However, all versions of OS/2 from 2.0 and later in 1992 (the 32-bit versions) were IBM products, and Microsoft had little or nothing to do with them.
More to the point, the major selling points of OS/2 (the Virtual DOS Machines, WinOS2 support, and the WorkPlace Shell) were IBM contributions (Microsoft wrote Windows 3.1, but IBM made it run as a DMPI client, tweaked the video to run seamlessls on the PM desktop, etc.)
Yes, I have one (the smaller of the two models Radio Shack offers) in my bedroom, and while I'm unsure what it does for dust, it certainly does a good job of removing cat odors from the room.
I wouldn't want to learn how to operate mainframes even if it were available. After all I choose CS because I love playing with interesting technology, not maintaining some 50 year old stuff thats going to be switched off sometime anyway.
Some of the most interesting work I've done was inside a set of 30-year-old transaction-based applications running on a Unisys 2200 mainframe system (it was the primary flight planning and real-time flight tracking system at a major US airline).
No way they're going to replace that system any time soon. They might migrate subsystems to other platforms, slowly, but so many of the airline's business rules are so tightly interwoven with (and key operational elements are so highly dependent on) that code that porting it is going to be a real interesting process...
Some of the first shareware programs (like PC-File) had an optional registration, not a required one (though that is most common now).
Remember that even high-volume shareware titles like Doom and Quake had an optional registration (you could play the shareware version as long as you wanted).
The Audio Home Recording Act of 1992 (enacted by the US Congress) states the following:
" SUBCHAPTER D. PROHIBITION ON CERTAIN INFRINGEMENT ACTIONS,
REMEDIES, AND ARBITRATION
Section 1008. Prohibition on certain infringement actions
No action may be brought under this title alleging infringement of
copyright based on the manufacture, importation, or distribution of a
digital audio recording device, a digital audio recording medium, an
analog recording device, or an analog recording medium, or based on the
noncommercial use by a consumer of such a device or medium for making
digital musical recordings or analog musical recordings."
> The other thing that caused people to stop using OS/2 was that it had a flaky > file system, mostly because it attempted to maintain compatibility with DOS > and Windows concepts. HPFS kept the old DOS parts of a file in one place, and > kept the "extended" parts of the file somewhere else, and they were > *Constantly* getting out of sync. Over many months, the guidance from IBM to > users having problems with this was to re-install the OS.
Sounds to me like you're describing the way OS/2 stored Extended Attributes on a FAT filesystem, not HPFS.
OS/2 provided a stable and smoothly-multitasking 32-bit platform with an object-oriented GUI back when the average mainstream PC was running Windows 3.1, and when the best Linux distro around was SLS 0.98 or so (not bad as a tool for some uses, but nothing at all like the desktop Linux distributions of today).
For folks into alternative operating systems in the early 1990's, OS/2 was head and shoulders above everyone else. Hands down.
It wasn't until Windows NT 4 that Microsoft had something which could seriously compete...
> From a hiring point of view, I'd ask, "From 1998 to 2003 what was the longest you were > unemployed" -- if they answered more than 3 months I wouldn't hire them.
In my local area, a number of large companies (including a local major airline) let 100's of programmers go at the same time, resulting in a glut of seriously-experienced highly-qualified people in the market.
Using your rather aggressive criteria, nobody I know would qualify, since everyone I know who was laid off at that time took at least six months to find work. But some of those folks are the sharpest folks I've ever worked with.
Some of them didn't even START looking for a few months due to multi-month severence packages..
>If you know the entire foundation of the profession, you can pick up >anything new that comes along with ease.
True enough, but the most difficult part of job searching in the current market is getting past the various HR filters and barriers and actually making yourself VISIBLE to someone (anyone) who can properly appreciate the technical skills you bring to the table.
Given the way resumes are handled in many (most?) organizations today, most filtering is done loooong before a technical manager or team leader takes a look at it.
The bad part: much of that filtering is done by people and/or processes which are completely unfamiliar with the technology in question.
> You won't be so quickly cast aside when times get tough.
Don't bet on that. In the various layoffs I've both avoided and been a part of over the past 15 years in IT, most of the folks I knew were laid off based on tenure or on the specific position they were in, not based on their knowledge, technical skillsets, or raw abilities.
> And you'll have one-up on all the opportunists who learned from silly books or > certification classes.
Very true. The more you learn, the better off you'll be. A one-trick pony is a lot harder to ride in this industry than it was 10 years ago...
