Submitted by “In this anniversary, I’d like to shed some light about my first-hand experience with [OS/2], especially since I see many attempts at history re-writing and over-simplification, when people compress OS/2’s two decades into a single paragraph. An OS/2 user named Roger Perkins wrote to OS/2 newsgroups ten years ago: “Here’s to OS/2’s 10th Anniversary on April 2nd! No OS has ever died so many times!”
To that I say bollocks.
One word: Amiga
RISCOS
RISCOS didn’t die, it just faded into obscurity.
No OS has ever died so many times!
Does BSD count? It’s been dying for years now.
Okay, really, I was just kidding. In all reality though, it just goes to show that most software never truly dies, it just becomes a zombie sometimes. I just wish IBM could release the source.
I just wish IBM could release the source.
IBM does not own the source, big portions were written by Microsoft.
IBM does not own the source, big portions were written by Microsoft.
I doubt Microsoft owns any OS/2 source code nowadays.
The real answer is why should IBM pay huge amounts of money to clean up/verify the source code and release something that they fought hard to phase out?
I mean I like OS/2 and had Warp 4 Fix Pack 15 installed for a long long time, but I realize and acknowledge that IBM was never going to keep on supporting the OS for obvious reasons:
Competition from mainly Windows became too much to cope with since everyone wanted Windows for home use and nearly everyone wanted it for business, with the exception of some large banks and the likes, that couldn’t trust its security with Microsoft until the days of NT4/W2K.
Reason. If you can hardly sell your product, even when in some places it is arguably superior to the above mentioned competition, there’s not much to do for funding of a niche product like OS/2. Plus, the corporate changes within IBM focusing on providing services for ‘anyone’ that’d generate cash flow made OS/2 seem like a bad choice. Not in terms of technology, but in terms of the work needed to be done to support a declining user base.
History. IBM never had the same obvious problems with AIX and its past. It’s never been ‘in bed with the enemy’ and as such can live on an IBM life forever, I think.
…And there’s a bunch of other legitimate reasons for this butchering of a fine, fine OS…
But what puzzles me is why IBM would license OS/2 4.5 to Serenity Systems without handing over the code base as well… It seems that there’s some access, but it can’t be 100%, I’m sure…
Why not release it for serenity to take care of and then let Serenity figure out what would be needed to actually make this OS live in peace for years to come? I don’t get it… And I don’t necessarily think that open source is the answer, albeit I’d love to see bits and pieces emerging in new shapes and forms, like e.g. a modern implementation of the GUI, based on the original one, but with the updates required to make it a Gnome / KDE alternative
Apart from that, though, I’d really have to say that it’d be interesting to see what OS/2 might have turned into, should the Taligent OS have had any real life!
A toast to object oriented greatness!!!
‘OS/2 is dead!’
‘-Long live OS/2!’
I really don’t think that MS own much of the code, especially after the big rewrite of 1999.
They do own the HPFS licenses, but OS/2 is not really dependant on that filesystem anymore.
But as ronaldst argues, IBM has been using the last 12 years on killing OS/2 (I recall something about reading that the decision was taken i 1994, that is before the release of OS/2 Warp 3 (Enterprise), that quickly was drawn from the market, handing over the game to Windows95 (Chicago), before it was even released) – why should they spend the ressources on cleaning up the sourcecode.
But, on the other hand – if they really want to erace OS/2 from the face of the earth, why did they even consider signing the OEM licencing agreemant with SSI – giving us eCS ?
Is it just the famous IBM greed or is there still an ongoing struggle for/against OS/2 ?
I really don’t think that MS own much of the code, especially after the big rewrite of 1999.
Probably true. However…
They do own the HPFS licenses, but OS/2 is not really dependant on that filesystem anymore.
Given that OS/2 can’t boot from a JFS partition, I’m not sure I agree with your assessment.
“Given that OS/2 can’t boot from a JFS partition, I’m not sure I agree with your assessment. :-“
True. But eComstation can as of version 2.
The only other OS that immediately comes to mind in the “I refuse to die” department is AmigaOS. Hyperion just released version 4 and yet there’s been no new hardware produced for this OS since around 2001.
