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OS/2 is not dead yet and would like to go for a walk
Posted: Sat Feb 23, 2013 11:51 am
by Captain Ned
http://os2news.warpstock.org/Never thought I'd see so much active development for a dead (and obscure) OS.
H/T
Ace of Spades
Re: OS/2 is not dead yet and would like to go for a walk
Posted: Sat Feb 23, 2013 12:09 pm
by Ryu Connor
Re: OS/2 is not dead yet and would like to go for a walk
Posted: Sat Feb 23, 2013 12:11 pm
by just brew it!
Wow, that's a blast from the past!
Anyone else remember the
OS/2 Warp TV ads?
I guess it falls into the category of "what you run if desktop BSD isn't obscure enough for you".
Re: OS/2 is not dead yet and would like to go for a walk
Posted: Sat Feb 23, 2013 12:18 pm
by Deanjo
Captain Ned wrote:http://os2news.warpstock.org/
Never thought I'd see so much active development for a dead (and obscure) OS.
H/T
Ace of Spades
I know it is scary but I did a switchover at one of the banks here just last year from OS/2 to linux.
Re: OS/2 is not dead yet and would like to go for a walk
Posted: Sat Feb 23, 2013 12:19 pm
by Voldenuit
I used to run OS/2 (pre-Warp). It was much more powerful and stable than Windows was at the time.
Unfortunately, the lack of native software development and 3rd party adoption killed it. Paradoxically, its compatibility with Windows programs probably contributed to the lack of native development, although I don't see things happening differently if they hadn't included that feature, as IBM was just unable (or unwilling) to promote and grow the userbase.
Glad to see it's still around and kicking in its new guise.
Re: OS/2 is not dead yet and would like to go for a walk
Posted: Sat Feb 23, 2013 12:24 pm
by Captain Ned
Deanjo wrote:I know it is scary but I did a switchover at one of the banks here just last year from OS/2 to linux.
Still have 2 banks with old touch-tone telephone banking systems running OS/2. They just keep working and they don't dare touch them for fear of screwing things up. OS/2 was also the original OS of choice for on-line off-site ATMs.
Re: OS/2 is not dead yet and would like to go for a walk
Posted: Sat Feb 23, 2013 12:36 pm
by just brew it!
Voldenuit wrote:I used to run OS/2 (pre-Warp). It was much more powerful and stable than Windows was at the time.
Given that "pre-Warp" would've put you sometime before the release of Windows 95, "more powerful and stable than Windows" would've been a rather low bar!
If Microsoft had continued developing OS/2 instead of selling the rights to IBM maybe we wouldn't have been forced to live through the lost decade of "Windows on DOS".
Re: OS/2 is not dead yet and would like to go for a walk
Posted: Sat Feb 23, 2013 12:43 pm
by The Swamp
I didn't find that Windows 3.1 was unstable. Not nearly as unstable as the 9x kernel. It was only at the very end of life for Windows 95 that it became somewhat stable. Windows 98 was okay for a while as long as it was a fresh install, but it became crudded up over time and became very slow and buggy. I eventually switched to Windows 2000, which was very stable and flexible.
Re: OS/2 is not dead yet and would like to go for a walk
Posted: Sat Feb 23, 2013 1:27 pm
by Voldenuit
just brew it! wrote:Voldenuit wrote:I used to run OS/2 (pre-Warp). It was much more powerful and stable than Windows was at the time.
Given that "pre-Warp" would've put you sometime before the release of Windows 95, "more powerful and stable than Windows" would've been a rather low bar!
Haha, true. Although I remember that when I "upgraded" to Win95, it still felt like a downgrade coming from OS/2.
What finally tipped me over back into Windos was the lack of native games and the headaches trying to get DOS/Windows games working with OS/2.
Re: OS/2 is not dead yet and would like to go for a walk
Posted: Sat Feb 23, 2013 1:44 pm
by yuhong
Re: OS/2 is not dead yet and would like to go for a walk
Posted: Sat Feb 23, 2013 1:49 pm
by just brew it!
Voldenuit wrote:just brew it! wrote:Voldenuit wrote:I used to run OS/2 (pre-Warp). It was much more powerful and stable than Windows was at the time.
Given that "pre-Warp" would've put you sometime before the release of Windows 95, "more powerful and stable than Windows" would've been a rather low bar!
Haha, true. Although I remember that when I "upgraded" to Win95, it still felt like a downgrade coming from OS/2.
What finally tipped me over back into Windos was the lack of native games and the headaches trying to get DOS/Windows games working with OS/2.
Yeah, Win95/98/ME were still based on old tech; it really took the NT kernel to turn Windows into a real OS. Back in the Win98 days I had two systems -- one running NT 4 that I used for most things, and a Win98 system I used for gaming and accessing USB peripherals (since NT 4 did not have USB support). NT 4 with Service Pack 6a (yes they released a lot of service packs for that one) was a very solid -- albeit limited capability-wise compared to Win2K/XP -- OS.
Re: OS/2 is not dead yet and would like to go for a walk
Posted: Mon Feb 25, 2013 4:55 pm
by Scrotos
just brew it! wrote:Wow, that's a blast from the past!
Anyone else remember the
OS/2 Warp TV ads?
I guess it falls into the category of "what you run if desktop BSD isn't obscure enough for you".
I think QNX would probably win out on that category. I'm thinking actual commercially-produced OSs, not random projects like ReactOS or whatnot.
Or, god help you, DesqView/X!
Re: OS/2 is not dead yet and would like to go for a walk
Posted: Mon Feb 25, 2013 5:11 pm
by Flatland_Spider
BeOS R5, Amiga, or SkyOS.
Re: OS/2 is not dead yet and would like to go for a walk
Posted: Mon Feb 25, 2013 5:18 pm
by ludi
just brew it! wrote:Back in the Win98 days I had two systems -- one running NT 4 that I used for most things, and a Win98 system I used for gaming and accessing USB peripherals (since NT 4 did not have USB support).
Interesting...I just stuck with dual-booting, and continued to do so through Win2k. NT4's drive-size limits were a bit of a pain to work around, IIRC, especially since I didn't have a slipstreamed Sp4 disc.
Re: OS/2 is not dead yet and would like to go for a walk
Posted: Mon Feb 25, 2013 5:22 pm
by elmopuddy
I used to run NT 4 on my trusty BP6 (95/98 didn't support SMP).. I really loved NT4, and OpenGL games ran great!
Back in the day I worked for IBM at their internet call-centre.. OS/2 machines.., I can't say I miss them much
Re: OS/2 is not dead yet and would like to go for a walk
Posted: Mon Feb 25, 2013 6:44 pm
by bthylafh
I played with OS/2 3.0 on a 486 for a time but was unimpressed with its driver support and its stability. I really wanted to like it too, partly because it was in the days of Microsoft's monopolistic practices coming to light.
More recently I obtained (yarr) Convenience Pack 2 of OS/2 4.52 & got it to run in Virtual PC. It'd improved a lot (such as not having every install medium being a gorram floppy, and defaulting to HPFS and long filenames) but not enough for me to keep it as anything but a curiosity, and IMO the UI is kind of weird.