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The Sad Parable of OS/2
Still-in-Mourning writes "IBM's first 32-bit version of its advanced PC operating system was released 10 years ago this month. It was better than anything around, yet it failed. Its hopes were pinned on many of the same things we hope today will bring Linux to the forefront. What lessons are to be learned? Will we learn them? A glimpse of a sorry chapter in computing history."
There's a few other simple reasons OS/2 might have failed. The first was that it was just too robust. You comment in the story that it was 10 years ago that it was begun. Well, think about the machines we had 10 years ago. Most people, if they even had a computer, they were in the 286 or 386 department. OS/2 is a heavy-weight. It compared more to what NT was soon to become back then. Yes, it had smaller hardware requirements, but most people's machines were just insufficient for running it. Other possibility was the amount of DOS software out there 10 years ago.
Games and multimedia software were mostly written for DOS because authors needed direct hardware access. OS/2, while having excellent DOS support, it was still too slow and unstable to play Falcon 3.0 or what have you (although, I admit I was able to get CrystalDream II by Triton to run... only after a LOT of hacking).
Aside from that, there were no direct hardware access API's available... ever (as far as I know). When OS had to start competing with Windows 95, Microsoft was introducing the WinG (Windows Graphics) library, the library that eventually lead to DirectX. I'm not saying that OS/2 had no multimedia support (it had a fantastic multimedia model), but it simply was not ambitious enough.
Too bad. OS/2 was never geared towards people with lower end (average at the time) hardware and those who wanted to play games.
Why bother.
I was working for a small software house when version 1.0 (I think that was the version) came out and I was given the job of porting some of our products to it. I was pretty impressed. It was the first time I think I ever programmed with threads, etc. and I got our product working pretty well. Then the next version came out and everything I'd done was broken. I couldn't even figure out a way to fix some of the critical things that needed to be done in the new version which seemed to have a completely different philosophy. I heard stories about a team in England having rewritten it, don't know if any of that is true. But my boss swore off Os/2 forever after that.
In theory, theory and practice are the same; in practice they're different. (Yogi Berra & A. Einstein)
From the article:
Microsoft found it all but impossible to develop a useful multitasking operating system for the 286. This was not Microsoft's fault -- the design of the chip simply wouldn't allow much useful to be done with it.
What exactly in the in the 286 architecture prevents the use of a multitasking operating system? I seem to remember MS once touted Xenix, and there were also other Unixen out there. There were multitasking versions of CPM before the 286. Is the article writer missing something, or am I missing something. You don't need to have built in multiple instruction pipelines in the proceessor to multitask. It is almost trivial to write that into an operating system. Remember Andrew Tannenbaum's Minix that came on floppies included in his book "Operating Systems"?.
It appears to me that the article writer is trying to excuse Microsoft's lack of skill by pretending that the task was impossible.
-- Another senseless waste of fine bytes.
Many, far too many, moons ago I started a contract at Aldus Corporation as a SE/T (Software Engineer/Test). My job was to work with one of the first commercial applications developed for OS/2, a new version of Aldus Pagemaker.
Because no-one at Aldus knew anything about OS/2 (they were pretty much all Mac-heads and sneered at PC's, DOS and Windows) they gave me a brand new computer, a bunch of sticks of RAM and a pile of floppies they got from IBM. "Go figure it out." So I did.
The developers (who I was never allowed to meet for some bizarre reason) got Yesler (the codename for OS/2 Pagemaker) running about the time I was getting really bored with playing Reversi (the only real application on the OS/2 distribution I had) and I got started doing what they were paying me for; figuring out how to crash Yesler and/or OS/2 and emailing formatted dumps with my comments to the developers. It wasn't hard to find said bugs, although I was told "You can't crash OS/2, it is too solid." Hah!
Just about the time they got Yesler stable enough that I could put together a demo script the marketroids could use to show off the program (they had to follow it exactly or it would crash) I found a way to make OS/2 have a complete spastic seizure. It involved a fairly complex series of actions that had to be followed exactly, but when you did the last one the computer would freeze and waves of color would wash over the screen. Kind of pretty in a psychodelic way.
We called it the Colorshow bug and the developers claimed it was an OS/2 problem. This kicked off a shitstorm of finger pointing that ended with the developers working around the bug instead of IBM fixing it. Remember, at this point IBM was actually pretty happy about the Yesler project because it gave their new operating system some street cred, so it really surprised me that there was so much rancor. An earlier problem with printer drivers was fixed in a day from my reporting it.
