Find information about host IP address? Is there anyway to ping a computer's IP and find out some basic information about it? Platform, OS, etc...

If so, how would that be done?
Using nmap from MacPorts you can run the following command to attempt to identify the OS of a remote machine:

sudo nmap ipaddress -O

e.g.:

$ sudo nmap localhost -O

Starting Nmap 5.51 ( http://nmap.org ) at 2011-08-07 17:58 CEST
Nmap scan report for localhost (127.0.0.1)
Host is up (0.000085s latency).
Not shown: 989 closed ports
PORT     STATE SERVICE
22/tcp   open  ssh
80/tcp   open  http
88/tcp   open  kerberos-sec
139/tcp  open  netbios-ssn
445/tcp  open  microsoft-ds
515/tcp  open  printer
631/tcp  open  ipp
3689/tcp open  rendezvous
5900/tcp open  vnc
8888/tcp open  sun-answerbook
9091/tcp open  xmltec-xmlmail
Device type: general purpose
Running: Apple Mac OS X 10.5.X|10.6.X
OS details: Apple Mac OS X 10.5 - 10.6.3 (Leopard - Snow Leopard) (Darwin 9.0.0 - 10.3.0)
Network Distance: 0 hops

OS detection performed. Please report any incorrect results at http://nmap.org/submit/ .
Nmap done: 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 8.80 seconds]