The OS/2 desktop has features that are still lacking in other OSes today, including:
* An *UNDO* option for the Arrange command, very useful when you accidentally arrange the icons on your desktop.
* The ability to individually LOCK and UNLOCK the position of any icon on the desktop, making it immune from arrangement.
* A quick context-menu command to locate the parent of a given icon. Useful when you want to locate the parent of an alias (shortcut)!!
* The ability to customize the color, fonts, and even wallpaper in each and every folder.
* Desktop shortcuts (shadows) that could track the originals across multiple logical or physical drives without losing the link.
* Colored tabs in tab dialogs, making it somewhat easier to differentiate the different tabs in complex dialogs.
* The ability to do almost anything via drag-and-drop, including changing fonts and colors used in program elements.
* Desktop and folder menus that the user could add their own submenus and menu items too, allowing one to run one's favorite programs by using the desktop context menu instead of relying on icons or taskbars.
* A quick way to bring up a list of running programs by doing a mouse-chord on the desktop. KDE adopted this convention some time ago.
OS/2 also used an advanced filesystem (for the time) called HPFS which natively handled long filenames and stored directory entries in a BTree+ structure. All Microsoft operating systems of the time used FAT16.
OS/2 ran the Doom betas (with sound) just fine, but id Software contracted out the sound code at the last minute, and the sound code in the final version wouldn't work in a VDM.
It had nothing to do with the DOS extender being used -- other games like Descent used the same one and worked just fine in an OS/2 VDM...
Slashdot Mirror
However, all versions of OS/2 from 2.0 and later in 1992 (the 32-bit versions) were IBM products, and Microsoft had little or nothing to do with them.
More to the point, the major selling points of OS/2 (the Virtual DOS Machines, WinOS2 support, and the WorkPlace Shell) were IBM contributions (Microsoft wrote Windows 3.1, but IBM made it run as a DMPI client, tweaked the video to run seamlessls on the PM desktop, etc.)
Unlike BeOS, however, OS/2 can still actually a fairly large selection of useful software...
Yes, I have one (the smaller of the two models Radio Shack offers) in my bedroom, and while I'm unsure what it does for dust, it certainly does a good job of removing cat odors from the room.
Even though the unit has a fan, it's quite quiet.
findstr /I "regents" C:\WINDOWS\system32\*.exe
findstr /I C:\WINDOWS\system32\*.exe
That uncovers some of the copyright notices from BSD software that were left intact. Other bits of borrowed code probably exist elsewhere...
My former employer had a number of VP's of IS and Senior Directors who fit your description to a "T"...
Say I'm located in the central US, but I'm doing work remotely on a server resident in New Delhi.
Which location is attached to the document?
Some of the most interesting work I've done was inside a set of 30-year-old transaction-based applications running on a Unisys 2200 mainframe system (it was the primary flight planning and real-time flight tracking system at a major US airline).
No way they're going to replace that system any time soon. They might migrate subsystems to other platforms, slowly, but so many of the airline's business rules are so tightly interwoven with (and key operational elements are so highly dependent on) that code that porting it is going to be a real interesting process...
Some of the first shareware programs (like PC-File) had an optional registration, not a required one (though that is most common now).
Remember that even high-volume shareware titles like Doom and Quake had an optional registration (you could play the shareware version as long as you wanted).
The Audio Home Recording Act of 1992 (enacted by the US Congress) states the following:
" SUBCHAPTER D. PROHIBITION ON CERTAIN INFRINGEMENT ACTIONS,
REMEDIES, AND ARBITRATION
Section 1008. Prohibition on certain infringement actions
No action may be brought under this title alleging infringement of
copyright based on the manufacture, importation, or distribution of a
digital audio recording device, a digital audio recording medium, an
analog recording device, or an analog recording medium, or based on the
noncommercial use by a consumer of such a device or medium for making
digital musical recordings or analog musical recordings."
You've been living in a cave, perhaps? ;-)
That's one of the nice things about using a text browser like Links, lynx, or w3m -- you don't have to see the cheesy bitmaps unless you want to.
> The other thing that caused people to stop using OS/2 was that it had a flaky
> file system, mostly because it attempted to maintain compatibility with DOS
> and Windows concepts. HPFS kept the old DOS parts of a file in one place, and
> kept the "extended" parts of the file somewhere else, and they were
> *Constantly* getting out of sync. Over many months, the guidance from IBM to
> users having problems with this was to re-install the OS.
