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Keeping the OS/2 Flame Alive
nanday writes "Ever wondered what happened to OS/2? With IBM officially abandoning the operating system last year, users are relying on a third party version of OS/2 -- and, increasingly, using free and open source software to keep
it alive." From the article: "According to Haverblad, the main reason that users stay with OS/2 is for 'features that Windows and Linux don't have yet.' He singles out the REstructured eXtended eXecutor (REXX), an interpreted programming language known for its ease of use, a 'rock solid kernel,' 'excellent multitasking,' and low system requirements. Haverblad also claims a lack of viruses and spyware and, referencing a report on OS/2 Warp Server by Secunia, fewer security vulnerabilities." Newsforge is also an OSTG site.
REXX was also available for Amiga...and others...
See: http://rexxla.org/Links/
I would still be using OS/2 if it was receiving regular updates for new hardware. I feel that if IBM was to relook at the OS, they may gain some market share because users are now more educated as to the workings of a computer.
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I suppose there are people using the abacus too.
http://religiousfreaks.com/Considering the timeframe OS/2 was developed in, and its complexity excuse me if I don't believe it is secure. Most of the software from that timeframe has been shown to have a LOT of security problems, primarily because the training, and tools to discover holes didn't exist at the time.
... I don't think so... Linux, and BSD, in their lifetimes have had lots of security problems, particularly as they have grown in popularity.
/appears/ to be secure is because it isn't worth any one's time trying to crack it.
Plus a complete OS that is secure?
If OS/2 was released OpenSource tomorrow and got popular you'd have it with the MOST security venerabilities by years end I guarantee it.
The ONLY reason OS/2
Haverblad also claims a lack of viruses and spyware.
um, having a lack of USERS tends to do that.
"Is this just useless, or is it expensive as well?"
I developed for OS/2 for about 7 years. Yes the kernel had threads and a solid multitasking support but the flawed design of Presentation Manager (PM) caused a single rogue app to lock up the desktop and making it useless. The single message queue that IBM designed in PM, was one of the worst technical design decisions ever made. There added many workarounds to kill rogue apps but the results were pretty unreliable.
I used to code in REXX in 1989.
It was pretty handy for scripting, useful as "glue" between different things and all that.
By 1989 standards, mind you.
I think modern things (like AppleScript/Automator) can probably do everything REXX could ever do, and more, while being more readable to us humans.
Village idiot in some extremely smart villages.
I tend to agree. I had/have OS/2 v4 and maybe I'll get around to adding it to Grub, but its really a legacy system at this point. What I would like to see, is for OS/2 to be open sourced. I'm sure IBM wouldn't care, but I suspect there may be some legacy MS component lurking in the background, as it was orignally a joint MS/IBM venture. Who knows - an open sourcing of API's could help. Even MS might benefit if they really thought about it, as its old technology and, as they view open source as a competitor, better that open source spend time on the old, rather than the new.
BTW, what's "unsolid" about the NT kernel itself?
-- Bill Gates, from "OS/2 Programmer's Guide" (forward by Bill Gates)
Paid Q&A/Research
On that day, OS/2's architect, Gordon Letwin, posted USENET message explaining why the system was doomed in the market. After that, it was all downhill.
I think it's worth pointing out this petition over at OS2World.com (which is still accepting signatures), asking IBM to release the source of OS/2.
There are apparently some legal issues -- the most frequently cited one is that IBM might not hold copyright to all the code, since the project was originally done in collaboration with Microsoft and Corel -- but the request is that IBM open up all of the code that it has available and can legally release, and note what parts it can't, so that they could be re-implemented.
I'm not sure it's ever going to happen, but it sure would be nice if it did.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Yeah, those old versions of browsers are really painful.
For every expert, there is an equal and opposite expert. - Arthur C. Clarke
Ever wondered what happened to OS/2?
No.
Could we stop chauking up the lack of virii to the quality of the OS?
I mean, honestly, no OS/2 virii? Is there any reason to target the 10 people out there still running OS/2 Warp with a virus?
While I will agree that good OS design will prevent the kind of zombie take over of a machine that allow viruses to propogate and activate without user intervention, I don't believe for a second that ANY OS is virus proof.
Virii are weapons of mass desctruction, that is, they want to have the greatest number of targets. An OS/2 virus, even if it had a 100% infection rate, would not make the news rounds, and might get a quick blurb on Slashdot. Virus writers are not going to waste time exploiting OS/2.
We have seen a virus launched against OSX recently, probably due to the higher profile Apple has been getting recently with their new Macintel machines. Before this, people assumed OSX was virus proof, but its just that it wouldn't make an impact to write an OSX virus unless the writer can claim some fame by having it affect the greatest number of people and be talked about in the news.
Also, when it comes to OS/2 having lower system requirements, it WAS written for computers designed about 15 years ago. I doubt OS/2 Warp server would be able to run or peform well with the typical client load that most servers today have to contend with. Email spam filtering alone can bring a modern server to its knees, I doubt OS/2 Warp Server would be able to function properly with 256mb of RAM, 10 gb hard drive space running on a Pentium class CPU even handling the email load a typical small business puts on today's servers.
Anyways, I don't believe that OS/2 has any better ability to fight off virii then any other OS, just that its been forgotten about except by those too cheap to upgrade to a new computer and OS.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
OS/2 is the crappiest OS ever!
How's that for keeping a flame alive?
Joking... just joking...
