Review of eComStation OS/2 1.0

JigSaw writes: "OSNews features a long and in-depth article about the latest version of eComStation OS/2 1.0. eCS 1.0 is developed by Serenity Systems after they licensed the technology from IBM when the latter had abandoned any hope for the success of OS/2. The article also has information about the future version of eCS, 1.10, which it will be branded as Entry level, Upgrade and WorkPlace. The Workplace version will include all the software one needs to run Java2, Win16 & DOS applications 'natively', and it also includes an X11 server plus a full copy of Connectix's Virtual PC that can run any flavour of Windows and Linux. In fact, eCS OS/2 Workplace will include a full Linux distribution as part of its VirtualPC package."

Comments

Cross Platform AND runs MS Products

[RogrWilco]

If it won't bluescreen, then I'm sold!

Re:Cross Platform AND runs MS Products

[Flywheel]

It won't - you'll get a black'n'white trap screen instead :o)

If you keep away from alpha and beta drivers, then it is quite stable. Also use the WarpZilla browser (Mozilla port) instead of the Netscape 4.61 (has an issue with the WPS)....

Like Linux it is quite frustrating when it freezes, because you know that the base system is working... the message queue is just stopped....
If it is an internal WPS problem then the WPS restarts automatically.

WPS = WorkPlace Shell = primary Shell (Like the XFree86 XServer)
PMShell = Presentation Manager Shell = Secondary GUI shell (Like the Window Manager of UNIX systems)

Platforms

[Traxton1]

For those of you who just can't pick one platform. Not, dual booting, what is that, like the equivalent of quadruple booting?

How to make software projects fail

[Anonymous Coward]

Are these two the same story ?

Technical superiority isn't everything

[coupland]

When OS/2 2.0 came out it was far superior to Windows 3.x from a technical perspective. It always has been and always will be. Unfortunately application compatibility has always been the key. Why run Linux, OS/2, MacOS when you can run Office faster under Windows? Until the MicroSloth Windows / Office hegemony is broken we'll have to keep on neglecting terrific operating systems just because Office doesn't run as well on them...

Re:Technical superiority isn't everything

[Locutus]

that's not going to last long. Microsoft will start laying off all those Mac programmers who are NOT keeping Windows in the "right" light. Word for OS/2 kicked ars and so did most of the applications which were ported correctly to OS/2 ( read threaded ). Microsoft killed those projects every which way they could because they made Windows look bad. Which it was/is.

I've heard from another that MS Office on OS X was really nice but this will be the last time. Bookmark this and come back in 1.5 years. You'll see.

LoB

Re:Technical superiority isn't everything

[Greyfox]

OS/2 forced Microsoft to evolve. While OS/2 was gaining on Microsoft in the market share department, Microsoft was busily improving their OS. Meanwhile IBM was sitting there with its thumb up its collective butt. If OS/2 had been improving at the same rate as Windows, it would easily have come out on top. Instead of redesigning some of the core areas where there were major problems, they elected for mostly cosmetic changes to the UI. Any attempts to address real issues, such as the problems with the single system input queue or the ease with which the desktop could be corrupted were simply hack jobs.

Very few developers made use of the advanced features of the OS either, especially inside IBM. There were ports of various programs which were obviously simple recompiles of Windows 3.1 code. I wouldn't touch many of IBM's GUI apps for OS/2 because they'd go off to do processing and bog down the system input queue. So even though you had this way cool multi-tasking multi-threaded OS, it was still very easy to bog down the whole OS by simpily not processing messages on the system input queue.

Politics was the death blow to OS/2 though. If you couldn't even get an OS/2 PC pre-installed from IBM's PC division, there was no way anyone else was going to offer it. The install was hideous enough that your average end user did NOT want to deal with that and IBM was not about to address shortcomings of the PC archectecture that made the install process so bad -- and there WERE things that could have been done to work around a lot of those problems.

OS/2's death can be entirely blamed on IBM's inability to keep up with Microsoft. They were outmaneuvered, plain and simple. OS/2's current reanimation as the walking dead and probable eventual rise to Amiga-like hype-godhood can probably be blamed on a few users who don't want to let go. The same sorts of people, no doubt, who freeze dry their pets once they die.