No other community has such a varied and warped following in my opinion either. It’s as if they’re a bunch of vultures fighting over the worthless remains of a already picked-over carcass. The bickering never ceases on Amiga.org or Amigaworld.net
I’m an Amiga fan from many years ago and I tend to just lurk on those sites because even the most benign postings will in many cases ignite a flamewar.
This article reminds me how much Microsoft have bought their way to dominance rather than fighting their way there through producing the ‘best’ software.
But then I guess that’s business for you.
First it is comical to read a story where IBM is the poor abused company. Read Big Blue – The Use and Abuse of Power if you want to know how MS learned at the knee of the master. But mostly it reminds me of what mess IBM was:
By then I realized that OS/2 faced an uphill battle, even internally. Big Blue’s own PC division was *notorious* for even refusing to install OS/2 – IBM’s own OS – at some point, much to the dismay of IBMers at the Boca Raton and later Austin TX software unit.
>>>
Please if your own company won’t install your OS you’ve got bigger problems than just the competition. If you don’t have someone visionary enough to give all your divisions a sold direction you are screwed. Regardless of what MS is doing. It happens to big companies – it is happening to MS now.
Oh by no means was IBM perfect, but at least OS/2 was an operating system – which is more than could be said for Windows 3 & 4.
OS/2 was an operating system that failed in the retail market because there were no good application and games for it. Besides, IBM was NEVER seriously wanted to have OS/2 succeed in the retail market.
Technically speaking, OS/2 was a success in the retail market, and it was actually the top selling retail software product for a couple of months.
The preload market killed it.
I know what you mean, but in OS terms the distinction is rather important. Voluntary OS/2 sales were quite good, but bundled product makes up the vast majority of the OS market.
Remember, IBM made the holocaust in Nazi Germany possible by providing the technology needed to do it. Without IBM’s help, the holocaust would not have been possible.
This article reminds me how much Microsoft have bought their way to dominance rather than fighting their way there through producing the ‘best’ software.
First, IBM and Microsoft collaborated on OS/2, and MS retained rights to the joint-developed source code. Second, MS didn’t “buy” Windows market share. OEMs fell all over themselves to ship Windows 3x because the world was ready for a graphical OS and OS/2 wasn’t ready for prime time. OS/2 was big, bloated, and expensive.
Dude, I don’t know what you’re smoking but if you really believe the above quote all you are doing is proving the author of the article’s point – ie that most people don’t have a *clue* how things really went down concerning OS/2, and in your case, also how MS came to power.
I’d explain to you how it really was. How MS bullied OEM’s into taking DOS *and* Windows 3.x as a bundle using all the dirty tricks so well documented elsewhere, but I have a feeling you really don’t want to know the truth. You got one point sort of correct – ie expensive. Yeah, OS/2 was costly; prior to Warp 3.
Oh, also OEM’s couldn’t care less about GUIs, etc. All they want to do is move boxes and make money.
Try not to take this the wrong way, but you really need to do some research before you go off on a subject you obviously know nothing about. It just makes you look stupid and ignorant.
chekmarx
Of writing code with VisualAge for C++ on OS/2 using IBM SOM Objects. It was actually pretty advanced for 1995/6. A completely GUI C++ building tool that allowed you to connect events to code or object properties. SOM Objects was a (reasonable) CORBA implementation. Crank the Soundgarden and let’s code!
Oh well, on to bigger and better.
im no expert, but object builder and what not on NEXTSTEP was completely GUI and let you do the same sort of thing… in ~1989
I’m familiar with the current development tools on OSX, which are largely derived from NEXT, but I’m not familiar with NEXT circa 1996. The other systems I recall at the time for 32 bit OS development were something like NT 3.5.1 with Microsoft PowerStation C/C++ and Fortran. (Yes, Microsoft sold a Fortran compiler, although I don’t know if they wrote it.) DOS with PharLap’s 32 bit extender (a non-starter for most people). Of course there was Windows 95, but your development options were Microsoft C++ 2.0 or some rubbish like that. Compared to other tools I used on Unix (i.e. Sun Studio at the time), VisualAge was very cool. I would put it on par with what IB offers me today, especially with the Controllers pallette.
If an OS is dead but is still walking doesn’t that place it in the category of a lombie OS? brains…fresh brains…
On a more serious note, I remember the quote from Bill Gates where he says that “OS/2 is the future” when he was more friendly with IBM. Gates is a shrewd business person but not such a good fortune teller.
