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Actually, I hear there's surprisingly good support for ThinkPads (go figure,) and the OS/2 nuts just keep porting all the interesting stuff from Linux back to it.

Also, you can purchase vendor support for OS/2, as well.

That said, I'll stick with Ubuntu.

the person is running a "user" account and the Uninstall option is disabled. Only an "Administrator" account can see the Uninstall button. Switch to an Administrator account, or if on a corporate network ask your System Administrator for access to Uninstall your software or for someone to help you uninstall them.

Vista has a lot of security features that can be turned on and off. This whole Slashdot story is a waste of time, written by a Luddite that doesn't know how security in Vista works. I think they should have been using OS/2 or eComStation instead, which are easier to use and configure than Vista will ever be.

As a matter of fact, Serenity Systems Inc. are still continuing to support and enhance OS/2 in the shape of their eComStation product, with whatever support by IBM there may remain (after "IBM standard support" for OS/2 was discontinued on December 31, 2006) for them as OS/2 licensees. Since February, eComStation 2.0 Beta 4 is available for subscribers of their "Software Subscription Services for eComStation". (On a side note, at this time I'm still running a small-business internet server, a workgroup file and print server and a desktop workstation on OS/2 aka eCS and I'm still quite happy with them.)

I bought a computer preloaded with eComStation from http://www.curtissystemssoftware.com/preloads.htm I just emailed them and got a reply. They said I could load any OS I wanted and it would have no effect on the hardware warranty (some parts are 5 yr). I did not pay a Microsoft tax when I bought it and I will not be punished later.

eComStation user group - http://www.os2voice.org/
eComStation - http://www.ecomstation.com/

eComStation preloaded
http://www.curtissystemssoftware.com/preloads.htm
Even preloaded with a OpenOffice.org. Uses high quality ECC memory

I had enough years ago. It is my computer and my data. I will not pay a tax and give control of MY computer to a third party or ask permission or pay royalties (forced upgrades) to get access to MY data. No forced registration. No spying.

I bought a system preloaded with eComStation. I paid no Microsoft tax. All you have to do is support THE vendors of good quality products.
You can avoid the Microsoft tax and DRM OS and viruses too.

eComStation user group - http://www.os2voice.org/
eComStation - http://www.ecomstation.com/

eComStation preloaded
http://www.curtissystemssoftware.com/preloads.htm
Even preloaded with a OpenOffice.org. Uses high quality ECC memory

I bought a system preloaded with eComStation. I paid no Microsoft tax. All you have to do is support THE vendors of good quality products. Like buying high quality Snapper lawn movers instead the disposable Wal-Mart ones. Even quality suppliers can decide that a retailer is dragging them down.
(The Man Who Said No to Wal-Mart http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/102/open_snapp er.html)

You can avoid the Microsoft tax too.

eComStation user group - http://www.os2voice.org/
eComStation - http://www.ecomstation.com/

eComStation preloaded
http://www.curtissystemssoftware.com/preloads.htm

For Christmas I bought a system preloaded with eComStation. I paid no Microsoft tax. All you have to do is support THE vendors of good quality products. Like buying high quality Snapper lawn movers instead the disposable Wal-Mart ones.
(The Man Who Said No to Wal-Mart http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/102/open_snapp er.html)

You can avoid the Microsoft tax too.

eComStation user group - http://www.os2voice.org/
eComStation - http://www.ecomstation.com/

eComStation preloaded
http://www.curtissystemssoftware.com/preloads.htm

Also Linux preloads
SUSE preloaded
http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS7778908329.html

Fedora preloaded
http://www.emperorlinux.com/

Get the job done with an OS that doesn't waste cpu cycles. Also how much is sucked out by viruses/spyware/... and then all the anti-virus/spyware/.. utilities to fight them.
Save energy and be more secure.

user group
http://www.os2voice.org/

eComStation
http://www.ecomstation.com/

eComStation preloaded
http://www.curtissystemssoftware.com/preloads.htm

You can find a solution(s) to your problem at one or more
of the following locations:

http://www.centos.org

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/

http://en.opensuse.org

http://www.opensolaris.org/

http://www.ecomstation.com/

http://www.redhat.com

http://www.reactos.org/en/index.html

http://www.debian.org/ports/hurd/

http://www.openbsd.org/

http://www.freebsd.org/

http://www.netbsd.org/

http://www.dragonflybsd.org/

http://www.osfree.org/doku/en:start

http://www.skyos.org/

http://www.freeos.com/

http://www.minix3.org/

Added to bypass the stupid slashdot lameness filter which apparently doesn't like a post full of links. WTF is wrong with the
stupid lameness filter? Jeez, what does it want, for us to type paragraphs of meaningless drivel just to get past the lameness filter?
Sheeesh. OK, this is really stupid. Why don't ajfajf al;djal a fa fa lkdf jaa fal ja;ljf af af ajf;lajf alfjalf a fjal;fjafl; jaflakjf af;laj
jalkfaj fjf af af fajjjajal jajfa f afjdlakej2233 2235t2352 dsfalkfjal f 222j2 afdkja f23 2 2 2t2352322 233252352 2323232.

eComStation( http://www.ecomstation.com/ ) is the new OS/2, Not Vista!
OS/2 lives! http://os2ecs.org/ezine/

"A new release of AmigaOS! A new release of OS/2 can't be far behind!"

