OS/2 Going, Going... Gone

An anonymous submitter writes "IBM has posted a Software Withdrawal notice on their web site announcing that the OS/2 operating system, in all its forms, will cease to be available for purchase from IBM as of March 12, 2003. For users who have purchased the two year OS/2 Software Choice subscriptions, service will continue until December 31, 2004." We posted a pretty good story about the history of OS/2 earlier this year.

Comments

Reports of it's death greatly exaggerated

[SClitheroe]

Check out eComStation (www.ecomstation.com), which is a beefed up OS/2 distribution. You get lots of neat goodies like SMP support, new filesystems, better driver support, X-Windows, and all sorts of other stuff.

Re:Open Source It

[Zathrus]

Well... depends. There's probably a good bit of MS code lurking around in utilities, and certainly most of HPFS is from MS, but the last bit of MS code was excised from the kernel and UI in the Warp (3.0) days.

As I recall, there was a party thrown down in Boca Raton when the last bit of MS code was removed. Warp was also much more stable than previous versions of the OS.

I'm sure there are bits and pieces of the OS that could be of use to the open source community, but I think that by and large you're correct about code age.

The bits that would be of the most use are probably of mixed copyright and thus unreleaseable.

Re:OS/2

[ekrout]

First, remember when OS/2 came out and compare it to the Windows offering at that point in time.

Now, the features of OS/2:

- a flexible object-oriented graphic user interface
- the ability to multi-task applications and to allow multi-threading within applications
- support for most DOS and Windows 3.1 software in addition to native OS/2 applications
- WARP 4 includes in its basic package a voice type dictation facility that not only allows a user to navigate an OS/2 system using voice commands, but also allows dictation of text into documents--truly hands-free computing!
- WARP 4 includes built-in support for JAVA.
- OS/2 has included a web browser since version 3, and new browsers continue to be developed
- The Mozila open source group offers an OS/2 version code named Warpzilla. Warpzilla is very modern, standards compliant, and very usable. Major bugs are addressed in a day or two and milestone builds are released regularly. Warpzilla grows stronger every day.
- There is an OS/2 version of Adobe Acrobat which can be configured as a helper application with Netscape Navigator.

This info and more is available at this computer society's Web site.

Still running OS/2

[www.sorehands.com]

I am still running OS/2 on my main system. I have been running Post Road Mailer 3.0. I still have not been infected by any virus. When people say, I might have sent out email because I have contracted another outlook virus, I laugh.

You are still running OS/2. Many ATMs and cash registers still run OS/2.

Re:OS/2

[seosamh]

OS/2 used preemptive multitasking when windows was still using cooperative multitasking.

OS/2 included things like REXX and a couple useful editors, when Windows included solitaire. (Yeah, OS/2 had a solitaire game, too.)

OS/2 included the Internet Access Kit (or some such), including the WebExplorer browser, a news reader, a mail reader, etc. when MS still considered the Web a dying fad.

Later, OS/2 included the IBM Voice recognition software in the box. Windows NT included the BSOD.

The list goes on and on. Like the previous poster said, search the web. The OS/2 Fido groups on old fashioned bulletine board systems were great technical resources, unlike the AOL polluted usenet of today.

OS/2 will continue as eComStation

[Warpedcow]

Check out www.ecomstation.com
This is essentially OS/2. I checked up on some usenet groups discussing IBM's announcement, and it seems clear that the eCS folks knew about this when they started eCS, so OS/2 (in the form of eCS) should be around much much longer than 2004! :)

-Dave

So are they going to

[TerryAtWork]

Release it's source code under GPL?

This would be a great opportunity for IBM to show it's Cluefull....

Re:Why it died

[Brian Knotts]

OS/2 was also hopelessly tied to the i386 architecture

Wrong.

IBM developed and released (in a very limited release) a microkernel-based OS/2 Warp (PowerPC Edition) in 1995.

More information about this is available here:

Highly Unofficial IBM OS/2 Beta FAQ

Jerry Pournelle identified the real problem

[harlows_monkeys]

I think it was in his Byte column where he wrote of his experiences trying to get started developing for OS/2, and Win95.

At a trade show, he went to the Microsoft booth, and asked what he had to do to get started with Windows development. They handed him a developers kit right there.

He went to the IBM booth, and asked then what he had to do to get started with OS/2 development. They handed him an application to their developer program so he could ask for permission to develop for OS/2 (for a large fee, of course).

I realized OS/2 was truly doomed about a year later, when I went into Egghead, and saw MSDN Library subscriptions for sale. The only OS/2 development tool I saw at Egghead was the Watcom C/C++ compiler.

Another thing that hurt OS/2 was the lack of good third-party documentation. Where was the equivalent of Petzold's wonderful Windows books, that got so many of us started on Windows programming? There IS a book on OS/2 programming by Petzold, but it was often out of print. I'm sure IBM could have managed to get it back into print if they'd wanted.

OS/2 still in wide use

[prototype]

OS/2 may have the support cables pulled and IBM is pulling the sheet over it's head, but it's still in wide use in a lot of industries. It was a solid 32bit pre-emptive multi-tasking system for it's time (before Win95). The only other alternative at the time was real Unix systems but that was a huge cost for small businesses. OS/2 provided the reliability and stability that some businesses needed.

The majority of the current user base is banks. They have (or perhaps had?) a HUGE investment in OS/2. Most ATMs ran and are still running OS/2 for their operating system. The uptime is incredible so without support or the ability to continue the product, most businesses must get off of OS/2 asap. Of course we've known that it was a burning platform for years now but with such a large installed base and legacy applications running off it, who has the time or budget to move off.

We currently use OS/2 with our train control systems as well as a few other key safety systems. It's just as reliable as it was years ago and our plan to move to another platform doesn't manifest itself until the 2004-2005 timeframe.

MS-DOS is dead; DOS will never die

[adb]

It has been freed.

Re:Why it died

[operagost]

You seriously needed to optimize that system. I ran Warp 3 on a 486DX40 with only 8 MB RAM. By "ran" I mean I usually had a terminal emulator (sometimes a Windows program), CD player, Bluewave news reader, and either IBM Works or WP 5.1 open. HPFS file system too! I upgraded to 16 MB when the prices suddenly dropped, and it flew. I still ran 16 MB with Warp 4, but I have to admit that one was a pig with the networking installed and I was much happier when I went to 32.