Edited 2007-04-03 00:33
OS/2 was a joy to use as a desktop operating system. Consistent, powerful and flexible. It did not get in your way and did exactly what you told it to do. It was the perfect subservient slave.
OS/2 was a joy to develop upon – clean fully documented API… and if it didn’t do what the API said it should, it is a bug (APAR?) and IBM would fix it (at least they did in the early days).
I remember that there was some effort to try to find undocumented APIs… Only 12 or so were found but they were soon after documented anyways. The most famous “undocumented” bit was the style bit to have the coloured notepad tabs in Warp 4 – so famous that everyone knew it.
There probably never will be another operating system, or any large software project, quite like OS/2 – where the documentation and design dictated the implementation.
Nowadays, the documentation is most definitely written after the implementation… If you’re lucky, maybe during implementation.
Sure. The win32 API is great. Thank god for http://msdn.microsoft.com
“No OS has ever died so many times!”
Windows has! It dies every day! lol
It is the living dead.
The author obviously was there when the events happened, and he sounds like he has a lot of firsthand knowledge.
I didn’t join the OS/2 ranks until 1992 myself (when the first 32-bit version came out), but I’ve been there ever since, and I remember most of the events being discussed quite clearly (as clearly as I can, anyway, given that I mainly witnessed those things via the internet or other electronic media at the time).
Thanks for posting this, Thom.
OS/2 is a lot like RT/11, VMS, or the other dead DEC operating systems. It runs doing its own little thing in a corner for years until the hardware physically breaks.
I had a 486/66 running OS/2 Warp as my company’s voicemail system for over 6 years. When the motherboard gave up the ghost, I plugged the two ISA cards that powered it, and the hard drive into an IBM PC300 with a Pentium 166 and 112MB RAM. It came right on and booted up like nothing happened. As far as I know, it’s still up and running today (we never turned it off) as it was in 1998.
IBM really knows how to write stable OSes (at least compared to the competition). That’s a part of the lesson that Bill Gates should have learned from them.
From what I read years ago, the IBM-Microsoft partnership was doomed from the start: How much IBM paid Microsoft depended upon how many lines of code the Microsoft developers wrote – and write they did. Examine how many more steps it is to add a new printer in MS OS/2 1.2 compared with IBM OS/2 1.3.
Also, from what I read, the IBM-Microsoft partnership failed because Microsoft billed for more lines than they actually wrote for OS/2 – IBM was upset that Microsoft was billing IBM for code which Microsoft was actually writing for Windows 3.x and not OS/2.
I am pretty sure I read this in a PC Plus Magazine, sometime around 1991.
Oh well, all ancient history now… I sometimes amuse myself thinking that there may be some lone IBMer somewhere in a dark basement corner slowly shifting through the OS/2 source code, separating the IBM written code from everything else… clearing file by file through their legal department.
One can dream but I think I have better odds winning the jackpot on the lottery.
Don’t forget the 60+ floppy disks it required to install it. I really think that OS/2 WARP (3.0) was far advanced for its time. I loved it, I miss it.
Well OS/2 2.1 eas only 20 floppy disks (19+1) if it was 3 1/2 ” High Density floppy disks. Or less than PerfectOffice 6 (27 HD 3 1/2 ”) or close to being the equivalent of DOS 5/6.x+Windows 3.x. And Warp wasn’t that much larger than OS/2 2.1.
60 floppy disks… haha.. that’s a lot of swapping – those were the days
I’m still seeing the shrink about those floppies, nightmares, had to install a couple of machines, all from floppydisk and trying to get an external cd drive to work, the horror. must be 13 years ago now…
All of the HMC boxes run OS/2 I am amazed that IBM still messes with it but with the Z-Series the laptops and HMC’s are loaded with it….
I was probably 13 when OS/2 2.0 came out. I went to Egghead and bought a copy on 5 1/4″ disks. It was barely runnable on my 386 25MHz with 4 MB RAM. I was disappointed, but still ran OS/2 as a secondary OS through version 4.0 (on faster machines of course
). Good memories.
I bet Ballmer and Gates were cracking up laughing away on how Big Brother were shooting themselves in the foot. People needed an updated DOS version in OS/2. Then those people went to Windows 95. People also needed more display drivers. Then those people went to Windows 95.