Funny you should say that.

is OS/2 available

All you had to do was click the middle image on the page - it sends you here: http://www.ecomstation.com/

eComStation is fully OS/2 compatible and will run your existing OS/2 applications!

...

"Serenity Systems' new release of eComStation will demonstrate to people running OS/2 applications that support for their desktop still exists and that the technology is still being enhanced". - Bob St.John, Director of Business Development,Serenity Systems International (full text)

You can download a livecd demo from this page: http://www.ecomstation.com/democd/

All you had to do was click the middle image on the page - it sends you here: http://www.ecomstation.com/

eComStation is fully OS/2 compatible and will run your existing OS/2 applications!

...

"Serenity Systems' new release of eComStation will demonstrate to people running OS/2 applications that support for their desktop still exists and that the technology is still being enhanced". - Bob St.John, Director of Business Development,Serenity Systems International (full text)

You can download a livecd demo from this page: http://www.ecomstation.com/democd/

At some future time, perhaps.

Regarding OS/2 -- the easiest way to get it working on a modern system is to go the eComStation route. Learn more about eComStation here, and get a demo CD here...

At some future time, perhaps.

Regarding OS/2 -- the easiest way to get it working on a modern system is to go the eComStation route. Learn more about eComStation here, and get a demo CD here...

"This is something IBM never got with OS/2, and why it died a stagnant death, because while it could run Windows 3.1 apps better than Windows itself, to do anything in native you pretty much had to do it in C++."

Ever hear of REXX, ObjectREXX, VisualREXX, NetREXX. These are a very solid and powerful and relatively easy to use scripting languages & tools for OS/2. IBM maimed OS/2 first with inept marketing. Then due to basic business direction strategy they finished the job via the lack of any real continued marketing and pretty much killing off allocation of resources and support to the independent developer base. Finally they starved the customers for technology updates (drivers mainly) and make what little support they did deliver expensive. They did this simply because they decided that the desktop was not where their expertise and thus focus was. IBM made then and still makes most of its money via med to big iron hardware and the services to support this hardware. Another large plate for them was and still is back office integration with software only houses like Microsoft, SAP and Oracle.

OS/2 was a fine system in many ways. I used it since v2.0 all through Warp v4.5. The various programmers responsible for OS/2 were pretty damn good. Many of them were either MS employees or left IBM for MS. BTW OS/2 was a joint venture of IBM and MS, when they split Microsoft evolved, or actually merged with I believe a fair part of a DEC Unix fork, a lot of the code base into WinNT. Many of the best kernel and WPS Desktop programmers I have heard are dead or long since retired now.

OS/2 had a few technical problems like the being a single user OS and a single input queue issue but was mostly a solid OS. I still miss a lot of features of the WPS and a few well written native apps. It still runs on a lot of the ATM's and banking back end stuff, medical staff support systems, and longer lived big industrial hardware and services. There are still a quite a few OS/2 users in the US, with a lot more in Europe and Australia.

There is a clone/fork or whatever called eCS ( http://www.ecomstation.com/ ) for about $260.00 or $160.00 upgrade from Warp4+. I believe. eCS has been kept pretty current with hardware and services technology's. I have however decided that Linux is a better fit for my meager budget in the future, with a vast amount more development going on and then there is the freedom of the source code as a killer plus. Though note there is X support in OS/2 and via ports like perl and emx quite a bit of support for Linux/Unix apps in OS/2 and eCS. Anyway I hope to soon be using OS/2 and some OS/2 apps like ProNews again under Parallels virtualization and Suse. Just gotta find the time.

Wabi-Sabi
Matthew

Contrast that with some items on the list that were complete disasters from the moment they were launched: IBM PC Jr., CueCat, Microsoft Bob... THOSE belong on the list. The list probably should have included some other items that had lofty ambitions but just never "took" (like OS/2). But, like I said, some of the ones on the list, I feel, aren't getting their due. We look at them now and see how worthless they are by today's standards (you can probably get any of these items on eBay for $5, now), but that ignores the impact they had when they were first released.

OS/2 never "took" because IBM let Microsoft walk all over them. OS/2 is still heavily used, but not in the US because of Microsoft's wonderful grip. Heck, OS/2 is still even being developed as eComStation and has some very nice features that Windows still doesn't have. Just because it's disappeared off the market, like DOS, doesn't mean it's worthless.

