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OS/2 Going, Going... Gone

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the os/2-is-dying dept.

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.

4 of 531 comments (clear)

  1. Reports of it's death greatly exaggerated by SClitheroe · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

  2. Re:Open Source It by Zathrus · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

  3. Re:OS/2 by seosamh · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

  4. Jerry Pournelle identified the real problem by harlows_monkeys · · Score: 5, Informative
    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.