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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.
I suppose there are people using the abacus too.
http://religiousfreaks.com/-- Bill Gates, from "OS/2 Programmer's Guide" (forward by Bill Gates)
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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.
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.
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.
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?