Re:Technical superiority isn't everything

[coupland]

Sorry dude but you are f*cking stupid... OS/2 never had a market share advantage on Windows. In addition, OS/2 was *always* technically superior to Windows, even after Windows 95 was released. If you don't realize that then you're not too smart at all...

Your assertions are ignorant and without merit, too bad you weren't around when these events happened, I'm sure you wouldn't have seemed so silly...

Whats in a name?

[swordboy]

eComStation

Wow... That is the most "buzzword compliant" name that I have ever heard.

Who do I make the check out to?

Re:Whats in a name?

[bonzoesc]

Sounds like eNetiConAppliance Online. But one of them is from IBM, and the other is from sweet merciful Lowtax, hero among men.

This is not a goatsex link, either

[Bi()hazard]

You can find a lot of information on ecomstation here. They have information on product contents, options, and availability, as well as support, previews, and links to reviews, distributors and resellers.

that'll be fun

[NMerriam]

which it will be branded as Entry level, Upgrade and WorkPlace

I can't imagine what a nightmare this idiotic Laurel and Hardy naming scheme going to be to support.

Which version do you have? Upgrade? An Entry level upgrade? you can't upgrade from workplace, thats a lower version. You want to buy an upgrade? Do you want the full version of upgrade or the upgrade of the entry level version of workplace?

This makes me happy

[standards]

It's nice that this product still has a life.

Many dedicated people spent their years developing OS/2. It'd be a shame to completely dispose of it, so it's nice that someone is continuing to put love into the product.

Of course, it'll never make a dime, but still, I'm happy. It's better than the fate of so many other software products, whose source code ends up in a warehouse on an obsolete format of tape.

OS/2 Distros

[os2fan]

eComStation is a kind of OS/2 with a Linux Distro feel to it, aka Linux and the kitchen sink.

It has lots of interesting things in it, handled through an integrated but separate installer. I like that. The installation stuff is not kept in memory every time the system boots, as is it in the Registry.

It looks cool, even. Boots off a cdrom to a GUI. Like that.

What I find distressing is that while the distro has a lot in it, it sends out a disinsentive to ISVs to compete with it. I suspect that the inclusion of IBM Works and Win-OS/2 gave OS/2 users access to word processors that ended up driving the market away from the OS/2 word processors like Describe.

What is really needed, in both the OS/2 and Windows worlds, is competing Distros. Wouldn't that be just grand. :)

marketing integration

[Alien54]

Unfortunately application compatibility has always been the key.

heck, I feel like a rant tonight.

Yep, unfortunately, MS quality control seems to have been aimed at the level of how many things we can we get away breaking ( like Lotius, etc) without people running away in terror.

right now, they could put out complete crap, and people would still buy it because they have to, not because of any apparent merit. Marketing and accounting love it, but it is a complete insult to the engineers, not that account or marketing would care much.

It is like engineering a new hardware widget. Some cool engineer invents something and does a damn good job. the prototype is excellent. it then gets fed to the production engineer, who work damn hard at trying to produce the widget as cheaply as possible, and still have it work.

MS engineers probably produce great shit, then it hits the marketing integration tem, and the result is crap. It doesn't survive well being integrated with the Microsft marketing vision.

It would be like seeing borgified art.

Re:marketing integration

[DrCode]

I'd disagree a bit. My guess is that marketing drives the MS culture. So the engineer who comes up with a pretty-looking GUI, like those fading menus, gets the promotion and notoriety; while the one who figures out a way to make Windows crash less gets passed by.

Interesting! Can Linux do that yet?

[William Tanksley]

Facinating stories -- I was an OS/2 user back when Object Desktop (whoops, I forgot their real name -- Stardock?) was trying to rescue OS/2. I was really disappointed when they failed. They did a REALLY good job in all their other work, though.

Question: I see a new feature in the next version of eComStation, network boot. In this, the entire OS is stored on the disk of one machine, and the other machines boot entirely from it -- all config files, everything. All processing is done on the clients, but the files are stored on the server. That's convenient!

I know X can do part of this, but it still puts the processing on the server; NFS can do another part, but it's enormously slow and bulky (and VERY odd to work with).