But the punchline happened about a week after I found the Colorshow bug. One of the marketroids came by and asked if I could demonstrate the bug for a group of suits that were waiting down the hall. No problem, bring them on (and, yes, I promise to watch my language). So the suits crowd around the desk and I walk the dog and pony (click, click, drag, click, drag, click, colors, "OOOOHH!", nervous laughter). The suits thank me and they leave.
Then the guy sitting across from me leans over and says "You know who that was?" I shake my head. "That was Paul Brainard," (the CEO of Aldus) "and a bunch of Apple executives up here for a visit."
OK...
Jack William Bell
- -
Are you an SF Fan? Are you a Tru-Fan?
When I was at the MIS center for Designs by Levi, I saw them configuring OS/2 1.0 text mode for one of the cash registers.
While on a contract job in 2000 for a cash register company, some of their cash registers still run under OS/2. And, they run their central control systems under OS/2.
Fight Spammers!
I read through the article, and it was full of weird conclusions. I am very familiar with what was going on in the computer industry during the time period discussed, and I disagree with much of the article.
The story of OS/2 is what taught me that in the computer industry, revolution is not what the customers want; they want evolution. You can sometimes pull off a revolution (Macintosh) but it is much easier to offer a smooth upgrade path.
OS/2 was not killed by some weird conspiracy by Microsoft. Some of the other causes of death listed were not doubt contributing factors, but the major cause of death was: incompatible APIs.
It was not possible to take a Windows application and compile it for OS/2; you had to substantially re-write your app. It wouldn't be quite as much work as re-writing your app from scratch, but it was close. Microsoft didn't want this. Microsoft wanted to make OS/2's windowing API compatible with Windows, but IBM had some other API they thought was better, and they insisted it be used.
This had the effect of forcing companies to decide whether they wanted to write for Windows, or write for OS/2. That was totally dumb of IBM. If people could have just recompiled for OS/2 and offered an OS/2 version of their app, they would have done so. IBM was asking developers for a revolution, not evolution.
But let's go back to the first version of OS/2. Because it was written for the 286, its compatibility with DOS apps was poor. OS/2 1.x offered a "compatibility box" for running a single DOS app at a time; it worked poorly, and it was often called the "Chernobyl Box" because it would often crash (and it would take the whole OS down with it). So, any company that wanted to adopt OS/2 had to plan on getting new versions of all their applications.
But in 1990, Windows 3.0 shipped. It sold like hotcakes. The article makes some bizarre statements about Win 3.0, but the reality was that it would multitask your DOS applications very well. DOS applications were preemptively multitasked, not cooperatively, and DOS apps could very well crash but usually Windows would not crash with them. In other words, Win 3.0 allowed companies an evolutionary upgrade path: they could keep running the same DOS apps they were using, and then phase in Windows apps over time. The same companies that were unwilling to commit to OS/2 were willing to commit to Win 3.0.
Win 3.0 was what made Microsoft decide to walk away from OS/2. The customers were voting with their dollars, and what they were voting for was Windows. It didn't hurt that Microsoft had covered all bets: they had applications for DOS, Windows, OS/2, and Macintosh. (They even flirted with a few other platforms: my favorite word processor for the Atari ST was Microsoft Write.) When Win 3.0 took off, Microsoft was ready, and sold lots of Word and Excel.
So, to review: IBM forced developers to choose whether to develop for OS/2 or Windows, and Windows became a runaway hit. That's it right there. That's what killed OS/2.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
I use OS/2 just about every day at work, and i can tell you it's very much still alive and kicking :) when the software that runs our equipment was first designed, windows 3.1 just wouldn't cut it, so the programmers decided to use OS/2. since then, each new version has been built on the last, and new equipments' software borrows elements from the previous generation's. so to this day, all our machines use OS/2 version 3 in their embedded computers, and all field engineers are given laptops that dual boot into Warp 4 to run simulations. (ironically, OS/2 is not supported on these IBM laptops, so it's sometimes hard to find drivers.) it looks like the big push to port everything to windows NT is finally on, though. but it will still be around on all our machines in the field for quite some time to come....
Don't forget, in 1995 Microsoft did have a monopoly on PC OS's and what they did to make Windows 95 apps NOT run under OS/2 was anti-competitive and illegal. Microsoft built Windows 95 to load a few resources up at the 1GB memory address just to prevent OS/2 from running Windows 95 apps just like it ran Windows 3.x apps. You see, OS/2 could ONLY access 512MB of address space.
Let's not forget that in Nov 1994, at COMDEX, HP had 50% of their PC's running OS/2 the night before the show opened. Bill Gates made a phone call and by morning, NO HP computers were running OS/2.
