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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

#41

Post by jonah »

steven2012 wrote: post #36

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…

My computer had 8mb RAM at the time and NT required 16 to install so I "borrowed" another 8 from one of the school computers, installed NT and then returned the memory. It ran well enough on 8.

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

#42

Post by steven2012 »

jonah wrote: post #41
steven2012 wrote: post #36

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…

My computer had 8mb RAM at the time and NT required 16 to install so I "borrowed" another 8 from one of the school computers, installed NT and then returned the memory. It ran well enough on 8.

I was lucky enough to have a 486DX-50 (not a DX2-66)with 16 MB of RAM, so it ran perfectly for me.

Even with what was bleeding edge hardware at the time, I still remember trying to finish writing my senior project using Corel Draw and Microsoft Word on Windows 3.11, and having my computer crash ever 30-45 mins, and my project partner eventually broke down and started crying because of how frustrating it was.

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

#43

Post by mixmastamyk »

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…

The same thing happened with digital cameras. I remember hearing people scoff at them and thinking "wait and see, folks."

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

#44

Post by jonah »

steven2012 wrote: post #42
jonah wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My computer had 8mb RAM at the time and NT required 16 to install so I "borrowed" another 8 from one of the school computers, installed NT and then returned the memory. It ran well enough on 8.

I was lucky enough to have a 486DX-50 (not a DX2-66)with 16 MB of RAM, so it ran perfectly for me. Even with what was bleeding edge hardware at the time, I still remember trying to finish writing my senior project using Corel Draw and Microsoft Word on Windows 3.11, and having my computer crash ever 30-45 mins, and my project partner eventually broke down and started crying because of how frustrating it was.

Yeah, mine was a Pentium 90! (I decided to scrimp on RAM and get the 90 in stead of the 66.) It was a huge jump from the 286 I had before. (Upgrading memory meant socketing rows of individual DIPs.)

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

#45

Post by wglb »

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.

No there were some unix-like systems running at that time, three or four years before OS/2.

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

#46

Post by mbennett »

>Finally, and most importantly for the future of the company, Bill Gates hired the architect of the industrial-strength minicomputer operating system VMS and put him in charge of the OS/2 3.0 NT group. Dave Cutler’s first directive was to throw away all the old OS/2 code and start from scratch. The company wanted to build a high-performance, fault-tolerant, platform-independent, and fully networkable operating system. It would be known as Windows NT.

A couple of decades later, Dave Cutler is still around at Microsoft and worked on the hypervisor for the Xbox One at the ripe young age of 71, allowing games to run seamlessly beside apps.

From http://www.theverge.com/2013/11/8/5075216/xbox-one-tv-micros...

>Underneath it all lies the magic — a system layer called the hypervisor that manages resources and keeps both platforms running optimally even as users bounce back and forth between games, apps, and TV.

>To build the hypervisor, Multerer recruited the heaviest hitter he could find: David Cutler, a legendary 71-year-old Microsoft senior technical fellow who wrote the VMS mainframe operating system in 1975 and then came to Microsoft and served as the chief architect of Windows NT.

>It appears his work bridging the two sides of the One has gone swimmingly: jumping between massively complex games like Forza Motorsport 5, TV, and apps like Skype and Internet Explorer was seamless when I got to play with a system in Redmond. Switching in and out of Forza was particularly impressive: the game instantly resumed, with no loading times at all. "It all just works for people," says Henshaw as he walks me through the demo. "They don’t have to think about what operating system is there."

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

#47

Post by megablast »

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?

I don't think the Amiga had real multi-tasking, from what I understand. I may be wrong.

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

#48

Post by protomyth »

megablast wrote: post #47
kenjackson wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I don't think the Amiga had real multi-tasking, from what I understand. I may be wrong.

It had real preemptive multitasking, but lacked memory protection.

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

#49

Post by quanticle »

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…

The funny thing is, replace PC with tablet, replace mainframe with PC, replace Windows with Android and your story still holds true.

History doesn't repeat itself. But it sure does rhyme.

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

#50

Post by protomyth »

I bought OS/2 for work to run on some DEC PC (not the damn Rainbow, the decent 486 DEC sold). The graphic card (S3) wasn't supported out of the box, so I called the IBM and got nowhere other than an acknowledgement it existed.

I called DEC and they too believed it existed, so they (while I was still on the line) called their contact at IBM. After being transferred twice, we arrived at the person who could mail me the driver, but I would have to sign an NDA. Myself and the DEC rep explained we didn't want source or a beta driver, just the release one. He insisted every customer had to sign. I said I'd think about it. After hanging up, the DEC rep couldn't stop laughing. He asked if I wanted a free copy of NT compliments of DEC. I took it and it had the correct driver.

I tried, but they had no chance.

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