So is there any complete solution I can install on a 'terminal' PC so that all booting, storage, and so on is done on a central system, but all processing and running is done on my system -- and it all just works, whether I'm using console or X, svgamode or KDE?

I'm sure that when MOSIX is done that'll be easy :-). That would be the ultimate solution, I suppose -- but on the other hand, this would make a MOSIX cluster much easier to set up, since the individual machines couldn't be independantly misconfigured.

-Billy

Re:Interesting! Can Linux do that yet?

[mikeee]

Yeah, this can be done, in about 15 different ways.

Typically you end up with a perfectly normal linux, but all your filesystems NFS-mounted from the central box.

Most of the commercial UNIXes were pushing this scheme - "diskless workstations" - at one point, but it never took off. Might be worth reexamining now, though.

Re:Interesting! Can Linux do that yet?

[Bishop]

Search Google for "linux diskless howto" and you will get several links. Most *nixes can net boot. Sun hardware supports netboot out of the box to the point that netboot is the default if no hard disk is installed. Even lowly dos can netboot with the help of netware. It is old school. In the early nineties we figured out that netbooting sounded a lot cooler then it really is.

Re:Interesting! Can Linux do that yet?

[RelliK]

Remember network computers? More than an X Station, but slightly less than a PC? Ha .. also discredited. A network computer was a glorified diskless workstation. You don't see too many of those being deployed, except in tightly controller environments.

Not so fast. NCs died because Microsoft dissed them and did their best to kill them. It worked. But guess what they are doing now? What's the whole idea behing .NET and software as a service? That's right, it's a network computer! I guess that once again goes to show that nothing is invented until Microsoft invents it.

BTW, I do agree with your comment that network computer is nothing mode than a glodified diskless workstation. Except that now it's got Java in it and everyone knows Java is cool. Or something.

Re:Interesting! Can Linux do that yet?

[firewort]

While I love and still run Warp 4, the system of network booting that just works, as you described it, is fulfilled by NetBoot on MacOS X Server.

Re:Interesting! Can Linux do that yet?

[crucini]

A good starting point for this kind of stuff is the bpbatch home page.. And yes, NFS is generally used to mount the shared storage. I haven't found it to be that awful. It does have its quirks.

Good kernel...

[WasterDave]

I always thought the OS/2 (warp onwards) kernel sounded good, purely from the idea of a fully re-entrant kernel that booted (including GUI) in 4Mb. So, this came as a pleasant surprise:

Another cool trick you can do with OS/2 is that you can turn off and on any additional CPUs you may have, on the fly.

Holy shit. And....

OS/2 (reportedly) scales wonderfully on machines up to 64 CPUs.

And so runs a good chance of being a kick arse server kernel. Are we going to see Debian/OS2?

With a price of $299 for the normal version and $399 for the version that supports SMP

So that's a no then. Oh well.

Dave

Finnally!

[farrellj]

This is great!

I did a lot of work under OS/2 years ago...and in 1995, I was doing full-motion video in multi-media applications for Trade Shows and Public Information Kiosks using touchscreen systems. One of my applications, Touch Ottawa/Hull, won a design award! I basically moved from OS/2 to Linux, and didn't have to suffer under the Windows for my personal use. Unfortunaely, I am a consultant, and I have to be able to help Windows LUsers when needed. But, luckily, most of my current stuff has been with Linux!

ttyl
Farrell

Shhhhhh!

[infinite9]

Shhhhh not so loud! I'm just now finishing up a project to get a major credit card company off of OS/2 once and for all. If they "discover" this, they may buy it and extend my contract!

Better off without IBM :)

[niola]

IBM really f**ked this one up. When OS/2 Warp 3 came out back in '94, it ran its own apps, as well as Windows 3.1 apps. The cool part was that because of the way it used protective memory addressing it actually ran Windows 3.1 programs faster, and less crash-prone. Only IBM's marketing department could drop the ball on something so cool. They could have come after M$ with both guns blazing, but instead they half-assed it. It wasn't even an issue of compatability then either. Windows 95 wasn't out yet so all the top selling packages on the market then ran on OS/2...