The list goes on. I blame IBM 10% for OS/2 not gaining more market share and the other 90% was Microsofts anti-competitive nature to do ANYTHING to prevent the consumer from making the choice.
Speaking of choice, do you remember that Microsoft threatened to pull out of COMDEX because IBM was doing it's keynote speech about choices unless IBMs timeslot was moved to reduce the viewers. I think IBM dropped out of COMDEX the following year and all since.
Think about it. It took MIcrosoft 10 years to build a version of Windows that is close to OS/2 v2.0... well maybe v2.1 is a better comparison since it had better legacy Windows support and the 32bit graphics system updates. TEN YEARS!
WHERE DO YOU WANT TO GO TODAY??? With Microsoft?
Nyet.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
Well, OS/2 3.0 Warp was great, I used it for a year and a half and it was really stable and powerful.
It did have its share of bugs, the keyboard queue could hang for example, leaving the system running but non responsive to user input, or it didn't protect the swap file (one could hang the system, if I recall correctly, by writing into the swap file!).
Despite, it was clearly better than Windows 3.x and Windows 95. It run almost everything DOS related, even games (Mortal Kombat 2 in a window anyone? ) and most Windows apps, sometimes faster than Windows itself and surely more stable.
Pricing for personal users was also right, I recall I bought it for less than the equivalent of $50.
It had a number of powerful commercial apps, a lot of shareware/freeware good ones, a very active user/developer community...
But it didn't have proper support from IBM itself. Period. What killed OS/2 was IBM as a company, since it never showed faith that it could succeed and never had a consistent plan as to what it should achieve.
Was it a big company OS? A personal computer one? Was it a Windows replacement? Something entirely different? IBM used to shift positions and the result was that the killer big name app never came.
The result is that now OS/2 is a niche product, used mostly in financial institutions and getting replaced slowly but steadily by alternatives.
Is OS/2 related to Linux? In a way. But OS/2 started as the next big thing and became a niche product, while Linux was not even a niche product and now is the next big thing.
Applications are here, support is here, publicity is here, only one thing can reverse Linux's course; inconsistency.
Diversity is a good thing, but some well chosen standards are better. Give the choice to those who need it, but have a common set of choices defined for those who don't.
If Linux is to succeed in all these different markets it targets (server, desktop, embedded), there a must be a clearly defined path and set of options for each. One size fits all was never the answer in computing.
OS/2 was killed because IBM didn't have a consistent vision as to what it should have been, while Windows was everywhere and good enough for most.
Linux could succeed, by not repeating this mistake.
Actually with OS/2 the interface was seperate from the OS.
I remember dropping the GUI all together and using a text based switcher to run my BBS in.. didn't need a gui, just a alt-tab interface to the os2 cmd prompt so i can run PCBoard 15.1 and play sierra games at the same time.
It fascinated me that in the revenge of the nerds, it was pointed out that IBM was paying Microsoft based on K-LOCs (thousands of lines of code). I think it was Ballmer who pointed out that it was hardly an incentive to code something tight and efficiently...
Also, IBM got wind that MS was developing Windows in parallel. That's when that 'partnership' started to unravel. I believe there was meant to be a fundamental difference about supporting older DOS applications. With earlier incarnations of OS/2, you had to be lucky to have a program work in the DOS box. With Windows, you had to be a lot more unlucky...
So does Anonymous Coward have good karma?
I was an OS/2 Developer for almost 5 years. It was a great run. Solid OS. Good stuff. I built many systems ontop of OS/2 and it almost never let me down. It was and is far beyond Windoze, NT, and XP.
Make no mistake, M$ killed OS/2. They will kill Linux given the chance. They will kill the Mac, given the chance. They will kill Solaris, given the chance....
You must have used a different OS/2 than me or any of the people I knew at the time then. Both OS/2 3.1 and Warp ran faster and were much more stable than either DOS/Win31 or Windows 95 on my Gateway 4DX266V (486/66, w 8MB ram). It wasn't until I finally installed Slackware on that beast that I discovered an operating system that was more fun and useful.
I too have heard this---from someone at IBM, no less.
Interestingly, he told me that this was one of the obstacles to open-sourcing OS/2. The banks are worried about people having the source to the OS that runs their ATMs.
