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Half an operating system: The triumph and tragedy of OS/2

arstechnica.com

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Re: Half an operating system: The triumph and tragedy of OS/2

#31

Post by tomfakes »

waterlesscloud wrote: post #25
sehugg wrote: post #19

OS/2 had many flaws but its multitasking was unseen on a PC at the time. I remember formatting a floppy while running two 16-bit Windows sessions (which were communicating with each other) and multiple DOS windows, thinking I was in the future. Even Windows 95 was limited by many system calls being funneled through single threaded BIOS or DOS 16-bit land.

I remember installing it from the 15 billion floppies it came on and thinking much the same thing. It seems like it was on 5-1/4" disks. Can that be right? And REXX! Ha. REXX.

3 1/2"

The IBM PS/2 only came with the smaller disk, so bigger wasn't necessary

Re: Half an operating system: The triumph and tragedy of OS/2

#32

Post by npsimons »

melling wrote: post #6

If anyone wants an insider's view, here's a Usenet post from one of the early Microsoft employees, Gordon Letwin: http://gunkies.org/wiki/Gordon_Letwin_OS/2_usenet_post Somewhere in the Usenet archive is Gordon trolling the OS/2 users for weeks (or months?) on end. I can't remember the exact details, but he had a bet with several people that Windows would have multitasking, or that OS/2 wouldn't have some sort of mul…

So, did Letwin ever pay up?

Re: Half an operating system: The triumph and tragedy of OS/2

#33

Post by sliverstorm »

kenjackson wrote: post #29
sehugg wrote: post #19

OS/2 had many flaws but its multitasking was unseen on a PC at the time. I remember formatting a floppy while running two 16-bit Windows sessions (which were communicating with each other) and multiple DOS windows, thinking I was in the future. Even Windows 95 was limited by many system calls being funneled through single threaded BIOS or DOS 16-bit land.

Couldn't the Amiga already do all that multitasking on a 256KB machine, years before?

He said for a PC, i.e. an IBM PC clone.

Re: Half an operating system: The triumph and tragedy of OS/2

#34

Post by sliverstorm »

adamnemecek wrote: post #17
twoodfin wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Letwin was also the guy for OS/2 on the Microsoft side while the alliance lasted. His Inside OS/2 is a detailed account of trying to squeeze a real multitasking, protected memory OS into a '286: http://www.amazon.com/Inside-OS-2-Gordon-Letwin/dp/155615117... The cover photo is also classic.

The photo should be in a National Geographic captioned "A Unix beard in his natural habitat".

In its natural habitat. A Unix beard is genderless; it merely seems to exhibit a preference for male hosts.

Re: Half an operating system: The triumph and tragedy of OS/2

#35

Post by yuhong »

smacktoward wrote: post #16
lbarrow wrote: post #4

Great read. In the end, it seems like a classic failure to resolve the innovator's dilemma. IBM decided that the future of computing would revolve around mainframes because they liked mainframes , not because that's where the facts led them. And ultimately they paid the price for it.

I think it's a bit more complicated than that. Put yourself in the shoes of someone who'd grown up on mainframes. The systems you're used to are fabulously expensive, sure, but their operating systems have sophisticated architectures that allow them to easily juggle multiple users running multiple programs while maintaining the security of the system overall. They are the completest expression ever realized of forty…

This reminds me of MS's PX00307 that I found and linked in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3441885 with my comments pointing out the flaws in the thinking.

Re: Half an operating system: The triumph and tragedy of OS/2

#36

Post by steven2012 »

I actually bought a copy of OS/2 Warp when it came out because I was interested in its preemptive multi-tasking, and it was a decent operating system for what it's worth. I was definitely more stable than Window 3.11, but its real problem was compatibility. Back in the early 90s, everything was about getting compatibility, and while OS/2 had good compatibility, didn't have perfect compatibility.

As well, I worked at a bank, and as the article correctly stated, the entire bank was run on OS/2, most notably the ATMs, except the ATMs I worked with was using OS/2 2.0.

However, when Windows NT 3.51 came out, that was the game changer. I was the only person I knew who even knew what it was (I read about it in a magazine at the time), and I was able to get a student-priced copy at my college bookstore. I started using it, and it was awesome, everything just worked, except for some games. You couldn't even compare NT 3.51 to OS/2, it wasn't even in the same level. The look and feel of NT was exactly the same as Windows 3.11, and all the programs worked.

Re: Half an operating system: The triumph and tragedy of OS/2

#37

Post by smacktoward »

dhughes wrote: post #22
damian2000 wrote: post #2

Incredible that companies like Apple (Mac), Atari (ST) and Commodore (Amiga) weren't able to fully capitalise on their leading position in GUI based OSes of the time, which were miles ahead of both MS and IBM.

One reason: stigma. All I recall from childhood/teen years is "IBM compatible PC" a mantra on every TV commercial IBM or others produced. A PC was for business and you were rich or a fool to spend thousands on something so useless to a regular Joe. Apple was even more expensive and even less common than a PC and even so Apple was quirky and drew pictures, ATARI and Commodore were for games. They were in totally diffe…

I dunno about that. At least where I grew up, if your family had a Mac or an Amiga, it was like you had domesticated a unicorn. Everybody wanted to see it, play with it. It marked you out as a member of a family possessed of either great sophistication or enormous wealth, either of which translates easily to status.

If there was any stigma, it was for being on the opposite end of the spectrum -- having a computer whose primary selling point was that it was cheap, like a Commodore 64. The C64 was a fine machine for the price, but nobody was going to ooooh and aaah over it they way they would if you took them into your Dad's study and showed them MacPaint.

Re: Half an operating system: The triumph and tragedy of OS/2

#38

Post by laureny »

nl wrote: post #13
damian2000 wrote: post #2

Incredible that companies like Apple (Mac), Atari (ST) and Commodore (Amiga) weren't able to fully capitalise on their leading position in GUI based OSes of the time, which were miles ahead of both MS and IBM.

Those of us around then know exactly why this was: PC Clones were too cheap and got better too quickly for other platforms to compete. Back then we all thought "computers" was a hardware game. Only Microsoft realised the hardware didn't matter, software was the main game. And yes, I realise we have swung back to the "integrated hardware/software platform" thing being important again. Picking winning strategies in pla…

> Only Microsoft realised the hardware didn't matter, software was the main game.

Yes. This was one of Bill Gates' many strokes of genius. After just one year of Traf'o'Data (Microsoft's precursor), Gates saw that the future was in software, not hardware, and he created Microsoft centered around this very vision (while Apple bet the farm on hardware).

Re: Half an operating system: The triumph and tragedy of OS/2

#39

Post by yuhong »

The sad thing is that I have never seen an article on the entire MS OS/2 2.0 fiasco that is what I call complete and detailed and many omitting for example the unethical attacks MS did against OS/2 such as "Microsoft Munchkins". I try with my own blog article, but I admit it is not very good either.

Re: Half an operating system: The triumph and tragedy of OS/2

#40

Post by yuhong »

sehugg wrote: post #19

OS/2 had many flaws but its multitasking was unseen on a PC at the time. I remember formatting a floppy while running two 16-bit Windows sessions (which were communicating with each other) and multiple DOS windows, thinking I was in the future. Even Windows 95 was limited by many system calls being funneled through single threaded BIOS or DOS 16-bit land.

For me, the worst thing is that Caldera was able to continue suing MS due to this Win9x dependency on DOS.
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