I really hope these eCom (gay name) people get it right :)

--Jon

Re:Better off without IBM :)

[spankenstein]

Actually OS/2 2.1 had windows 3.1 compatability.

It'll be interesting to see where this goes ...

[Batou]

Until earlier this year, I worked at IBM Austin on the OS/2 base team, mostly analyzing core dumps and the like. I remember hearing about this there, and was surprised that no one - including anyone in development management - had ever heard of it. While I applaud Security Systems efforts to attempt to market this OS to the public (lets face it - IBM gave up years ago), I'd be very interested to see where this goes from a support perspective. None of the IBM coders who still provide defect support for OS/2 have any involvement in this. If a nasty bug appears in any of the code, IBM isn't likely to fix it, and I'd assume that OS/2 fixpaks won't work with this (last I heard, they were going to charge subscriptions to receive them, anyway). I would assume that SS doesn't have a full code license, as I can't believe M$ would allow anyone a full code license - and FYI, yes they still have a say - even if they completely yanked out the Win-OS/2 code, it's so tightly integrated within PMShell, you'd never be completely free of it as it would most likely require a complete re-write. That's a few million lines of code, large portions of which are entirely in x86 assembly. Hardly a weekend job. ;-)

A few corrections: Unless the guys at SS made some substantial modifications to the boot loader (not very likely), the bit about having to boot off of a HPFS partition is blatently false. Os/2 supports boot off of fat, fat32 (with the danidasd freeware fat32 IFS driver - I forget who made it, but VERY nice), or HPFS386 (the filesystem the eBusiness and earlier server versions could utiliza, albeit you had to purchase it as a seperate license). IIRC, JFS partitions were non-bootable, but there were so many problems with the IFS driver, you'd be insane to try it, anyway.

I can also appreciate what the reviewer was mentioning about LVM - while it is extremely powerful and flexible, it is an absolute bitch. In fact, you can't completely get rid of it once installed on a drive without doing a low-level format (at least for the versions that shipped with MCP/ACP - this might have changed since). It was an in-joke with the support staff that a virus (LVM) had made it into the release build.

Anyway, best of luck to these guys. I might consider purchasing it if it weren't so damn much. It'll be interesting to see where this goes, and if there are still enough OS/2 nuts out there to provide a niche market for it.

IBM can't kill off OS/2!

[nbvb]

Seriously.

OS/2 is what the supervisor PC's that control the zSeries mainframes run!

Open up a mainframe and inside is a Thinkpad running OS/2 to control it...

It's not going anywhere anytime soon...

--NBVB

Re:IBM can't kill off OS/2!

[Anonymous Coward]

Just to clarify this...

Yes.. the service element (SE) runs OS/2, as does the Host Management Console (HMC).

The SE is used to monitor the processor, as well as providing system control functions (such as telling the processor to power down, or to run a diagnostic tool against an I/O Channel, etc.). The SE orchistrates the monitoring of the physical system (such as how all the power supplies are doing, how the cooling units are doing, etc.).

The HMC is used to centralize the access to one or more systems. It also handles making backups of the SE, as well as calling "home" to IBM to retrieve any microcode maintenance for the processor, as well as calling "home" if there is a problem. The HMC is the main system operator access point to the processor (again allowing the operator to power down or power up and initialize the processor, or allowing a systems admin to configure LPARs (logical partitions), or to monitor overall system activity (how busy the system is).

What the SE and HMC are not. They do not "run" any of the mainframe operating systems. Think of the SE as the souped up holder of the ROM BIOS with a softkey power switch.

Technically, the HMC and the SE can be powered off and the processor will still function (though some control functions may not be available -- such as dynamically updating the I/O configuration, and of course the ability to "control" the system).

The SE is really just the evolution of the service console that has been used for decades in the S/370, S/390, z/Series processors.

But the comment that

"It's not going anywhere anytime soon..." is true.

Re:IBM can't kill off OS/2!

[RazorJ_2000]

Ahh! An IBM insider! I knew you guys were lurkers around here....

Favorite Bumper Sticker from 1993

[3ryon]

OS/2 on a PS/2, half an operating system on half a comptuer.

Great!

