These were business machines that were shipped to customers that IBM knew had standardized on Windows on the desktop, and shitloads of IBM iron on the backend. "Why" is a really stupid question in this context. Why did OS/2 fail to get any significant marketshare anywhere else? Our ThinkPads were the same story.
Do you think maybe they wanted to keep costs down and so they installed both OS's on all systems that would support it and let the user have a choice of what they wanted to use? So IBM knew they wanted Windows. Big deal.
As far as marketshare goes, haven't you kept up on the DOJ vs MSFT case? Anybody who mentioned OS/2 was threatened by MSFT. Didn't you hear how HP was ready to show 50% of its PC's at Comdex with OS/2 until MSFT told them not to? No HP PC's were shown running OS/2.....Nobody challenges a monopoly and makes a dollar in the process without that monopoly ALLOWING it to happen. Nobody.
(But one good reason was that at least WfW could get onto the network, unlike the braindead version of OS/2 they preinstalled.)
I paid the extra $200 to get Netware and TCP/IP networking in v2.0 and v2.1 and thought it was a $200 very well spent. A network connection in a poorly built single-tasking system was/is worthless. I agree it was dumb to wait until v3.0 Connect to include it. IMHO
That's funny. I find it difficult to believe someone would like DOS/Windows v3.x over 32bit OS/2. Heck, they could have run multiple instances of DOS/Windows v3.x INSIDE OS/2. They could have even made the OS/2 desktop look like DOS/Win3.x... I don't run Windows but I sometimes help fix it and OS/2 v2.0 had a better desktop then todays Windows. It did need a Program Manager(Explorer) file browser for those used to it. Last I knew, OS/2 ran circles around NT v4. Is it still true for NT v5 (Win00)?
You're lucky because you actually heard from them. I emailed them my idea the day the site went up and never a peep from them. I saw two posted 'winners' stating my idea of a home network appliance. I really don't know who is running the business but it sure isn't someone with technical skills/savy.
That is just what I said in another post. I found that learning a GUI system was soooo much work because you had to get thru all the muck just getting a GUI up to print 'hello world'. With Java and VisualAge a kid can drag and frop icons around to build the UI and then add the connections to make the UI come alive. Then they can learn how to biuld a object or add a method so they can turn around and connect it graphically to do something. I second the motion for VAJ.
They could use VisualAge for Java and point and click their way thru application building til their hearts content. You could build little beans for them to get started with and then teach them how to create a class with one member to hold that state of a slider and is then used to set the state of another slider or change a color. Very visual all the way to connecting object into applications. The great part about VAJ is that they don't need to learn the GUI initially but can learn how objects can store state and the cause/effect of todays event driven computer interfaces. Like someone else stated, a application builder will get them going right off the bat with just alittle handholding by dad. You can even download it for free for OS/2, Windows and Linux systems.
That depends on the threading model in the JVM you are running. The IBM JVM on OS/2, Wintendo, and Linux use native threads so you would see a difference with a SMP OS. IMHO.
From the number of off topic and abusive comments I'd venture to say "Breaking up is hard to do." or take....:)
Back on topic, I thought it was interesting Wyse would say what was said. Then I figured they made a deal with MSFT. The deal probably included that article written by a MSFT PR person. You know the kind, just like Ford where Ford says all kinds of great things about Windows because MSFT is retrofitting Ford for free.... Then again WinCE is floundering so badly that MSFT may have told Wyse they can use it for free. No more choice of paying for drivers or paying for the OS. Only the insider know.
If the OS supports threads, there is a good chance that if your applications are designed for threads then the OS will spread the threads across processors. Having come for UNIX in the 80's on x86, to OS/2 (very threaded) in the 90's (migrating to Linux now) I have to say there is nothing like a well threaded application and a OS that really supports this (OS/2 and BeOS come to mind today). Nothing like it. In the 90's I was emailing all the x86 clone manufacturers in hopes they attack Intel with multiprocessor systems but they kept playing the MSFT/Windows game and there haven't been too many survivors. Windows didn't and doesn't thread that well (NT is only OK). The just of it is, if your current apps aren't multithreaded or you don't run more then just a few applications at one time, SMP won't do you much good.
