What a dog OS/2 was

I remember OS/2, and I remember it well. I remembered loading it into my 386 computer with just 8 Megs of RAM, and how it multitasked like a fish swims. How MS blasted it for having a little 16 bit code in it, only to deliver its first 32 bit consumer OS with so much 16 bit code in it I am not sure it justified being called a 32 bit OS, not to mention the fact that it booted up on top of DOS!

On a technological base OS/2 had MS beat hands down. MS first response Windows NT was DOA when it showed up. It required by those days standards huge amounts of RAM and drive space, way too expensive for the average person to afford, and its support for legacy applications was abysmal, and as a gaming platform it was all but useless. Next came 95, it was far from being a true 32 OS, but it had good legacy support and most games worked, and the sun set on OS/2.

The sad part is MS didn't kill OS/2 by delivering a better OS; they did it by delivering 95 along with the native software it needed to succeed, Office 95. IBM had is chance to provide OS/2 with the native software it needed to succeed, and I though they were going to do it after they bought Lotus, and WordPerfect became available, but they passed on what was a golden opportunity. I am sure that Lotus 123 and WordPerfect sold, as a package would have unstoppable, especially if they had gone out a bought Borland so they could have added Dbase to the package, but sadly IBM didn't do this.

In retrospect I am more sure today than ever if I had been at the helm of IBM during those years IBM was trying to break MS's hold on the OS they would have succeeded. I would have bought Lotus, WordPerfect, and Borland. I would have hired artists to make OS/2 more aesthetically pleasing, and I would have made sure all the pieces were in place for OS/2 to succeed.

At this point I think the best thing IBM could do is give OS/2 to the open source community, but I don't think that is going to happen, at least any time soon, because OS/2 lives, and not only does it live IBM has a 2003 OS/2 strategy. Didn't expect that did you? MS may have mortally wounded it, and eliminated it from the desktop, but it's still alive limping along as a server OS.

PS: I still have my copy of OS/2 3.0 around, and one of the things I have been wanting to do lately is load it up on a modern computer, I bet it really flies.

Name supplied

i Mike! Just reading the "What a dog OS/2 was" letter and have a few comments of my own :

OS/2 also was/is a mix of 16 and 32-bit code, the schedular for instance was 16-bit, the device drivers and yes the HPFS filesystem. The schedular is today 32-bit because IBM rewrote most of the kernel a few years back and released it with the Warp Server for e-business 4.5 in 1999.

The new 32-bit kernel was also added to the vclient version of OS/2 via a fixpack - no reason for throwing a fantazillion dollars into introducing a brand new and revolutionary OS/2 2000, no it was performed swiftly and with style through a fixpack! Funny in spite if it having a 16-bit kernel, it gained even more performance than Windows NT (Pure 32-bit) when the Pentium Pro arrived - which was quite odd (PPro had a small 16-bit integer problem).

IMO Microsoft didn't kill anything, IBM did the dirty work - they hadn't realised that SOHO users got other demands than business users - didn't always run it on IBM PC's - used more or less exotic hardware. Until IBM forfitted the game, OS/2 Warp had the advantage. The ironi of it all is that OS/2 was made as a replacement for the MS-DOS, that in 1984 was regarded as obsolete by both IBM and Microsoft and yet the Microsoft Windows 95 DOS extender "won" the socalled battle.

Well IBM actually did buy Lotus (Am these days totally absorbing Lotus and most likely the Lotus brand will vanish), they paid Borland to develop the Borland C++ for OS/2 and so on.

OS/2 Warp 3.0 flies on a modern PC, so does OS/2 Warp 4.0, 4.51 and 4.52 and the wonderfull eComStation from Serenity Systems, that is based on the OS/2 4.52 (Merlin Convenience Pak) - that many of us use instead today and the hardware support has never been better :o)

Live long and prosper...

Name supplied

Stating the obvious
Site offers support for busted flash BIOSes

umm this is supposed to be a news site not a big advert

i understand you need adverts to live but you have enough splattered around the page allready without takeing payments for crap like this

bad flash sites have been out for years its hardly news

geez

Shonk

[Shonk is now banned from reading our Web site. Ed.]

Stating the obvious II
Intel endorses Apple Macintosh software

Hi,

I'd just like to point out that the annual report in question was probably not created in Intel. Most likely it was done by an external print design firm, which for the most part use Macs.

Still, you may already know that, but it is somewhat frivolous reporting.

Regards,

Kevin

Stating the obvious III

Regarding this article:

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=10287

Did you EVER think of the possibility that the reason it was produced on a Mac in the first place was because Intel's advertising/PR/design agency produced the financial report?

In that case, it would be logical to conclude the agency used a Mac to layout the document for print since most of the publishing/print/design/etc world uses them.

Steven Dixon

[The answer is yes. You're barred from reading the INQUIRER too. Reason? We don't have to give one. Ed.]

Stating the obvious IIII

Boy, you made a major assumption, and prove the definition of "assume" When you assume something, you make an ass out of you and me!

Your screenshot of the properties sheet for the Intel report PROVES NOTHING. All it proves is that one document was prepared on a Power Mac, but does not in, and of itself prove that the Power Mac belonged to Intel. In fact, it is highly probable that the Power Mac in question belonged to an outside agency. The vast majority of corporate reports for the Fortune 500 are prepared by professional printing and press firms. They are not done internally. You ought to have known this.

So, give your head a shake! Your assertions in your brief article are baseless, and cannot be proved. It shows a lack of intellectual rigour that you would have posted that drivel at all.

Kai Vuorinen
Remote Systems Administrator
McKesson Medical Imaging Group