IBM never knew how to properly address the consumer and small/midsize companies. It never occured to them that their stuff must be competitive with Windows. Kinda reminds me of UNIX vendors at that same time. Before the slaughter (Win2K).
By 1995, the world was already on Windows. It wasn’t a matter of moving to it. It was a matter of “why should I switch to OS/2?”.
I sort of agree with you about the general attitudes of IBM and the other commercial Unix vendors. But it was not a matter of it not occurring to them that their stuff must be competitive with Windows.
It was more a matter of only caring about selling big, expensive servers, which were a lucrative business, and not caring about the desktop.
Long before Win95, that attitude is what let Microsoft waltz in and take over the desktop… with DOS, no less!
This has come back to haunt them. They eventually realized, too late, that whoever controls the desktop ultimately controls the server.
But, more importantly, we have *all* been paying for that bit of shortsightedness for a couple of decades now.
I suspect that Microsoft’s victory would be complete by now if it were not for the unexpected arrival of Linux and OSS.
I know you do not like Linux and OSS. But you have to admit that they have complicated MS’s plans for absolute world domination.
Actually, OS/2 had a nice sizeable userbase… Once. IBM just didn’t want to pony up the dough to support their consumer/SOHO OS. The support cost would probably be astronomical compared to their mainframe dept.
I suspect that Microsoft’s victory would be complete by now if it were not for the unexpected arrival of Linux and OSS.
I completely agree. With mention of the revival of Apple Inc and Jobs’ second coming.
I know you do not like Linux and OSS. But you have to admit that they have complicated MS’s plans for absolute world domination.
I do like Linux. I don’t have a need for it. Ditto for OSS. I use OSS apps all the time. I just think that the OSS fundamentalists and GNU/RMS should read “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten” by Robert Fulghum. And yes I know that MS’ OS dominance is challenged. Competition will make it all good.
ronaldst,
Thank you for the response. And I apologize for misjudging you.
Keep in mind that a lot of us are strong advocates, but stop short of being fundamentalists. But I do admit that “bad advocacy” is all too common.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. Bad advocacy is worse than no advocacy at all. Not only is it ineffective… but it can actually motivate others to act against one’s cause. And it is much easier to destroy than to create.
I suspect that Microsoft’s victory would be complete by now if it were not for the unexpected arrival of Linux and OSS.
Yup. MS had the OS market tied up in knots and mostly locked up tight, but Linux (and to a less extent BSD) are mainly developed outside the commercial marketplace and tend to be at least somewhat immune from market forces.
That makes them significant threats to Microsoft, IMO.
Linux more resembles a Bagdad slum compared to a modern operating system like OS X.
Price and Software availability.
Sure you are getting more for your money buy try explaining that to people of the early 90’s I remember telling people how great Linux was because I can run multiple applications at the same time without pauses. And the DOS/Windows 3.1 Users go why would you ever need to run more then one application? OS/2 Never convinced people the need for the feature. When Windows 95 was released Microsoft showed how Multi-Tasking is important by showing copying a large files that takes some time and showed that you could be doing something else. And 95 was still cheaper then OS/2 Warp. Next is Software Availability. Go to any store you see mountains of software for IBM/MS DOS not OS/2 Sure OS/2 Says it can run it. But do people believe truly in that? Or will it run most applications and other will have problems or just run slow. The same with OS/2 Warp and Windows Support. Most people view of what is out there still is based on software they see in boxes at the local computer store. A Huge PC section an Apple Ghetto, And Linux mixed in sometimes just to keep the OSS Crazies off their back.
Help me, Dr. Crowe, I see dead Operating Systems running…
….
Well. Cole, what do you see?
….
Well, I have to use the right mouse button to drag icons.
….
Ooohh…
….
And I had to edit a 500 line file called config.sys to make things work. Make it go away Dr. Crowe.
….
It’s OK Cole. They can’t hurt you. Brrr.. It sure is cold in here!
Edited 2007-04-03 15:20
Heh… I remember how much flak OS/2’s WPS got from some Windows 3.1 users because of its heavy use of the right mouse button for context menus and the like. It really was an issue for some of them … until Windows 95 came out, of course, and then those features were “advanced” and the wave of the future…
Strangely enough, PC/GEOS (the environment under Geoworks Ensemble) also use the right button to drag files, so it wasn’t just IBM that had that idea.