Considering Linux is free, you can pare it down to fit on a floppy and still do scripting, TCP/IP, etc, and did I say it was free? With a opensource lightweight display system it will even fit in more places then it does now and it is free.
MSFT owns too much of OS/2 for IBM to be allowed to see it posted on the Net. Licensing issues prevent IBM from opensourcing it and also help them keep track of how much of it was/is sold. IBM did say they made around $100 million off OS/2 related sales so that aint all that bad for a dead OS. Thank about that the next time you go to the ATM. There are even a few nuke plants in Germany where OS/2 runs the control rods. It ain't mainstream but BMW isn't either and people still buy Beamers. MSFT's ability to keep things incompatible seems to have infected the logic of many a person.
Right you are, I'm posting on Linux now. I just admire OS/2 because it runs so many things. Did you know you can now run some native win32 apps with a tool called Odin? It remaps Win32 DLL's into OS/2 DLL's and converts win32 PE exe's to OS/2's LX exe's. On the fly no less.
I stopped writting native OS/2 apps when I quit my last job. The 3rd job I quit because they were moving to MSFT crap. I'm on Java and Solaris new but hope to move to Linux. Many at the company are very open and excited about Linux so I may not need to quit to get there.
The multi-user stuff is very nice I must say. My house is run with Linux from the 485 firewall/NAT for the cable modem to the server and workstations. Five computers in all but if I get my three I-Openers, that will to to eight.
I still admire OS/2 for what it does and did for some many years, WAY before Linux and Win32 were usable desktop OS's. IMHO
(Resistance is not futile. The battlefields just change.;)
On OS/2 there are most all the command shells available (ported/recompiled from Linux) and IBM built many of OS/2's subsystems like NFS and TCP/IP from UNIX distributions so route, ifconfig, etc are very similar. Gnome, Enlightenment, and dozens more are already ported: Gnome/2 and Enlightenment/2
Posible because there is a full implementation of XFree86 at the current level available: XFree86OS2
Even though Mr Veit (XFree86 porter) built a driver to handle/dev/* devices, could OS/2 be considered UNIX? In some respects I believe so. I think that it is more about the API then about the kernel. We know MSFT won't support a full *NIX API on Windows because they NEED to control the API's (Windows) too keep profitable. They WILL bring Win32 to Linux but not Linux to Windows. On OS/2, IBM has shown they were attempting to build a tool to solve problems and the tool is very flexible.
One of the main issues with running Win32 apps in OS/2 is that MSFT moved just a few of the applications resources into the 1GB address space. You see, currently OS/2 ONLY supports 512MB of addressing within each application/process. The new Aurora kernel gives OS/2 up to 3GB of addressing and there all ready is talk of getting MS Office apps running native in OS/2 by using the Project Odin dll&exe conversion tool. This is very much like the Win16 code MSFT gave up to IBM when they split. MSFT is willing to give up the Win9x code because Win00 (sucky names IYAM) is where they are going. I say, don't deal and blow them into tiny pieces. So small and weak that they won't be able to put Humpty Bill back to gether again. That includes busting MS Office up or making two companies, each with the source and each competing. IMHO
Isn't this case all about the consumer version of MS Windows, aka:9x versions? This is where they have a monopoly and where they have leveraged that monopoly. They are just getting started with NT or Windows00 as they now call it. Just like when they signed the Java license with Sun and that 1994 Consent Decree, Microsoft is not going to kill their own baby (reference to QuickTime from the court documents). I was pissed when the case in 1994 was taken from Judge Sporkin and signed and I will be WAY PISSED if anything less then a major reconstruction and major sanctions are applied. Bill and Steve are no fools and lets hope the DOJ isn't this time around either.
Na, I think that Bill will stay with MS Office if Windows/OS group is split into two competing businesses. Office still has a monopoly and he would find a way to boot Office. You see, Bill needs a monopoly to leverage otherwise he is a out of the picture. Without the ability to stall purchases with preannouncements, etc., they will have to actually compete. What MSFT is really good at is preventing the need to compete by killing the competitions business model.
I hope there ends up being two OS and two apps pieces with a dev piece too. Maybe even a forth Internet piece where LookOut, IE, etc can go.
when was the last time a OSS project announce a ship date that stopped customers from looking at other solutions? By the way, HTML v1 still works, so does sendmail, tcpip, and probably 90% of the other open interfaces. How many times has WinSock broke? It may be all software development but stalling adoption is a very well used MSFT tactic.