"Never bullshit a bullshitter" All That Jazz
This is one of the poorer "why os/2 is dead" articles constantly being rehashed. Got Ecs running on my file, mail, http and ftp servers, and all is good. Why not xp - i don't waiste money on things i don't need. Why not Linux - i have a life and i want to keep it that way
"OS/2 1.30 (SE and EE) was the first version which was written entirely by IBM. There was still some Microsoft code in it - that would not go away for a couple years yet - but all of the new code and a good portion of the existing code for OS/2 1.30 was written by IBM. As a result, OS/2 1.30 was smaller and faster than previous versions, more stable, and there were far more device drivers available, though still not nearly enough."
This is from your own link #2. Many users agree that the quality of OS/2 peaked around version 2.1. At this point there was very little Microsoft code left in there. Reading the original article that \. linked to, these early releases weren't very good at all. Only after IBM re-wrote it and brought it beyond the simple *text-mode* support of 1.0, did it gain a following. If Microsoft was able to create a system as good as the OS/2 written by IBM, it wouldn't have tripped and stumbled through NT 3.51 and 4.0 before releasing something decent like 2000. This comment sounds real juicy at first glance but is highly misleading. Sheesh, if only I had some moderator points.
At the time I didn't want Windows, but the pricing scheme forced me to buy it anyways. Rediculous. Once I got it I discovered that the memory requirement of 8MB was a joke -- OS/2 was never happy doing any real work with less than 32MB, and as a student I could never afford to buy that much RAM...
I work for a state government that still uses OS/2 Warp 3 for one of our in house applications. When you put Warp next to NT/2K, immediately the Windows machines jump out as more intuitive and far better supported (ever tried navigating IBMs site for OS2 info?). However, when you dig a little deeper and look at some of the community efforts that have sprung up leveraging OS2s' capabilities...it's really suprising. For example, there are OS2 ports of Xfree86 and quite a few ported GNU utils. There is also a Win32 API compatability project [Odin] out there. When everyone talks about OS2 being dead, ironically, it's not for a lack of functionality. There are still people extending that. The real coffin nail for OS2 is the $250 retail price it STILL carries. If one were really so inclined, you could use OS2 as a bridge for legacy DOS apps, Win32 support (via Odin), and *nix Apps (via the EMX library, GNU ports, and XFree). Truth is, with better handling, OS2 could still be something.
But not for long...its so old maintenance is too much of a burden, so a new system is being developed.
The year was 1994. I was still kind of newbish about operating systems, but had a real burning desire to learn. My little Packard Bell 486 DX2-66 with 4 megs of memory came preloaded with Windows 3.1. I was working at Babbages at the time, and we had just recieved a shipment of OS/2 Warp, including a couple free(beer) versions for employees to take home with them so we would know more about the product to sell it. A friend of mine had just gotten in his 85+ boxed set of linux slackware floppies in the mail (kernel version 1.1.18 if I remember correctly but it could have been prior). We sat down side by side that night, him on his 386 with 2 megs of memory, and me on my 486. OS/2 took me a good 4 hours to install, mainly due to the fact that I was so limited on memory, however he had linux up and running within what seemed to be minutes. I was aghast at how blazingly fast he was able to start doing things while I was still watching the stupid install screen. I had used the HPUX system at school and remembered all the neat stuff I learned I could do just from a telnet session, and that was all she wrote. That evening I was running slackware on my little POS Packard Hell, and the OS/2 box was in the trash can.
What killed OS/2 more than anything was the people like me with 4 megs of ram, back when an 8MB stick would cost you around 400(us) dollars. The timing of 95 hit perfectly with manufacturers(coincidence?) rolling out systems with 8 megs or more memory.
On a side note I trashed my linux install the day after I installed it with a recursive delete and had to reinstall windows to have an operating system. It didn't detour me from using Linux, just made me accountable for my actions from then on out. I never made that mistake again (just one very similar; ).
Uhh, wasn't NeXTStep around at the time? If I'm not mistaken, it was introduced with the NeXT Cube in 1988 (four years before OS/2). It had UNIX stability, display postscript, was great for multimedia applications...
NT tries hard to emulate UNIX (and does a pretty good job, I suppose), but UNIX has been UNIX for thirty years...
It can't be denied that IBM let OS/2 wither on the vine. Whether that's a good or bad thing seems to be a matter of personal preference and is definitely a moot point anyway. But has anyone noticed that IBM has developed a web browser for OS/2 that is based on Mozilla? At least someone cares enough about OS/2 that they bothered. It's funny that people always used to count out Moz/Netscape, but lately they've been roaring back. Maybe if IBM open-sourced OS/2, it might be put to good use by more people. However, I suspect they may not be able to because of some ancient licensing agreement with MS (especially because of the fact that some old code is still put to use in NT/2000/XP). Maybe someone out there knows for sure.