaft them, with new developer agreements, and abandoned APIs. And it really doesn't matter to him who gets caught in the crossfire.
This isn't a new thing, either. Back in 2000, ATI accidentally let slip the specifications of some new Macs before Steve announced them. Steve retaliated by removing all mention of ATI from his presentation, including cancelling a demo portion where an ATI executive was due to join him on-stage. That may have been a little childish, perhaps, but didn't hurt Mac users. What did hurt them was the alleged removal of ATI build-to-order options. More powerful video cards were, apparently, denied to Mac users just because Steve was ticked at ATI.
Entrusting your computing platform to this company—this man—is a scary prospect. It's just not clear that the needs of computer users are really aligned with what Steve wants, and it's the computer users who lose out. If you want a platform that strives to meet the needs of all its users, rather than just the whims of one man, you're never going to get it from Apple. That's Microsoft territory.
There's more than enough suckage to go around
Apple and Microsoft are very different companies. I'm consistently dissatisfied with both the Windows platform and the Mac OS X platform—but the reasons are very different. The Windows problems are frustrations at a platform that's showing its age, and has grown just a bit too organically: it feels a little bit lost, and lacking in direction. The Mac OS X problems are frustrations at a platform that's an out-of-favor plaything.
These two sets of problems are a reflection of the companies behind the platforms. On the one hand, we have Microsoft: a company that clearly cares about the desktop and regards it as a priority. It fosters strong developer relationships, thanks to a kind of openness about what it's doing, and a conservative approach to development that eschews major changes and deprecation. The company is loathe to ever remove a feature, lest it break something that people depend on. But it lacks a coherent, unified, overall vision. The rampant inconsistency, the refusal to ever tidy things up, the reluctance to acknowledge that the old ways aren't necessarily good ways and the consequent failure to make things better all conspire to make Windows so much less satisfactory than it could be.
AdvertisementOn the other hand, we have Apple: a company that cares about what Steve Jobs wants. His autocratic style has certainly led to a more consistent, more forward-looking platform than Microsoft has. He's willing to alienate customers and cut them loose if their needs don't align with his, which has allowed him over a relatively short timeframe to push through some fairly radical changes: the switch to Mac OS X and the switch to Intel, all inside a decade. It has led to some impressive and transformative changes.
But this dictatorial style too has its downsides: there are people who don't fit into one of Apple's niches. There are people who have been burned by the company's lack of transparency and its willingness to drop features at a moment's notice. If Apple wants gadgets to be the priority, Mac OS X users will suffer, as they have suffered in the past, from a lack of upgrades and development.
Both platforms would be improved if they were more like the other. Windows would benefit enormously from Mac OS X's tighter focus. Providing an enjoyable experience, freed from the ugliness of inconsistency, would only be a good thing. It needs to do more to delight consumers. That's not to say enterprises are unimportant, but even business users are human beings, and deserve to be treated as such. There should be a greater willingness to consign things to history; virtualization, like Classic mode in early versions of Mac OS X or Windows 7's Windows XP Mode, is almost certainly the way forward, as it allows systemwide improvements to be made without cutting off that all-important legacy.
Mac OS X: well, it'd be a nice start if Apple would act in a manner that convincingly demonstrated the platform to be a priority. It should worry Apple that its third-party developers make jokes like this: it's a joke that belies both frustration and concern about the health of the platform. Keep Steve's ego in check: his personal dislike for Adobe shouldn't translate into aggressively hostile changes to developer agreements, or the cancellation of features that have already been promised, developed, and depended on by third parties. Cut back on the secrecy and NDAs a little—this might make the presentations a little less exciting, but the platform is strong enough that it'll cope.
The glory days of platform contention may be behind us. The operating system and hardware diversity that was a feature of the 1980s and 1990s is gone. The limited system resources that caused many of the engineering trade-offs made in Mac OS and Windows 9x are ancient history, and with their passing, modern operating systems are all, on a technical level, much of a muchness.
But that doesn't mean that the platform differences have disappeared. They might not be so immediately obvious as they once were, but they're still there, all products of the corporate cultures behind the two platforms. And the result is that both platforms, both Windows and Mac OS X, they both—each in their own special way—suck.
Long may it continue.
Lion tamer image courtesy of Shutterstock, used for editorial purposes only.