>Give up your computer and go plant a tree blah blah blah
Too bad. I think that legal remedies are a must of MSFT is to be stopped. Their billion dollar cash hoard can buy their 'technology' into many sectors and still can buy many innovative companies to be shut down (where did Coopers & Peters go?). If the DOJ cave too then we are doomed to another 10 years of proprietary interfaces which change monthly and promises of products which show up three years later and hardly work as advertised.
boooo hissss on Caldera for caving. I hope they use that money very carefully. MSFT has tons to make it ineffective if they spend it foolishly.
Bill Gates Sr (Microsofts Bill Gates III's father) runs the Bill and Malinda Gates Foundation. You might also find that when Bill donates to schools and libaries, etc. he writes the software off at retail value and there is usually a stipulation that Internet Explorer is used, or some other software requiring Windows. In other words he is probably making money by buying marketshare,,, I mean donating. I'll venture to guess that Malinda is behind the the donations for children type of things. Either way, he obtained his $$ illegally becase the courts are too slow and ignorant. They even had him/Microsoft in 1994 and settled with a scolding, "Don't do it again". BFD. I'm with the earlier poster, Ted Turner is more of a man then Bill Gates will ever be.
Why is RoadRunner a Windows and Mac only shop? Support won't even talk to me because they have me in their books as running Linux? As I said earlier, when a DNS server freaked for my SMTP server (mail worked via POP but not SMTP unless I used a atm??.X.rr.com address) and RR support said they couldn't help me because I wasn't running Windows. The silly thing was, when I said, "Lets pretend I was running Windows. What would you tell me?" here is what I was told. Mind you I already told them I had full WWW/TCP access and could get mail but not send it. That if I used my dialup ISP everything worked.... 1) Reinstall your email package. still broken? 2) Reboot the cable modem still broken? 3) Reboot Windows. still broken 4) Reinstall Windows and email package
What crap..... If this deal brings Mozilla into play on RoadRunner we are probably closer to more open support. As it was I had to wait 2 weeks before they fixed the DNS server and until then I had to track down the atm??.??.rr.com server to send email through or use my dialup.
Can you give any explaination for this non-client related lack of support because I run Linux?
I can tell you that Microsoft is a big player in the RoadRunner service. So much that I'm surprised it is called Linux-friendly. I've called them (RR) to tell them their DNS for the SMTP server is flaky and they won't talk to me because I'm running Linux. The person on the phone even said that RR would support Linux if someone paid them to do it just like Windows. I've had nothing but trouble with them supporting me and Linux. Now if AOL-TWN are going to use Mozilla then that would be enough for me to hope RR might get better as a "Linux-friendly" service. They absolutely are NOT Linux-friendly today. Compaq and MediaOne are other partners in RR. see www.rr.com for the details. I'm investigating what this is going to mean to RR because I'm seriously looking at switching to DSL because of the non-platform independant stance RR has taken.
Sorry for the intensity but this is Microsoft we're talking about. They have put large amounts of effort on licensing contracts made with "partners" to be sure they have holes in them so MSFT can benefit. This is a small, very small, payback. I'm only sorry I didn't get down to the store quick enough to take advantage of it. I'll have to wait another day for a chance to screw MSFT back.
I thought it was weird that after China declared OS/2 Warp v3 its official OS, Microsoft comes in a year later and gets Windows 95 declared the official OS. Here we are, five years later and now Linux is being declared the official OS of China. Sounds like China and Microsoft are very similar in their lack of credibility and thier leaders demand for control. IMHO Locutus
Dear Dumbass@windows.com, Start a business with your little brain and if you are lucky enough to get a really good idea then sell that idea to your customers. Microsoft will come on down to your neck of the woods and pay you a bag of peanuts for your idea. If you don't think that is enough then refuse the peanuts. Microsoft will then go out to all your customers and pay them to dump your product and use theirs. Theirs will ship any month now. If Dumbass isn't smart enough to attract the attention of Microsoft then Dumbass isn't likely to get a penny from them. If you ever get a set-top-box from AT&T which has WinCE on it then you have experienced Microsoft paying a customer ( AT&T ) to use its products. Why I waste my time explaining simple concepts to Dumbass's I will never know. Maybe I hope they polish off the little pointed head some day and stop proclaiming servitude to Bill G. and his minions.....
