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25 Years of IBM's OS/2
harrymcc writes "On April 2nd, 1987 — 25 years ago today — IBM announced OS/2. It was supposed to be the next-generation operating system that would replace DOS. It never did. But for a famous failure, it's doing okay — it still runs the computers that manage the New York Subway's Metrocard fare cards, for instance. Over at TIME.com, I've taken a look at its occasional triumphs, frequent tribulations and enduring legacy."
"More than 250 companies declared their intention to deliver OS/2 apps, including biggies such as Lotus, WordPerfect, Borland and Novell."
OK, that made me smile.
10 I
20 REM FIXED CAPITALIZATION
30 might have a valid point in there somewhere - but
40 REM EXTRA COMMA REMOVED
50 sadly, our grammar and punctuation were so poor that it is lost.
60 REM PERIOD ADDED
70 Congratulations,
80 REM FIXED CAPITALIZATION
90 my written english is even less readable than INTERCAL!
100 COMEFROM: 10
110 Fixed that for you.
120 And congratulations on learning INTERCAL, I'm still stuck in BASIC dialects.
130 SYSTEM
IBM was pushing OS/2 Warp to compete with Windows NT. I was in college at the time and did a co-op with IBM that year. I had to opportunity to go to COMDEX and IBM gave lots of people a t-shirt that said "Nice Try" (with the N and the T really emphasized) on the front and "OS/2 Warp, Up and Running, Not Up and Coming" on the back. We were to wear the shirt in the audience of Bill Gates keynote when he officially announced Windows NT.
I still have that T-Shirt.
fierce and underhanded business tactics
My memory is that you could buy Windows for $60, or OS/2 for $500 or thereabouts. Always thought that might have had something to do with it.
I was in college at the time and did a co-op with IBM that year.
My group used to call you CO-OP guys "NOP"'s - no operation - as in assembly 'NOP'.
You were easy to pick out - shirt and tie for the first week on your NOP job.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, we gave you punks a hard time, but it was out of love, man. You were sharp and ambitious and would end up as our boss. We had to take our shots while we could.
I still have that T-Shirt.
Me too.
I was in my local NAPA auto parts store and this old guy (even older than me) saw that shirt and said, "That's a really old T-Shirt."
Long story short, he was one of those guys that took an early retirement.
When I was at Boca, I watched all those "out of date loser" mainframers come down from NY to do shit jobs. I smugly thought, "That's what you get for not staying current!"
How arrogant I am. And I'm ashamed for it.
I escaped to a so-so business back office programming job while others were poached by Microsoft - the smart ones which wasn't me (Peter, peter rice eater - you rock man! I hope you're a MS Millionaire because you deserve it!).
The ironic thing is that the Hartford Insurers (who still train, btw) need some mainframers.
I met the most obscenely talented and genius people at IBM.
Looking back, it was the most humbling experience ever - and I was too arrogant to take that lesson in at that time. Then again, we have to be arrogant to get jobs in this fucked up industry, don't we? Saying, "I don't know." is the kiss of death.
There's tons of old OS/2 boxes chugging along in a corner somewhere until the hardware finally breaks. OS/2 sales in the form of eComStation has been tripling each year lately due to places like your work needing to install OS/2 on modern hardware. http://ecomstation.com/
And it will still install and run on modern hardware though you have to choose carefully. No accelerated video and only ATI supported. Barely any wireless support and only a few network cards supported. Sound based on Alsa so most sound cards including built in supported. 512 GB partitions if you want them compatible with other operating systems, otherwise the ancient architecture is limited to 2 TB. Best to stick to Intel hardware, especially if you want to take advantage of all cores. OS/2 is licensed per CPU, not core so it does do SMP. Only 64 cores supported though.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
I'm not sure why you're going on about Virtual 8086 mode, because that was supported from the release of OS/2 2.0 in 1992. How do you think it ran DOS and Windows 3.x programs so well? It certainly trapped CTRL-ALT-DEL... but all it did was flush the caches and reboot. That's because it was single-user, and had no need to trap the CTRL-ALT-DEL sequence to avoid being vulnerable to password harvesting programs. OS/2 2.0 beat Windows NT to the market, so acting as if it somehow lagged in this regard seems revisionist.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
say certainly /* "i'll give it my best shot" */
/* retrieve next obvious joke */
/* as long as we've got jokes */
/* need to fill in details here... */
/* need to study more SICP to tell this type of joke; try to read SICP, then reread thread */
/* well done! */
/* but good job! somebody with modpoints get in on this */
/* get the next joke if there is one! */
/* done with the post! */
parse upper pull obvious_joke
do while (obvious_joke)
select
when (grammar_error)
say requote_with_satirical_comments_added
when (recursion_mentioned)
do
NOP
end
otherwise
if modpoints
say mod_up_insightful
else
say wish_i_had_modpoints
end
parse upper pull obvious_joke
end
/* thanks JD, that was a lot of fun */