I still have three Zip drives - a parallel port Zip 100 on my BBS machine (running OS/2), a internal Zip 250 ATAPI on this machine and an external USB Zip 100 on my wife's machine. I have never, in over six years, had a problem with any of these drives. I found in my observations that if you didn't jam the damn disk into the drive, your chances of getting the "click of death" were little or none.

My drives are still going strong, some with disks that are 1998 vintage.

I have a CueCat here that was modified to be a nice handheld scanner. The "paperstrip" technology that CueCat used is still be used by the US Armed Forces on every single ID card they produce (on the back).

Some things from our past should be forgotten (such as Microsoft Bob, ugh), but there were lessons to be learned and still to learn from those products.

If you say so...

The entire computer industry has been stifled for years. We need competition, and we need it badly.

Yeah. Because Microsoft has no real competition at all in desktop operating systems.

There is another option besides Windows or Linux:

http://www.ecomstation.com/

eComStation v1.2R has the biggest update to MultiMedia since Warp 3, so it should support those fancy MultiMedia add-ons needed in new ATMs.

It is - it's called eComStation - and version 2 is in beta now. Version 1.2 is available for purchase with support for up to 64CPUs and support for dual core chips including the AMD64 line.

http://www.ecomstation.com/

- Rob

It is now being developed by a company called Serenity Systems. They struck a deal with IBM to continue to develop OS/2 and release new versions under the name eComStation. You can down load a demo CD (70 MB iso) from the eComStation Web site. It won't install to a hard drive but is a bootable live CD version of the OS.

A demo CD can be downloaded from: http://www.ecomstation.com/democd/

http://www.ecomstation.com/democd/ This is a live CD distro based on OS/2. Since it's a demo, it is limited, but still a great tool.

eComstation is keeping the flame alive for those that are interested.

ObjectRexx is also available for many platforms as noted above.

It would be very cool to see OO.o, Firefox & Thunderbird ported over.

eComStation http://www.ecomstation.com/ Have you checked the latest version of OS/2 called eComStation?

OS/2 has been transformed into eComStation.
eComStation is based on the OS/2 kernel licenced to Serenity Systems.
http://www.ecomstation.com/

I don't understand why they will be "forced to" convert to Windows, when, as you say, eComStation is available and apparently actively under development.

OS/2 is now eComStation. You can't kill an OS.

So after Dec 23, 2005 buy from here,

http://www.ecomstation.com/

Nathan

There's also the fact that they sold rights to another company, which makes money off the thing.

Suddenly giving away what they paid for would put them out of business.

I used OS/2 for the better part of os/2 2.1, warp 3 & 4.. and it rocked..

They already released JFS and ObjectREXX.. now we just need the WPS and possibly the TCP/IP stack.. (it was fast.. i mean REALLY FREAKING FAST)

ahh the good ole days.. running gimp in Xfree86 window, injoy on a 486 in the back with multi-linkPPP to the ISP (yea.. dual 56K modems pfffft!) open office, netscrape, bitchX and slurrrp readin the newsgroups for ya.

I gave up with warp 4 fixpack 32 (i think.. it was getting kinda silly by then).

OS/2 has been kinda overtook by ecomstation http://www.ecomstation.com/ so it's not quite dead yet..

Have you tried installing Win95 or RedHat 3 on anything lately. OS/2 installs on modern hardware as easily as anything else, but you need a version that isn't 9 years old. Try the latest: http://www.ecomstation.com/

Don't know about win2k or xp, but the SMP under NT sucked dead rocks. NT itself tied up one processor. Dual CPUs gave maybe a 20% advantage over a single CPU under NT, while under OS/2 I saw 50-90% increase depending on the task.

OS/2 has always run rings around the bloatware from Redmond. One of the best things open sourcing OS/2 would do would be to give improved thread support for Linux.

OS/2 lives as eComStation - http://www.ecomstation.com/

See what is instore for the future of eComStation at this year's Warpstock 2005, in Hershey PA, October 5-9. http://www.warpstock.org/

eComStation product plan calls for sales of eComStation through mid-2007. Even then, there are no plans to terminate the product. That is simply the time frame of the current product plan.

http://www.ecomstation.com/ Someone is carrying on with OS/2 development. OS/2 isn't dead, it just got sold off and given a funny name.

They already did, didn't they? I thought that's what eComStation was, an OS/2 spin-off.

Sorry, forgot to give the link!

There's also this site providing unofficial support for OS/2 as well as eCS.

> And what did OS/2 look like after the mid 90's. Great > Were there any large updates? yes - See http://www.ecomstation.com/ > Any MMX stuff? > Any DVD support? Yes > Any modern stuff added?? Lots of stuff

Sure am using it. eComStation 1.2 http://www.ecomstation.com/ Firefox NVU Samba OpenOffice REXX Java 1.4

If you liked OS/2 you will find eComStation is better.
eComStation is more stable than ms win while being easy to use.
http://www.ecomstation.com/

They did spin it off. Its now call eCommStation. http://www.ecomstation.com/

eComStation has been maintaining os/2 under license from IBM for a few years now.