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Do you think maybe they wanted to keep costs down and so they installed both OS's on all systems that would support it and let the user have a choice of what they wanted to use? So IBM knew they wanted Windows. Big deal.
As far as marketshare goes, haven't you kept up on the DOJ vs MSFT case? Anybody who mentioned OS/2 was threatened by MSFT. Didn't you hear how HP was ready to show 50% of its PC's at Comdex with OS/2 until MSFT told them not to? No HP PC's were shown running OS/2.....Nobody challenges a monopoly and makes a dollar in the process without that monopoly ALLOWING it to happen. Nobody.
(But one good reason was that at least WfW could get onto the network, unlike the braindead version of OS/2 they preinstalled.)
I paid the extra $200 to get Netware and TCP/IP networking in v2.0 and v2.1 and thought it was a $200 very well spent. A network connection in a poorly built single-tasking system was/is worthless. I agree it was dumb to wait until v3.0 Connect to include it. IMHO
That's funny. I find it difficult to believe someone would like DOS/Windows v3.x over 32bit OS/2. Heck, they could have run multiple instances of DOS/Windows v3.x INSIDE OS/2. They could have even made the OS/2 desktop look like DOS/Win3.x...
I don't run Windows but I sometimes help fix it and OS/2 v2.0 had a better desktop then todays Windows. It did need a Program Manager(Explorer) file browser for those used to it. Last I knew, OS/2 ran circles around NT v4. Is it still true for NT v5 (Win00)?
You're lucky because you actually heard from them. I emailed them my idea the day the site went up and never a peep from them. I saw two posted 'winners' stating my idea of a home network appliance. I really don't know who is running the business but it sure isn't someone with technical skills/savy.
"Well, the X-Box is a gaming console."
Nope, The X-Box is a dream and knowing MSFT this is not a demo but a fake. FUD. IMHO
That is just what I said in another post. I found that learning a GUI system was soooo much work because you had to get thru all the muck just getting a GUI up to print 'hello world'. With Java and VisualAge a kid can drag and frop icons around to build the UI and then add the connections to make the UI come alive. Then they can learn how to biuld a object or add a method so they can turn around and connect it graphically to do something. I second the motion for VAJ.
They could use VisualAge for Java and point and click their way thru application building til their hearts content. You could build little beans for them to get started with and then teach them how to create a class with one member to hold that state of a slider and is then used to set the state of another slider or change a color. Very visual all the way to connecting object into applications. The great part about VAJ is that they don't need to learn the GUI initially but can learn how objects can store state and the cause/effect of todays event driven computer interfaces. Like someone else stated, a application builder will get them going right off the bat with just alittle handholding by dad. You can even download it for free for OS/2, Windows and Linux systems.
Maybe next quarter they will announce the same for Merced/Titanicium.
That depends on the threading model in the JVM you are running. The IBM JVM on OS/2, Wintendo, and Linux use native threads so you would see a difference with a SMP OS. IMHO.
From the number of off topic and abusive comments I'd venture to say "Breaking up is hard to do." or take.... :)
Back on topic, I thought it was interesting Wyse would say what was said. Then I figured they made a deal with MSFT. The deal probably included that article written by a MSFT PR person. You know the kind, just like Ford where Ford says all kinds of great things about Windows because MSFT is retrofitting Ford for free.... Then again WinCE is floundering so badly that MSFT may have told Wyse they can use it for free. No more choice of paying for drivers or paying for the OS. Only the insider know.
Use the threads Luke.
If the OS supports threads, there is a good chance that if your applications are designed for threads then the OS will spread the threads across processors. Having come for UNIX in the 80's on x86, to OS/2 (very threaded) in the 90's (migrating to Linux now) I have to say there is nothing like a well threaded application and a OS that really supports this (OS/2 and BeOS come to mind today). Nothing like it. In the 90's I was emailing all the x86 clone manufacturers in hopes they attack Intel with multiprocessor systems but they kept playing the MSFT/Windows game and there haven't been too many survivors. Windows didn't and doesn't thread that well (NT is only OK).
