IBM Officially Kills OS/2

boarder8925 writes "'Big Blue has hammered the final nails into OS/2's coffin. It said that all sales of OS/2 will end on the 23rd of December this year, and support for the pre-emptive multitasking operating system will end on the 31st December 2006.' IBM has posted a migration page to help OS/2 users easily switch to Linux."

Comments

They didn't say anything about the eComStation OEM

[Locutus]

So, while it looks like IBM is stopping sales(2005) and general support(2006), OS/2 will still be shipping and supported by Serenity Systems via eComStation.

OS/2 is dead, long live OS/2.

LoB

Re:OS2 is still in use?

[TimTheFoolMan]

We wrote a large body of building automation software subsystems in OS/2. There was no easy way to provide the same functionality in Windows, so it was never cost effective to port it.

To this day, we keep the central routing server and all the subsystems in OS/2 boxes that are treated like embedded control systems, and have written Windows 2K-based interface code that proxies everything as BACnet devices.

OS/2 was a good combination of modern OS services (named pipes, threads, etc.) and easy development. Given how simple it was to access serial ports, we could easily interface via DigiBoard multiplexers and such, and could write a new system driver (including reverse engineering time) in less than six months.

I'm the primary contact for IBM in our office, so they've been flooding me with information about porting these apps to Linux, which sadly, may never be cost effective.

I am *very* sorry to see this event, even though I fully understand and appreciate all the factors that led to OS/2's demise. It's like watching a very dependable ship being sent to the bottom of the ocean because it's too expensive to keep it afloat.

Oh well...

Tim

Re:Won't somebody please think of the ATM machines

[cheese_lord]

For the love of god it's ATM not ATM machine. No one goes to the Automatic Teller Machine Machine

get eComStation instead

[user_ecs]

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/

Re:OS2?

[jm92956n]

I wonder what will happend with all the OS/2 code? IBM should publish it and make it public. Maybe someone can use parts of it in non-commercial ways (so M$ does not exploit it).

I would love for IBM to publish the source for OS/2, but it won't happen for two reasons:

1. Because OS/2 was written in conjuction with Microsoft, I'm sure the original agreement with MS prohibits this sort of action (and MS would never agree to it now, especially as the two aren't nearly as cozy as they once were).
2. Companies that still use OS/2 would apply pressure against such an action if IBM even considered it. The code hasn't been through the same review that Linux has been subjected to, and I'm sure there's an exploit or two in there that could be readily discovered if the code were available (think: "if you ever want us to purchase your services again, don't open-source it").

Re:OS2?

[Locutus]

Good luck with that. Microsoft helped IBM develop OS/2; how do you think it ran Windows stuff so well?

Good luck with that son, but I'm sorry to tell you that Microsft did NOT help IBM code OS/2 so it would run Windows. As a matter of fact, Microsoft did far more to STOP OS/2 from running Windows and Windows applications. When Microsoft was releasing betas of Chicago( Win95 ), IBM had Chicago apps running under OS/2. When Microsoft found out, they changed the OS so that a very small portion of the Win32 resources loaded up at the 1GB memory address. This was so OS/2 could not run ANY Chicago applications or the OS. It worked because OS/2 supported virtual memory up to 512MB.

So you got that WAY WRONG. The bit about Microsoft licensing issues preventing opensourcing OS/2 is correct.

LoB

Re:Os/2 Propaganda or accurate user counts

[Anonymous Coward]

Eh... 16 - bit Unsigned Int.

An 8-bit unsigned int only good for 0-255.

Re:Won't somebody please think of the ATM machines

[man_of_mr_e]

I don't think you've checked very recently. The vast majority of ATM's have been Windows based for at least 2 or 3 years.

The big transition started happening around Y2K. They needed to upgrade the hardware in many of the systems anyways, so they took the opportunity to bail on OS/2 as well (given IBM's "don't ask, don't tell" stance on it).

Re:This may tick some off...

[TimTheFoolMan]

Funny... whenever we've done end-user training and the end-users don't have a preconceived notion of what a computer OS is supposed to look like, they seem to latch on to OS/2 just fine. And yes, we had users that would wave the mouse around in the air, so much so that I (when I was working as a tech writer) created a graphic that showed that the mouse had to be in contact with the table.

Once we got people to that level of understanding, the interface was reasonably consistent throughout.

Not sure what your benchmark is, but as someone who used OS/2 as my day-to-day OS for several years, and have supported apps developed under this OS for several more, and spent more than a few hours writing articles for "Inside OS/2," your comments strike me as bogus.

Tim

Re:Open the Workplace Shell

[jbolden]

What does this even mean?

Inheritance. In windows (or Linux) a file is an extension and is associated with an application or collection of applications. In OS/2 a file can inherit from various parents. So for example you could have a file xyz.mp3 of a lecture:

1) Since its an .mp3 the sound programs work on it and "edit" opens it up in a sound editor

2) Since its part of a lecture it will inherit from the word transcript and when you "open for transcription" it opens with another (say word doc) transcript

3) Since the lecture an be associated with other lectures which have video with them when you "open for viewing" it can pull up the associated powerpoint

etc...

Now the important thing is that these behaviors are inherited because the xyz.mp3 is a member of class lecture in addition to being a member of the class .mp3. Members of the class .mp3 are sound files while members of the class lecture have associated transcripts and lectures.

It also made some attempt at polymorphic behavior (i.e. edit, open, etc..).
Finally information was encapsulated at the lowest level (the file, the folder, etc..)