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
80% of the ATM machines in North America are running OS/2 right now. I'd call that one hell of an install base. I know this becuase my company does remote IT support for several banks, including one that plans to be the largest financial institution by the end of 2007. In that bank, a civil war is being fought between the Wintel and Unix/Linux side to decide what these ATM machines will run when IBM drops support. I do not know about you, but it scares the crap out of me to put in my ATM card and the next thing I see is a blue screen. That is when Mr. Crowbar will have to take over.
Another thing i liked a lot about OS/2 is the WPS, that maybe by now there are better desktops, but back then was wonderful, still waiting some of their features in modern desktops like KDE.
I ended up working for IBM doing OS/2 technical support after a couple of years. IBM really did have a highly rated support line despite the fact that out of all the people training with me, I was the only one who'd ever used the system. After about a year on the phones, they promoted me to electronic forum support, where I answered questions from users posting on CompuServe. Remember CompuServe? We had quite a presence there. I specialized in REXX and networking, although I would frequently hit the other forums as well.
I was also an advocate for the OS because it really did suck less than Windows. In fact, it sucked less than Windows right up until the Windows XP/ME timeframe. In many ways, the OS/2 interface is still superior to Windows. I attended a couple of COMDEXes with Team OS/2 and attended several local Team OS/2 events at ham fests and things like that.
At its peak, OS/2 had an estimated install base of 10,000,000 users despite the PCCO's refusal to pre-install the OS on systems for customers. We're all familiar with why they didn't -- Microsoft would revoke the volume discounts for any manufacturer preinstalling a competing OS on systems being sold. That was one of the nails in the OS/2 coffin. Others included the attitude in IBM that PCs weren't real machines and if you wanted a real OS you should be running AIX, the refusal of engineering to fix several really annoying little bugs, and several other factors as well. The two most annoying bugs were the tendency for the Workplace Shell to become corrupt (Binary registry files and all that...) and the single system input queue which would allow one application to hang the entire shell. Half-assed hacks were made to work around both problems, but they were half-assed and sucked.
Around 95, I saw the writing on the wall for OS/2 and downloaded a copy of slakware 1.0 off the Internet. I've been using Linux ever since then.
As for its advantages, REXX was an advantage over the DOS batch file language, but honestly what isn't? Perl, ruby and python all provide similar features and you're far more likely to find someone who knows how to write in one of those than in REXX. REXX was also quite limited, possibly even intentionally crippled, in what it was capable of doing. Interacting with the WPS and GUI components was always a pain in the ass, if not completely impossible. Network communications was impossible with the version of it that I used.
The OS/2 kernel WAS rock solid outside its third party drivers, and as far as I know no one ever managed to write a virus for it. The WPS was always the biggest draw but IMHO IBM ruined it after OS/2 2.0 or 2.1. It was hideous in Warp 3 and later. Gnome kind of looks like the WPS -- very similar object desktop concepts, and the WPS used an early version an object system similar to CORBA to provide access to desktop objects. I never really liked icons on my desktop to begin with, so I don't really miss it all that much.
Inside IBM most of the OS/2 people I knew switched to Linux after IBM killed the system. There might still be a few hold-outs lurking in the bowels of the company, but most of the stuff you need for t
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
The greatest thing about OS/2 is that it is rock solid and stable. My OS/2 would stay up for months at a time. can't even get Linux to do that in a desktop environment. It had great graphics for the time and applications didn't stomp on each other. I could even run DOS games while I compiled code on my fire-breather 386. I When they finally moved us to Windows, it was hard times. Windows blew up constantly. If you played a DOS game while you compiled, it would freak out like a prom date in a Hummer limo.
I still have a copy of Warp in the closet of old-school stuff. eBay baby.
If you aren't part of the solution, there is good money to be made prolonging the problem
A while back, IBM released ObjectRexx to the opensource world. The OORexx project is hosted on Sourceforge http://oorexx.org/ It runs just fine under Linux, and can be used as a straight scripting language for shell scripts.
It is now being developed by a company called Serenity Systems. They struck a deal with IBM to continue to develop OS/2 and release new versions under the name eComStation. You can down load a demo CD (70 MB iso) from the eComStation Web site. It won't install to a hard drive but is a bootable live CD version of the OS.
But saying that it has few viruses, is like saying Unicorns don't need rabies shots...
It's worth noting as a minor nitpick that it's not actually AppleScript itself that's tied to the OS, but rather the Open Scripting Architecture, which is basically akin to the Amiga's "ARexx Ports" approach -- any language that can be built to talk with OSA can be used instead of AppleScript. There aren't many other OSA languages -- Frontier and JavaScript are the two most well-known ones -- but there's nothing intrinsic to AppleScript to prevent more from being developed. (Philip Aker has produced "OSAComponents," which claim to make Ruby, Python, Perl, PHP and Tcl/Tk "peer-level" scripting languages in the system, but I haven't tried them.)
Also, even non-OSA languages can use the "osascript" utility to execute an OSA script. I find AppleScript profoundly annoying, but it's not that difficult to write, say, a Ruby or an Expect script which does all of the heavy lifting in its native tongue and passes just what it has to via AppleScript.
Been there, done that. Never again. I now use software that I am 100% certain will last forever. Linux may not be as fast as Amiga OS and KDE may not be as "nifty" as WPS (although it's actually getting pretty decent), but at least I don't have to worry about the future. Even the Microsofties aren't this safe.
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