The just of it is, if your current apps aren't multithreaded or you don't run more then just a few applications at one time, SMP won't do you much good.
Considering Linux is free, you can pare it down to fit on a floppy and still do scripting, TCP/IP, etc, and did I say it was free? With a opensource lightweight display system it will even fit in more places then it does now and it is free.
MSFT owns too much of OS/2 for IBM to be allowed to see it posted on the Net. Licensing issues prevent IBM from opensourcing it and also help them keep track of how much of it was/is sold. IBM did say they made around $100 million off OS/2 related sales so that aint all that bad for a dead OS. Thank about that the next time you go to the ATM. There are even a few nuke plants in Germany where OS/2 runs the control rods. It ain't mainstream but BMW isn't either and people still buy Beamers. MSFT's ability to keep things incompatible seems to have infected the logic of many a person.
I stopped writting native OS/2 apps when I quit my last job. The 3rd job I quit because they were moving to MSFT crap. I'm on Java and Solaris new but hope to move to Linux. Many at the company are very open and excited about Linux so I may not need to quit to get there.
The multi-user stuff is very nice I must say. My house is run with Linux from the 485 firewall/NAT for the cable modem to the server and workstations. Five computers in all but if I get my three I-Openers, that will to to eight.
I still admire OS/2 for what it does and did for some many years, WAY before Linux and Win32 were usable desktop OS's. IMHO
(Resistance is not futile. The battlefields just change.
Gnome/2 and Enlightenment/2
Posible because there is a full implementation of XFree86 at the current level available:
XFree86OS2
Even though Mr Veit (XFree86 porter) built a driver to handle /dev/* devices, could OS/2 be considered UNIX? In some respects I believe so. I think that it is more about the API then about the kernel.
We know MSFT won't support a full *NIX API on Windows because they NEED to control the API's (Windows) too keep profitable. They WILL bring Win32 to Linux but not Linux to Windows. On OS/2, IBM has shown they were attempting to build a tool to solve problems and the tool is very flexible.
Oh yeah, EXT2 has been ported to OS/2 also. :)
One of the main issues with running Win32 apps in OS/2 is that MSFT moved just a few of the applications resources into the 1GB address space. You see, currently OS/2 ONLY supports 512MB of addressing within each application/process. The new Aurora kernel gives OS/2 up to 3GB of addressing and there all ready is talk of getting MS Office apps running native in OS/2 by using the Project Odin dll&exe conversion tool. This is very much like the Win16 code MSFT gave up to IBM when they split. MSFT is willing to give up the Win9x code because Win00 (sucky names IYAM) is where they are going. I say, don't deal and blow them into tiny pieces. So small and weak that they won't be able to put Humpty Bill back to gether again. That includes busting MS Office up or making two companies, each with the source and each competing. IMHO
Isn't this case all about the consumer version of MS Windows, aka:9x versions? This is where they have a monopoly and where they have leveraged that monopoly. They are just getting started with NT or Windows00 as they now call it. Just like when they signed the Java license with Sun and that 1994 Consent Decree, Microsoft is not going to kill their own baby (reference to QuickTime from the court documents). I was pissed when the case in 1994 was taken from Judge Sporkin and signed and I will be WAY PISSED if anything less then a major reconstruction and major sanctions are applied.
Bill and Steve are no fools and lets hope the DOJ isn't this time around either.
Na, I think that Bill will stay with MS Office if Windows/OS group is split into two competing businesses. Office still has a monopoly and he would find a way to boot Office. You see, Bill needs a monopoly to leverage otherwise he is a out of the picture. Without the ability to stall purchases with preannouncements, etc., they will have to actually compete. What MSFT is really good at is preventing the need to compete by killing the competitions business model.
I hope there ends up being two OS and two apps pieces with a dev piece too. Maybe even a forth Internet piece where LookOut, IE, etc can go.
IMHO
Locutus
when was the last time a OSS project announce a ship date that stopped customers from looking at other solutions? By the way, HTML v1 still works, so does sendmail, tcpip, and probably 90% of the other open interfaces. How many times has WinSock broke?
It may be all software development but stalling adoption is a very well used MSFT tactic.