Re:Think of the marketing IBM wasted

[zakezuke]

I never had any problems with OS/2 drivers at all. I was running it on a 486SX-25mhz with 8mb of RAM with Waffle BBS answering a modem in a DOS VDM, while I ran Win3.1 apps. It was an incredible OS, and to this very day, even the latest, greatest Windows GUI is still just a fancied-up version of the original Chicago shell, which was a retarded rip-off of WPS. I have a feeling that a good many of the OS/2 users end up either going to Linux or MacOS

My only real beef with OS/2 was the fact that it ran rather like a dog on 4megs of ram, and the cost to upgrade to 8megs was rather high. I gave it a good honest shot when I upgraded to 8 but at the time I was running mostly dos apps.. so I could either run OS/2 which took up a good deal of HD space and ram, or desqview which took up about 2megs of disk space and squat in the way of ram. By the time the pentiums came out and memory prices dropped to a point something like os/2 was practical and spiffy win95 was already out.

I'm not saying I didn't like the product, it was just too much for what I needed at the time, which was running a dos app and word once and a while and terminal emulation which at the time worked so much better in a dos window.

What I didn't like were those OS2 prophets. Nothing worse walking down the street and getting one of those jackasses with the "end is neigh" signs trying to convert me to OS2, when I was perfectly happy putting along in dos and desqview.

Re:History

[What me a Coward]

Well you're on the right track somewhat.

IBM and Microsoft worked together on OS2 IBM did most of the code for 1.0 and started working on 2.0 while MS was supposed to sell 1.0 and a new GUI MS called windows that was supposed to be incorperated into OS2 around 2.0 or 2.1 as well as work on 3.0 as the next gen 3.0 ended up being NT BTW yep NT is the offspring of OS2. Anyway while IBM was working on 2.0 MS as some have said was having arguments with IBM about memory requirments as well as price for the new OS turned around and saw windows flying off the shelves and decided they didn't need a new OS or IBM so Gates and CO. bailed on IBM to sell windows. IBM was left to work on OS2 themselves but because of the deals with MS IBM had the rights to include the Windows code into OS2 through 2.1 which is why OS2 2.0 had partial windows 3.0 code in it and 2.1 warp had the full windows 3.1 code in it.

Well after 2.0 finally came out around the time MS was selling windows 3.0 MS started getting scared that OS2 would end up taking their desktop sales away due to a better more stable and flexible OS so they took their OS2 3.0 code off the shelf dusted it off and finished it off with some new things that had been learned since it had been shelved and called it windows NT for New Technology and said everybody would be able to use that. But they couldn't get Dos which people at the time needed for backwards compatability for dos programs people were using at the time to work in NT without breaking security needed for buisness so to satisfy everybody they said that NT would be for buisness and they would write a new version for everybody else which at the time they called NT Lite which later became 93 then 94 and then 9x for whenever they relesed it and finally 95 which as it turned out they shouldn't have released it at that time as it still was buggy and flawed and far from being a new OS with some dos code running under the new OS for compatability with old programs as it turned out 95 was still a shell running old dos with the same problems of dos. As a final point OS2 2.0 had suffered most of the smae problems as 95 like the registry coruptions etc.. and had fixed thoughs problems by the time OS2 2.1 warp was released before win 95 even came out suffering the same ills.

Really i don't know if MS lead IBM astray so much as just abandoning them. Leaving them in the lurch as it were or leaving them holding the bag as far as working on the subequent versions goes. But IBM was just as bad for OS2 as MS was mainly because of how IBM does things OS2 found itself competeing against other IBM projects for money for things like paying for programers and advertising etc. against ideas and inventions by other parts of IBM including some that had come fro the CEO and VP of IBM at the time. It's things like this that lead to stupid commercials for OS2 that left people not knowing exactly what the heck OS2 was. One featured a couple dancing on a dance floor with words poping up in the corner saying something about OS2 will make your life easier but said nothing about what OS2 was or how it was supposed to make anyones life easier. So IBM was doing plenty on it's own to sabatage OS2 even without MS who if they hadn't left to sell windows and later do NT and 95 would just have in some way weasled the rights to OS2 away from IBM by hook or crook anyway so it didn't really matter OS2 was doomed no matter how things played out. As things worked out we still ended up with OS2 just with a different name and MS shockingly weasled it away from IBM by taking the code which was OS2 at the core shelving it for a few years after they broke off from IBM and then finishing it under a new name without giving any royalties or sharing any of the profits from it with IBM even though it had used code written by programers working for IBM.

But thats MS for you.

Re:OS2?

[Locutus]

The OP stated that because OS/2 could run Windows applications, it must be that Microsoft helped IBM make that happen. That was pure bull and my reply was TRYING to shed light on how wrong that statement was.

It appears that my reply glanced off the top of a few heads. Oh well, here it goes again....

I guess my reply was more about OS/2's inability to run Windows apps beyond Win16/Win3.x, but the main point I was TRYING to get across was that although Microsoft ORIGINALLY worked with IBM to create OS/2, Microsoft had nothing to do with OS/2's ability to run Windows apps and after the split, they did things to PREVENT OS/2 from running Windows apps. Heck, they did things to prevent Windows app vendors from porting to OS/2 but that's another book...

It was really the IBM DOS compatibility layer that enabled Windows to run in IBMs virtual DOS. Yes the full OS/Environment ran in OS/2s DOS session with some tweaks. One version, Ferengi, even would use the original Microsofts Windows 3.x installation disks to add Windows support. IBM had access to the Windows 3.x source code and I'm sure that helped. I was told that it was a combination of the OS2-DOS and the optimized Watcom compiler which made Windows run faster on OS/2 than on MS-DOS. After all, Windows 3.x and Windows 95/98/ME are all DOS based operating environments.

It must have been Microsofts lies to the press which lead people to believe they were not DOS based operating environments. But everybody knows that Microsofts statements to the public/press are never factual and very seldom have any element of truth to them. Yeah, right. :-/

LoB