[man_ls]

Honestly - it's about time we saw something like this. I have my boxed set of OS/2 2.0 that I ran instead of Win 3.1 for a while (but later ditched because prorgams wouldn't work right.) It was a great OS - better multitasking, memory managment, etc.

For the new OS/2 to include the system apps to run apps from just about any operating system in existance (Java and legacy Windows apps natively, Linux and newer Windows programs in emulation, and X11 for native Unix apps) it will undoubtedly make it a lot easier to get servers up and running. Want Apache httpd to do your web serving, Oracle for your database, and a unix ftpd, you'd be able to do it from one box, out of the box. That alone is worth quite a bit of money to me.

Re:Great!

[dangermouse]

Want Apache httpd to do your web serving, Oracle for your database, and a unix ftpd, you'd be able to do it from one box, out of the box. That alone is worth quite a bit of money to me.

Bad example, man. :)

Re:Great!

[man_ls]

What childish sig? I don't usually read AC posts. I remember why now.

I'll give them credit, but

[llamalicious]

Crappy UI aside, OS/2 Warp 3 was one of the most rock solid, fast systems I ever got to use, and it was that way long before NT ever came around.

Having noce worked at a large Air Conditioning company (who will remain anonymous, but who has their name on a large [and non-airconditioned DOH!] dome in Syracuse NY USA) we used to run upwards of 100 OS/2 machines for the sole purpose of maintaining the entire international email system, and it worked, by-and-large very very well. Had IBM early on worked to improve the UI, enhance the kernel and memory access, beef up hardware support and come up with a serious file/print server to compete with M$'s (then new) NT 4, they might still be using it today.

As it were, NT 4 Wks and Server came out and had a faster kernel, way fast networking and a friendlier (~laff~) UI... so we switched. Switched so much in fact that we pared it down to 20 or so NT boxes for the price of 100 OS/2's...

As far as I'm concerned, IBM had the desktop arena by the balls and totally blew it. (no pun intended)

So hats off to you eCom, I'll give you all the credit in the world, but methinks M$ is far too entrenched, and Mac OS X and Linux far too visible with developers to give OS/2 a real shot at the desktop or development platforms right now.

Re:I'll give them credit, but

[Arandir]

Why is everyone dissing the OS/2 UI? When it came out it totally blew away the Windows 3x crap, and was still better than the Windows 9x gilded crap.

There were quirks, to be sure. They should have done something to halt the tabbed dialog infestation. They should have had a better help system. And they could have used a decent usability study. But overall it was the best UI I have ever seen.

The OS/2 WorkPlace Shell was document centric and object oriented. The former meant that you never needed application icons. Just open up the document and it used the appropriate application. Drag a new document out of the templates folder. All without cheesy file extensions or editing a million mime types. The latter meant that programs could inherit from objects. This allows image viewers and archivers to be merely specialized folders.

These things have all since been implemented in other desktops to one degree or another. But at the time it was revolutionary. Grab the best bits of RISC OS, Plan 9, KDE and GNOME, and integrate them into a whole. That was OS/2 WPS.

They Amplified the Original Flaw

[KarmaBlackballed]

OS/2 was cool because you could run OS/2 native applications (there were not many) and you could run Windows applications. Why didn't OS/2 specific applications take off? Because it was stupid to write OS/2 applications if you could get by with the inferior multitasking of Win 3.1.

Think about it (back in the early 90's): Write a program in Windows and all the OS/2 & Warp users can run it AND all the Windows 3.1 users can too. Write a native application for OS/2 and you will see the difference in sales pretty quick.

Producing an OS/2 that runs native Windows + Linux ironically makes their previous business model flaw larger in that there is NO incentive for developers to write native OS/2 applications.

Sorry, this one is destined to die again ... slowly with vestiges kept alive for a while by islands of hobbyists that appreciate it or keep it for snob appeal. The market is not big enough to sustain an OS development and support effort without users that must have THAT OS to run their critical apps.