>Give up your computer and go plant a tree
blah blah blah
Too bad. I think that legal remedies are a must of MSFT is to be stopped. Their billion dollar cash hoard can buy their 'technology' into many sectors and still can buy many innovative companies to be shut down (where did Coopers & Peters go?). If the DOJ cave too then we are doomed to another 10 years of proprietary interfaces which change monthly and promises of products which show up three years later and hardly work as advertised.
boooo hissss on Caldera for caving. I hope they use that money very carefully. MSFT has tons to make it ineffective if they spend it foolishly.
IMHO
Bill Gates Sr (Microsofts Bill Gates III's father) runs the Bill and Malinda Gates Foundation. You might also find that when Bill donates to schools and libaries, etc. he writes the software off at retail value and there is usually a stipulation that Internet Explorer is used, or some other software requiring Windows. In other words he is probably making money by buying marketshare,,, I mean donating. I'll venture to guess that Malinda is behind the the donations for children type of things.
Either way, he obtained his $$ illegally becase the courts are too slow and ignorant. They even had him/Microsoft in 1994 and settled with a scolding, "Don't do it again". BFD.
I'm with the earlier poster, Ted Turner is more of a man then Bill Gates will ever be.
IMHO
Why is RoadRunner a Windows and Mac only shop? Support won't even talk to me because they have me in their books as running Linux? As I said earlier, when a DNS server freaked for my SMTP server (mail worked via POP but not SMTP unless I used a atm??.X.rr.com address) and RR support said they couldn't help me because I wasn't running Windows. The silly thing was, when I said, "Lets pretend I was running Windows. What would you tell me?" here is what I was told. Mind you I already told them I had full WWW/TCP access and could get mail but not send it. That if I used my dialup ISP everything worked....
1) Reinstall your email package.
still broken?
2) Reboot the cable modem
still broken?
3) Reboot Windows.
still broken
4) Reinstall Windows and email package
What crap..... If this deal brings Mozilla into play on RoadRunner we are probably closer to more open support. As it was I had to wait 2 weeks before they fixed the DNS server and until then I had to track down the atm??.??.rr.com server to send email through or use my dialup.
Can you give any explaination for this non-client related lack of support because I run Linux?
I can tell you that Microsoft is a big player in the RoadRunner service. So much that I'm surprised it is called Linux-friendly. I've called them (RR) to tell them their DNS for the SMTP server is flaky and they won't talk to me because I'm running Linux. The person on the phone even said that RR would support Linux if someone paid them to do it just like Windows. I've had nothing but trouble with them supporting me and Linux.
Now if AOL-TWN are going to use Mozilla then that would be enough for me to hope RR might get better as a "Linux-friendly" service. They absolutely are NOT Linux-friendly today.
Compaq and MediaOne are other partners in RR.
see www.rr.com for the details. I'm investigating what this is going to mean to RR because I'm seriously looking at switching to DSL because of the non-platform independant stance RR has taken.
Locutus
Sorry for the intensity but this is Microsoft we're talking about. They have put large amounts of effort on licensing contracts made with "partners" to be sure they have holes in them so MSFT can benefit. This is a small, very small, payback. I'm only sorry I didn't get down to the store quick enough to take advantage of it. I'll have to wait another day for a chance to screw MSFT back.
Locutus
I thought it was weird that after China declared OS/2 Warp v3 its official OS, Microsoft comes in a year later and gets Windows 95 declared the official OS. Here we are, five years later and now Linux is being declared the official OS of China. Sounds like China and Microsoft are very similar in their lack of credibility and thier leaders demand for control. IMHO Locutus
Dear Dumbass@windows.com,
Start a business with your little brain and if you are lucky enough to get a really good idea then sell that idea to your customers. Microsoft will come on down to your neck of the woods and pay you a bag of peanuts for your idea. If you don't think that is enough then refuse the peanuts. Microsoft will then go out to all your customers and pay them to dump your product and use theirs. Theirs will ship any month now.
If Dumbass isn't smart enough to attract the attention of Microsoft then Dumbass isn't likely to get a penny from them. If you ever get a set-top-box from AT&T which has WinCE on it then you have experienced Microsoft paying a customer ( AT&T ) to use its products.
Why I waste my time explaining simple concepts to Dumbass's I will never know. Maybe I hope they polish off the little pointed head some day and stop proclaiming servitude to Bill G. and his minions.....