Oh… Which is better. CONFIG.SYS, or a much larger registry that can’t even be edited without special tools? I know which one I choose!
Oh… Which is better. CONFIG.SYS, or a much larger registry that can’t even be edited without special tools? I know which one I choose!
You have a good point there. I do a lot of Windows developement and I avoid the registry like the plague. Even my Visual C++ teacher in school recommended the same. I prefer INI files.
Oh… Which is better. CONFIG.SYS, or a much larger registry that can’t even be edited without special tools? I know which one I choose!
OS/2 had it’s own registry aka OS2.INI. Everything is dumped there. And it’s not editable without tools. Because it’s another binary blob. People need to run tools to clean it. And it’s certainly isn’t better than the Windows Registry. It’s the same thing. Except the Windows Registry has evolved and taken steps to remedy it’s shortcomings. I wish I could say the same for OS2.INI.
While CONFIG.SYS isn’t better anyway. Especially when the user has to edit config.sys to modify a few lines to fix their video card problems. These show how much OS/2 is outdated and has always been poorly developed.
I don’t see how could anyone put merit in these ackward things like OS2.INI and CONFIG.SYS.
What does CONFIG.SYS have to do with video?
The only thing I can think of are the old procedures to install Matrox’s MGA Millenium video drivers and the like which required one to modify a couple of lines in CONFIG.SYS, but that type of thing hasn’t been required under OS/2 for ages.
OS/2 isn’t XFree86. It doesn’t need mode lines.
Seriously, though — editing a settings file is editing a settings file, be it a registry or a text file — and I’ve always been fans of text files because I can see and fix them with ease. Such files are a strong point of all Unix variants in my mind, since I’d rather edit a dotfile than have to use a GUI tool to make some sort of basic change.
Would you prefer that the settings ALL be in OS2.INI? It seems like that’s what you’re looking for, and I frankly don’t understand that at all… At the moment, I’m aware of very few things which use OS2.INI, and IMO that’s a good thing.
Edited 2007-04-03 19:01
I actually preferred the relatively simple WIN.INI and SYSTEM.INI files in Windows 3.1. Text files.
You’re right about OS2.INI being a binary blob, but I’ve not run into issues with it. No corruption, no hidden application and/or system settings, and no application dependencies on weird fields therein.
I’ve hit all three of those issues with Windows variants.
YMMV, I guess…
Also, a real plus IMO of how OS/2’s INI files were setup, was the fact that:
a] They were completely separate from the booted OS – ie you could have a trashed INI file and still fully boot into OS/2 to repair the problem, providing you didn’t need a WPS app to fix the issue.
b] If the system was so trashed and couldn’t be repaired, it was real simple and fast to boot into VIO mode and re-generate new INI files – ie creating basically a fresh new install *without* having to actually re-install the OS.
Something Windows *still* doesn’t handle as smoothly. Yes, there are “restore points” and all that, but they aren’t nearly as reliable as MS likes to pretend they are.
chekmarx
OS/2 had 2 binary *.ini system files if I remember correctly. At some point IBM programmers included a Windows registry look-alike in a fix pack in order to edit them. I guess that was just to show how advanced Windows 95 and NT 4 were…
I prefer Linux text files… and I’ve always had to write down the modeline entry because my monitors were not in the db. With FreeBSD as well. But it’s OK, because text is what we read.
I saw an interview with Rico Mariani, who was in the Visual Studio tools division before it really existed (since 1992 or so). He pointed to one of the big reasons that IBM lost with OS2: They were trying to make money off the SDKs. Back in the mid-90s Microsoft was giving out copies of VC++ at college campuses to anyone who had a pulse. They were selling it on the open market for $60, which was not high compared to the price of printing and packaging the documentation that came with it (i.e. VS 5.0: tree-killer edition). I even got a copy of this as a kid on one of my birthdays and it was my first compiler when I was learning C++. Now Microsoft gives away all of the tools for essentially free.
IBM, on the other hand, charged real money for their dev tools, so it’s obvious why it didn’t take off with software vendors like Windows did.