Re:They Amplified the Original Flaw

[DrXym]

Certainly that was a problem, but others and possibly the biggest by far were:

1. IBM
   
   I contracted for them for 8 months and I have never seen such disorganized company. The PC division was promoting Win3.1 while another division was trying to sell OS/2. Our group never got to reuse code from another group and the OS/2 developers played second fiddle to the Win3.1 ones. The left hand hadn't a clue what the right was doing. By the time they started putting it in the hands of home users with discounts and cover CDs it was already way, way too late.
2. Usability
   
   The UI for OS/2 - the Workplace Shell was fine in principle, but crap in practice. It looked drab, was inconsistent, it needed too many mouse buttons and it was only "logical" if someone taught you the WPS logic. I think usability was a dirty word in IBM since the WPS was just perverse; commonly used options being buried in the fifth page of some settings dialog, and usused appearing in the popup menus. And no two OS/2 applications looked or behaved alike because apparantly no one in IBM saw fit to share code such as toolbar classes. Apps did have to comply to a bizzaro UI compliance standard called CUA which meant they handled Shift+Insert the same way and other superficial similarities but that was it. I have a sneaking suspicion that some genius in the upper echelons of IBM actually thought unfriendly apps was a good idea to drum sales from selling training.
3. Microsoft
   
   We know all about that one. They put the boot in and IBM (the world's largest computer company) mumbled not very convincingly about unfair competition. But whatever dirty tricks Microsoft were playing, they still had more of a clue about usability. They have people an easy to use (certainly easier than OS/2) operating system. And apps such as MS Office looked consistent and clean.
   

Now I programmed OS/2 and loved the thing, but it was and is screamingly obvious why it was doomed. IBM had its head up its butt (just like Commodore with the Amiga) and simply dithered around wondering why every one was buying someone elses supposedly inferior product.

An analogy would be a master chef wondering why people doesn't buy his delicious cakes when makes them to look like a giant dog turd. I wonder why not...

Re:They Amplified the Original Flaw

[Arandir]

There is a big difference here. FreeBSD and Linux both have nearly identical APIs. A few minor #ifdefs to account for Linux peculiarities and you can write pure POSIX/X11 code and be assured that it will run on both.

Porting from Linux to FreeBSD, or vice versa, is as simple as a recompile. Porting from Windows 3.1 to OS/2 3.0 was several magnitudes more difficult. A Unix development firm can trivially support all known unices natively. A Windows development firm had to do major work to support OS/2 natively.

Re:They Amplified the Original Flaw

[duffbeer703]

Windows NT is also designed to run multiple types of applications natively.

win32 is one runtime, but there is also a win16, dos and posix runtime. These are no longer promoted or maintained.

Here's one

[Sloppy]

Are there any "I've been using OS/2 since.." posters instead of "I used to use..." posters out there in /. land?

Here's one. I've been using OS/2 since 1994. I used it today.

Part of my job is to maintain DOS applications. The compiler/linker (Clipper/Blinker) runs under DOS, and my fingers' favorite editor (Edix) runs under DOS. For doing this kind of stuff, OS/2 is king and there is no close second-place. Yes, Windows can do it too, but Windows is very clunky and inconvenient.

As far as I know, that's the only major advantage OS/2 has over Linux/FreeBSD and it's a hell of a small niche. OS/2 also has a nicer GUI than anything else I've seen, but I can get by with anything.

Lately I've been writing a web app in php, and OS/2 can ssh into my OpenBSD test box just as well as anything else. And it mounts Samba shares just fine. I suppose I could get apache and php for OS/2 but I haven't bothered, because I needed to justify the OpenBSD infiltration. ;-)

About once a week (rough average) I have to run something that requires Windows. The frequency is going to slowly increase with time and someday it may become frequent enough that I can't justify time spent rebooting. But I don't know when I'll reach that point. Hopefully WINE will be far enough along by then that I will get to switch from something that doesn't suck to something else that doesn't suck. But we'll see...

FWIW, I am not interested in this new ecomstation thingie. I can't figure out who would want it. First time OS/2 users? No fucking way. Nobody should switch to OS/2 at this point, unless they're unlucky enough to inherit my job or something. Old OS/2 users upgrading? No, none of the new features of this version of OS/2 would be useful to someone who is already getting by wiht Warp 4. I just don't get it.

