OS/2 2.0 Turns TEN years old!
Wednesday, March 27, 2002 by Frogboy | Discussion: WinCustomize News
Ten years ago, IBM launched OS/2 2.0 and it changed the world. When you look at your coomputer right now, whether it be Windows, Linux, Mac or something else, know this: it would be a lot different had OS/2 never existed. Its influence on personal computing is hard to gauge. To celebrate its tenth birthday, I've written a tribute to it and explain some of the things it introduced. (reposted due to comments being broken)
ddyson
Reply #2 Wednesday, March 27, 2002 4:26 PM
The thing that is missing in Brad's commentary is that in order to run OS/2, you had to buy hardware from IBM. Setting it up and running it wasn't that easy either. Drivers for 3rd party drivers weren't a picnic. I had the pleasure of working with OS/2 back then, but the problem was the effort it took. Later version, espeically the WARP products were a lot better, but it was too late by then. So IBM should take some blame for that close-mindedness back then which forced some people to choose Windows simply because the price was right.
Reply #2 Wednesday, March 27, 2002 4:26 PM
The thing that is missing in Brad's commentary is that in order to run OS/2, you had to buy hardware from IBM. Setting it up and running it wasn't that easy either. Drivers for 3rd party drivers weren't a picnic. I had the pleasure of working with OS/2 back then, but the problem was the effort it took. Later version, espeically the WARP products were a lot better, but it was too late by then. So IBM should take some blame for that close-mindedness back then which forced some people to choose Windows simply because the price was right.
Ralman
Reply #3 Wednesday, March 27, 2002 5:08 PM
Reply #3 Wednesday, March 27, 2002 5:08 PM
I kinda miss the days of OS/2. I started using it in college instead of Windows 3.x. I was able to run a bulletin board system and still be able to do all of my required class work, including such things as AutoCad design and programming projects, while the bulletin board was still running, at no noticeable difference to the people dialing into the BB. All my friends were jealous of what I could do on that OS/2 machine that they could not do on their Microsoft based ones. I can never think of any time that I had issues running any applications or hardware. I must admit drivers were sometimes hard to come by, but that was not an IBM issue, it was the hardware manufacturers that were to blame.
WolfwoodX
Reply #4 Wednesday, March 27, 2002 5:44 PM
Reply #4 Wednesday, March 27, 2002 5:44 PM
I can't find it. I have MSDOS 6.22, Windows 3.1, 95,98,98 SE,2000, Redhat 7.1, Mandrake 8.1, MacOS 8&9, and BeOS 5 Personal, but can't find os/2. I sorta collect OS's.
And yes, I have a big HDD and no, not all of those OS's are on my pc at this time.
And yes, I have a big HDD and no, not all of those OS's are on my pc at this time.
Frogboy
Reply #5 Wednesday, March 27, 2002 6:12 PM
Reply #5 Wednesday, March 27, 2002 6:12 PM
You did not have to buy IBM hardware to run OS/2. I ran OS/2 on a home made machine.
In fact, the reason Stardock was called "Stardock Systems" was that at first, Stardock built custom machines with OS/2 pre-loaded. The software came later.
In fact, the reason Stardock was called "Stardock Systems" was that at first, Stardock built custom machines with OS/2 pre-loaded. The software came later.
DavidK
Reply #6 Thursday, March 28, 2002 2:24 AM
Reply #6 Thursday, March 28, 2002 2:24 AM
I remember IBM offering OS/2 for free to anyone that wanted to try it out. It came on about 25 floppies.
Rob Campbell
Reply #7 Thursday, March 28, 2002 4:04 PM
Reply #7 Thursday, March 28, 2002 4:04 PM
ddyson,
You definitely didn't need to buy IBM's hardware. I built a system with a Cyrix 488-33 motherboard, 4 MB of RAM, and the rest of the parts from my 286. It was amazing, and even better when I upgraded to 8 MB of RAM (at least $50 a MB at the time). It was a revelation to be able to use my PC as something other than a paperweight while formatting a floppy or downloading a file. People waited years to be able to do that in WinXX (I occassionally need to use a laptop from work with Win98 that doesn't multitask as well).
Application support was limited, but not due to my efforts. I must have been the last person to buy DeScribe for $289 before they started selling the same product for $50.
Rob Campbell
You definitely didn't need to buy IBM's hardware. I built a system with a Cyrix 488-33 motherboard, 4 MB of RAM, and the rest of the parts from my 286. It was amazing, and even better when I upgraded to 8 MB of RAM (at least $50 a MB at the time). It was a revelation to be able to use my PC as something other than a paperweight while formatting a floppy or downloading a file. People waited years to be able to do that in WinXX (I occassionally need to use a laptop from work with Win98 that doesn't multitask as well).
Application support was limited, but not due to my efforts. I must have been the last person to buy DeScribe for $289 before they started selling the same product for $50.
Rob Campbell
paxx
Reply #8 Thursday, March 28, 2002 4:23 PM
Reply #8 Thursday, March 28, 2002 4:23 PM
I was all excited when I got a demo version of Warp and installed it on my 486. Never could figure out how to get the sound card to work, so, frustrated, I uninstalled it. 
Looked promising though, compared to Windows 3.1. But later I installed the beta version of Windows 95, I was just as happy, and everything worked right away.
Looked promising though, compared to Windows 3.1. But later I installed the beta version of Windows 95, I was just as happy, and everything worked right away.
Michael Flynn
Reply #9 Friday, March 29, 2002 7:32 AM
Reply #9 Friday, March 29, 2002 7:32 AM
Its unfortunate that ibm shot themselves in the foot a few times and not realizing the depth of dirty tricks the M$ would stoop too. One issue that ibm should take responsibility for is having M$ write the code of OS/2. Talk about letting the fox watch the hens.
jtfolden
Reply #10 Sunday, March 31, 2002 4:54 PM
Reply #10 Sunday, March 31, 2002 4:54 PM
Ahhhh... I have such fond memories of OS/2. A friend gave me a copy of OS/2 2.0 LA in January of '92 and I immediately got hooked. I ran out and grabbed the 2.0 GA release as soon as it hit the stores. I long lusted for NeXT hardware/software but as I had no hope of affording it, I continued to run OS/2 all the way through v4's release before finally jumping ship to NT 4.0 due to a lack of modern, usable apps. It wasn't until I jumped ship a year ago to Mac OS X that I enjoyed using a computer as much as the OS/2 2.x days.
I never could understand most of the complaints about OS/2 being a hard install, etc... The only difficult thing I remember about installing 2.0 was that my arm got tired changing out all those disks! lol
I never could understand most of the complaints about OS/2 being a hard install, etc... The only difficult thing I remember about installing 2.0 was that my arm got tired changing out all those disks! lol
Sven Rafferty
Reply #11 Thursday, April 18, 2002 3:14 PM
Reply #11 Thursday, April 18, 2002 3:14 PM
I can still remember the day booting up my computer and OS/2 2.0 came up. It brings a smile to my face still. I was a total OS/2 head and even got my friends to install it. I ran it work while everyone else was on Win3.x. My favorite thing about OS/2 was it never crashed. It took MS over eight years to get close with Win2k. If IBM would have had a smart marketing machine and software support, I would still be on OS/2 today.
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Reply #1 Wednesday, March 27, 2002 1:28 PM