Slashdot Mirror


The Return of OS/2 Warp Set For 2016 (techrepublic.com)

An anonymous reader writes: We all know the ill-fated history of IBM's OS/2 Warp, while some others may not know about the first OS/2-OEM distribution called eComStation. Now a new company called Arca Noae, not happy with the results of this last distribution, has signed an agreement with IBM to create a new OS/2 version. They announced a new OS, codenamed "Blue Lion," at Warpstock 2015 this last October; this will be based on OS/2 Warp 4.52 and the SMP kernel. The OS/2 community has taken this news with positivism and the OS2World community is now requesting everybody that has developed for OS/2 on the past to open source their source code to collaborate.

15 of 262 comments (clear)

  1. WTF is "positivism"? by xxxJonBoyxxx · · Score: 4, Funny

    >> The OS/2 community has taken this news with positivism

    WTF is "positivism"? It sounds like a drug advertised during football games.

    1. Re:WTF is "positivism"? by KermodeBear · · Score: 4, Informative

      positivism
      päztivizm noun
      PHILOSOPHY
      1.
      a philosophical system that holds that every rationally justifiable assertion can be scientifically verified or is capable of logical or mathematical proof, and that therefore rejects metaphysics and theism.
      2.
      the theory that laws are to be understood as social rules, valid because they are enacted by authority or derive logically from existing decisions, and that ideal or moral considerations (e.g., that a rule is unjust) should not limit the scope or operation of the law.

      So Sayeth Google.

      --
      Love sees no species.
    2. Re:WTF is "positivism"? by xxxJonBoyxxx · · Score: 5, Insightful

      So...some company signed a distribution agreement with IBM to revive an old operating system and the OS/2 community reacted by taking up philosophy instead of developing or porting any software? Seems about par for the course to me.

    3. Re:WTF is "positivism"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      Oh, come on, cite the Marxist definition, it's so much more fun:

      A trend in bourgeois philosophy which declares natural (empirical) sciences to be the sole source of true knowledge and rejects the cognitive value of philosophical study. Positivism emerged in response to the inability of speculative philosophy (e.g. Classical German Idealism) to solve philosophical problems which had arisen as a result of scientific development.

      https://www.marxists.org/refer...

      See, a bourgeois operating system for a bourgeois philosophy.

    4. Re:WTF is "positivism"? by tehcyder · · Score: 4, Informative

      It means someone meant to say 'positivity' and used the wrong word. Perhaps it's because Chrome's spell checker seems to think 'positivity' isn't a word (it's underlined in red as I type this post).

      They should just have written "The OS/2 community has reacted to this news positively" which has the advantage of being normal English.

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
  2. My goodness, what fortuitous timing! by kheldan · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Draconic, fascist Windows 10 comes out and Microsoft proceeds to try to force it down everyone's throat, and out of left field comes, after what seems like a geologic age, a new version of OS/2. Wow. Not sure what to think of that timing.

    --
    Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
  3. I liked OS/2 by Peter+H.S. · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The release is probably mostly for embedded use where OS/2 had quite some use since it was so much better and stable than contemporary MS Windows.

    I quite liked OS/2 in its time and found it very superior to contemporary Windows versions.

  4. Digging up some history... by QuietLagoon · · Score: 3, Informative
    IBM chief: Microsoft killed OS/2

    The deposition and testimony provided by Garry Norris - IBM's chief negotiator with Microsoft before and after the introduction of Windows 95 - has provided a cornucopia of fascinating evidence in the Microsoft trial. Much of it was previously unknown or unconfirmed. His evidence showed how Microsoft effectively controlled IBM's PC hardware and software businesses by making the price of Windows considerably higher than for other comparable PC makers. Mr Norris described in detail to Philip Malone, counsel for the Department of Justice, five cases where Microsoft had succeeded in modifying, or had attempted to influence, IBM's choice of ...

  5. Re:OS/2 is still alive? by U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M · · Score: 4, Informative

    Amigas and C/64 machines playing block/character graphics games.

    Amiga, block/character games? You obviously haven't grown up with computers from that era, because the C/64 had graphics that were way ahead of the other similar 8-bit computers and the Amiga had the best graphics of them all. The competition at the time was the Color Computer 2, the TI-99/4A, the PC with either Hercules, CGA or EGA graphics, the Mac with black and white graphics or the Atari ST with much fewer colours on the screen.

    Both the C/64 and the Amiga were king of their own class of computers. That is, until Commodore sat on their asses and everybody passed way ahead of them.

    Fight for your bitcoins!

  6. Re:Editing? by U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M · · Score: 3, Funny

    This is interesting, but maybe we could have some grammatical editing before throwing up a story on the main page?

    I think that's exactly how they upload their stories.

    Fight for your bitcoins!

  7. Re:Change the interface! by drinkypoo · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Perhaps your recollection isn't very good at all, because OS/2 2.0+'s user interface with the object-oriented Workplace Shell was a triumph,

    What? I used 2.1, 3.0, and 4.0, and all of them had shit UI. The defaults were all insane and made you use more buttons for no reason. The GUI elements were all oversized, too, so they wasted screen real estate. OS/2 was contemptuous of computing resources, because it came from the IBM mindset that anything worth doing is worth spending a lot of money on. When Open Source Unixlikes became a thing, it had no more reason to exist.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  8. Re:As a Linux refugee, I'd seriously consider OS/2 by Grishnakh · · Score: 4, Informative

    . I don't have that much time to spend just getting my system working.

    Try switching to Linux Mint. I recommend the KDE version, but if you don't like that, there's 3 other variants: Xcfe, MATE, and Cinnamon.

    There's a lot more distros out there than just Debian and Gentoo.

  9. The ill-fated history of IBM's OS/2 Warp .. by nickweller · · Score: 3, Insightful

    July 1991: 'SteveB went on the road to see the top weeklies, industry analysts. The meetings included demos of Windows 3.1 (pen and multimedia included), Windows NT, OS/2 2.0 including a performance comparison to Windows and a "bad app" that corrupted other applications and crashed the system".'

    'The demos of OS/2 were excellent, crashing the system had the intended effect -- to FUD OS/2 2.0. People paid attention to this demo and were often suprised to our favor. Steve positioned it as -- OS/2 is not "bad" but from a performance and "robustness" standpoint, it is NOT better than Windows.' ref

  10. Re:OS/2 was great by hey! · · Score: 4, Funny

    I remember being so blown away by OS2/Warp's ability to multi-task so many applications at once, with such a clean UI.

    As an older programmer, let me suggest one ought to be reticent about saying things like that. I know that by any reasonable standard it should make you sound experienced and therefore worth listening to, but if you have any gray in your hair it's bound to have a very different effect. Like the time I sat next to a guy at a banquet who was reminiscing about when his department got an IBM 701. "Yep," he said with evident satisfaction, "that was a stored program jobbie."

    Employers are looking for programmers who were in diapers while you were being blown away by OS/2, so ixnay on that kind of alktay. Instead practice saying things like "Node.js is so 2015." And when someone asks you what you mean, turn to them, raise one eyebrow, then literally turn your back on them.

    --
    Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
  11. Re:OS/2 is dead, get over it. by Nemosoft+Unv. · · Score: 3, Informative

    The kernel is outdated, but Arca Noae has released a lot of improved drivers, patches for ACPI, USB drivers (see the various updates) so it's not so dead as you think it is.

    --
    "Fix it? It has been disintegrated, by definition it cannot be fixed!" - Gru in Despicable Me.