Re:Howard Stern

[Rude Turnip]

He used to talk about it *a lot* and the alt.fan.howard-stern newsgroup actually turned into on OS/2 advocacy group for quite some time. Howard saying "Jeff Schick from IBM" 1,000x is burned into my mind permanently. I got into OS/2 around 1994/1995 because of Howard Stern. I even called into his show as "King of All OS/2 Users" and talked about the OS/2 command prompt. Howard described me as "another geek who can't get laid." For several years after that, he was right.

yeah marketing

[austad]

Wow, it's pretty damn obvious that market droids named this thing. "eComStation". Damn. Makes me wanna rush out in my Mazda MP3 and buy it now with my Titanium Visa.

Embedded Systems

[Detritus]

I still do sustaining engineering for a number of PCs that run OS/2 for telemetry and communications tasks. At the time the applications were developed, OS/2 was the best operating system for the job. It was a real 32-bit operating system with a GUI and decent software development tools that would run on cheap PC hardware. It beat the hell out of MS-DOS and Windows 3.1. Plus, IBM actually supported their software, a concept that is foreign to Microsoft and many other software vendors.

I don't care if OS/2 can't run the latest games and Microsoft bloatware. It does an excellent job of reliably running our custom applications.

Odin libraries got Opera ported perfectly to OS2

[DABANSHEE]

Check this out.

Like WINE, Odin in a Win32 API, so OS2 can be natively Win32 compatible.

Odin has the potential to work much better than WINE, because OS2 & Windows share a bit of the same gene pool.

The OS2 version of Opera is a semi-ported Windows app that utilises Odin libraries, as a shortcut to save on the work involved in a full port.

That's my take.

I assume its similar to the way some Windows games that have been ported to Linux utilise WINE libraries.

Banks

[DABANSHEE]

Next time you want to get your money out do you want the ATM or your bank teller's PC to pull a BSOD.

Banks utilile OS2 by the millions & I think always will.

I doubt bank telling Software will progress much beyond what it alread.

After 90% of software/hardwar upgrades are just for wanking off.

Look at 486 Win 3.11 Netware networks, they are as good for browsing the web & writing letters as anything that's come out since.

I know because just of late I've been coming across heaps of Win3.11.Netware networks & they all seem to be running as well as they ever have been.

Consequently I bet in 10 years time the banks will still be using OS2 (oh & QNX - there's the odd QNX ATM too)

Re:Banks

[crucini]

I hope someone mods this up. I think OS/2 evangelists did such a good job proclaiming the use of their favorite OS in ATM's that people have been blind to the gradual switch to Windows.

With the ATM networks changing the banks are taking the opportunity to rebuild their supporting networks. At least the internal departments are using the reason to grab more money and play for new toys.

I think this is a phenomenon we badly need to understand and leverage. A transition from a legacy OS to Windows seems to raise the prestige and budget of the department doing it. Why is that, and is there any way to make Linux similarly attractive?

netbooting no big deal

[DABANSHEE]

its being diskless but doing the processing locally that's different.

With those NCs the processing was all done of the server - which meant they were as slow as shit with 200 clients all running programs simultaniously (even just 7 NC clients will slow a Dual P3 500 app server to a crawl)

Re:netbooting no big deal

[Bishop]

In my post I was not refering to NCs. I was refering to *nix boxes without a disk running programs locally and storeing all data and programs on a server. Running *nix and dos+netware like this was quite common circa 1990. It also worked quite well, except when the network went down. All too common with thinnet (coax).

OS/2 was so stable that.......

[AppyPappy]

I called our OS/2 guru everytime it blew up. I called him twice in two years.

If I did that with Winders, the tech would come over here and shoot me.

Ahhh....Microfuckus COBOL running on OS/2. Now that is REAL code. You would actually watch the code being processed. Made you dizzy as Hell. It taught you to keep your procedures in sequential order.

We ran it on a IBM PS/2 Model 70 (386) with 8 meg of RAM. And you could run Kings Quest II on it as well. Is there a downside to this?

Information on developing for OS/2?

[Dr. Manhattan]

I made the mistake of making my app too portable. It already runs on Linux, Solaris, HP-UX, Tru64, AIX (yuck), and even VMS. Now management wants SGI (easy enough), AS/400 (EBCDIC?!?!?), and OS/2 (should be simple...).