Sounds to me like you're describing the way OS/2 stored Extended Attributes on a FAT filesystem, not HPFS.
ZTree Bold is another good file manager, but I still find myself going back to FileJet in fullscreen VIO sessions...
Here are some of the reasons why:
Warp 4 Screen Shots>
OS/2 provided a stable and smoothly-multitasking 32-bit platform with an object-oriented GUI back when the average mainstream PC was running Windows 3.1, and when the best Linux distro around was SLS 0.98 or so (not bad as a tool for some uses, but nothing at all like the desktop Linux distributions of today).
For folks into alternative operating systems in the early 1990's, OS/2 was head and shoulders above everyone else. Hands down.
It wasn't until Windows NT 4 that Microsoft had something which could seriously compete...
If I'm genuinely happy with my life, then in my mind I've been successful.
> Is there any sort of consolation people that are currently in the
:-)
> industry can give people like me?
Sure -- as a newbie fresh out of college, you haven't been pidgeonholed yet.
> From a hiring point of view, I'd ask, "From 1998 to 2003 what was the longest you were
> unemployed" -- if they answered more than 3 months I wouldn't hire them.
In my local area, a number of large companies (including a local major airline) let 100's of programmers go at the same time, resulting in a glut of seriously-experienced highly-qualified people in the market.
Using your rather aggressive criteria, nobody I know would qualify, since everyone I know who was laid off at that time took at least six months to find work. But some of those folks are the sharpest folks I've ever worked with.
Some of them didn't even START looking for a few months due to multi-month severence packages..
"In a typical business, those who understand the technology don't control it, and those who control the technology don't understand it."
>If you know the entire foundation of the profession, you can pick up
>anything new that comes along with ease.
True enough, but the most difficult part of job searching in the current market is getting past the various HR filters and barriers and actually making yourself VISIBLE to someone (anyone) who can properly appreciate the technical skills you bring to the table.
Given the way resumes are handled in many (most?) organizations today, most filtering is done loooong before a technical manager or team leader takes a look at it.
The bad part: much of that filtering is done by people and/or processes which are completely unfamiliar with the technology in question.
> You won't be so quickly cast aside when times get tough.
Don't bet on that. In the various layoffs I've both avoided and been a part of over the past 15 years in IT, most of the folks I knew were laid off based on tenure or on the specific position they were in, not based on their knowledge, technical skillsets, or raw abilities.
> And you'll have one-up on all the opportunists who learned from silly books or
> certification classes.
Very true. The more you learn, the better off you'll be. A one-trick pony is a lot harder to ride in this industry than it was 10 years ago...
I have native versions of StarOffice, Phoenix, GIMP, Embellish, FTE, Pine, Yarn, Z!, FileJet, and Links.
:-)
What else is needed?
The OS/2 desktop has features that are still lacking in other OSes today, including:
* An *UNDO* option for the Arrange command, very useful when you accidentally arrange the icons on your desktop.
* The ability to individually LOCK and UNLOCK the position of any icon on the desktop, making it immune from arrangement.
* A quick context-menu command to locate the parent of a given icon. Useful when you want to locate the parent of an alias (shortcut)!!
* The ability to customize the color, fonts, and even wallpaper in each and every folder.
* Desktop shortcuts (shadows) that could track the originals across multiple logical or physical drives without losing the link.
* Colored tabs in tab dialogs, making it somewhat easier to differentiate the different tabs in complex dialogs.
* The ability to do almost anything via drag-and-drop, including changing fonts and colors used in program elements.
* Desktop and folder menus that the user could add their own submenus and menu items too, allowing one to run one's favorite programs by using the desktop context menu instead of relying on icons or taskbars.
* A quick way to bring up a list of running programs by doing a mouse-chord on the desktop. KDE adopted this convention some time ago.
OS/2 also used an advanced filesystem (for the time) called HPFS which natively handled long filenames and stored directory entries in a BTree+ structure. All Microsoft operating systems of the time used FAT16.
OS/2 ran the Doom betas (with sound) just fine, but id Software contracted out the sound code at the last minute, and the sound code in the final version wouldn't work in a VDM.
It had nothing to do with the DOS extender being used -- other games like Descent used the same one and worked just fine in an OS/2 VDM...
Microsoft bundled its own browser in a way that made it nearly impossible for a third party to remove it.
There was also this little thing about a desktop OS monopoly that figured into the equation...
IBM simply bundles a browser as an application, and one can choose to not install it or even uninstall it later if one chooses.