I have a boxed set of OS/2 Warp Connect, and VA C++ Pro 4.0, but boy is documentation of the OS/2 API hard to come by. Not much on the web, either. If I wanted to write an app for OS/2, where the heck would I find any documentation, hints, FAQs, etc.?

Re:Information on developing for OS/2?

[BlondeGuy]

Everything you need to develop for OS/2 is in the OS/2 developers toolkit. Like everything else in the OS/2 world, it isn't free. eComStation comes with a copy of the latest version of the toolkit, which has about 100 Mb of libraries, sample code and documentation. If you are porting a Unix-like app, then you can use the emx package, which you may download at no charge from the OS/2 file repository at http://hobbes.nmsu.edu/.

Re:Information on developing for OS/2?

[landley]

Grab the EMX package off of hobbes. It's a better compiler (gcc port to OS/2) and it comes with extensive documentation. And it's got most of the GNU library anyway...

SS is an aggregator

[Pseudonymus Bosch]

While I applaud Security Systems efforts to attempt to market this OS to the public

It is going to be difficult if people can't even remember that their name is Serenity Systems.

If a nasty bug appears in any of the code, IBM isn't likely to fix it, and I'd assume that OS/2 fixpaks won't work with this (last I heard, they were going to charge subscriptions to receive them, anyway).

From my understanding, a subscription to eCS with "Upgrade Protection" (?) gives you the right to receive a fixpack CD on a quarterly basis while IBM's Convenience Package sends only yearly CDs so it is better in this way. (You can also download them if you paid for the passwords).
I understand that Serenity aggregates OS/2 users so that they are another of the big customers that IBM pays attention to.
You are not guaranteed a fix anyway. But, unless you are Enormous-Grossebank Gmbh, this is your best chance to get IBM to listen to you.

with the danidasd freeware fat32 IFS driver - I forget who made it,

Daniela Engert, the name is a hint.

niche market for it.

I hope that not all the meanings of "niche" will be explored.

WPS

[Pseudonymus Bosch]

The WPS was rock solid

I'd say that WPS is the least robust part of OS/2. OS2*.INI files get corrupted if you don't use costless third-party WPSTools regularly. And don't put too many shadows around.

But it also is the best part of OS/2. A pity.

MS monopoly tactics

[Pseudonymus Bosch]

If you couldn't even get an OS/2 PC pre-installed from IBM's PC division,

I read somewhere that MS threatened to stop mass-discounting Windows to IBM. But I didn't heard about it being mentioned in the trial.

Can somebody confirm?

Comments are full assed

[BobStJohn]

Gee ... why would you make so many incorrect statements? eCS includes support from IBM, including the ability to submit defect reports.

You don't apply IBM Fixpacks directly because eCS builds the desktop differently. Therefore, Serenity Systems supplies its own fixpack which includes the IBM fixpack .. fixes for OS/2 and eCS specific fixes. At no charge .. no need for a subscription, as with IBM.

eCS installer has been well received. Problem reports generally occur with the network install and selective install .. which are parts of the IBM installer. And the IBM installer is still available. Users can install from CD2 and that will engage the IBM installer and create the "OS/2 classic" desktop. Using the CD1 install creates the updated desktop, or use CD2 and the convert.exe program.

Finally, it costs less than IBM. eCS uses OS/2 4.51 ... which means a user would have to get Warp 4 and SWC. Warp 4 (upgrade) on IBM's site is around $180 .. new user is around $250 ... then add $200 or so for Software Choice. You are going to be up around $400 .. and all you get is OS/2 4.51.

Next year .. things get dramatically better for eCS pricing as the eCS Entry will provide OS/2 4.52 for SRP $79 .. and even eCS Upgrade Protection, adding $89, only brings the cost to $168 ... well below the SWC price of $200 ... and new users would pay $199 and $89 for eCS compared to $250 and $200.

And ... eCS users get more software, including HOBLink X/11 Server which sells for about $200 .. IBM's Desktop on Call ...

Feel free to criticize eCS .. but get it right. Valid criticism helps us improve the product.

Shoddy remarks like this are just FUD.

Regards,
Bob St.John
Serenity Systems