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Impressions of OS/2 2.x

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tezza

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I've just added a blog entry with a few impressions of OS/2 2.1, recently installed on my PS/2 70.

I missed this when it came out and even now have just had a cusory play it. I was quite impressed though, both from what I found, and from what I've recently read.

Has anyone reading this had some experience with OS/2 2.x or later, either good or bad?

Tez
 
I have been trying to get hands on a copy of OS2 Warp for a long time, but to no avail. I would like to experience it at some point.

I will read your blog entry later.
 
Back in the day I used it at work before the company installed their LAN and standardized on the Windows platform. I used it at home with Lotus Smartsuite for OS/2. Describe Word Processor, and did my Computer Science programming projects using IBM C/Set and VisualAge C++. Don't forget that it will run applications written for DOS and Windows 3.1. Advertised as a better DOS than DOS and more stable for running Windows apps. CorelDraw! for Windows ran really well under OS/2. There were some nice add-ons also. One of them being Stardock's Object Desktop.
 
I used to develop for OS/2, starting with 1.1; I still have all of the development kit stuff (and the hernia-creating documentation) and most of the CSDs and versions. from 1.1 to Warp.

From a developer's standpoint, I liked it a lot--the documentation was meticulous, IBM developer relations was helpful and courteous. Life was good.

If you want to goof around with the last release, there's an evaluation copy that will run from a Live CD at eComstation.

IBM also published a freebie CD of Warp with a bunch of development tools called "The Developer Connection". I've got that one and can probably post an ISO somewhere. I think I've also got MASM and MSC for Warp somewhere, too.
 
I own 2.1 on like twenty something floppies (fourty if you count the 2.11 fixpack) and Warp 3 on CD (though I never really tried it yet) and it was...okay.
2.11 liked to lockup from time to time when I was in Windows mode or running something that PC-DOS didn't really like as opposed to MS-DOS. I really never liked the driver constraint though. It seemed for me at least if I wanted to setup a system runing OS/2 I had to find a very specific set of cards because everything else I owned either had no driver support under OS/2 or the OS/2 drivers were lost in time.
I do however like HPFS. It's a rather nice journaling filesystem.
 
I also used OS/2 though I was doing more Windows development back then. Got my moneys worth out of IBM shipping me a free upgrade to Extended Edition. DB2 might differ alot from other SQL engines back in 1990 but free testing at home was very useful.

On the downside, OS/2 had some problems. Version 1.2 and the WPS in 2.0 were very buggy. IBM's major demo at tradeshows was to run C/PM-86 inside a window which seldom was a business requirement. By the time Warp got fixpacks, Win95 was well in beta and OS/2 was going away.

Some great software was released for OS/2 and I miss them. Describe is the fastest GUI wordprocessor I have ever used. WebExplorer was the best browser in 1995. Conversely, Sidekick for PM was not very good requiring lots of memory while not even doing as much as the sample programs included with the developer kits.
 
NeXT said:
I really never liked the driver constraint though. It seemed for me at least if I wanted to setup a system runing OS/2 I had to find a very specific set of cards because everything else I owned either had no driver support under OS/2 or the OS/2 drivers were lost in time.
I do however like HPFS. It's a rather nice journaling filesystem.
Click to expand...

I have a question about drivers generally. I'm assuming when a manufacturer brings out a piece of hardware, it is up to the manufacturer to write the drivers for it using whatever info the Operating System owners provide?

If this is correct, was it a chicken and egg situation where hardware manufactures didn't think OS/2 was common enough therefore they didn't bother? Or was it more complex than this?

Tez
 
Yes, manufacturers must provide their own drivers; no one writes it for them.

Up until about, oh, 1997 or so, you could get OS/2 drivers for just about anything (you might have to request it from the manufacturer). After that, it's catch as catch-can.

A lot of major name-brand system vendors (HP, IBM, etc.) I think took pains to make sure that OS/2 was supported. The last Celeron 866 MHz HP system I tried was completely supported.

I think this is in keeping with later OS/2 usage--mostly for commercial customers, not home computer types. I can recall IBM's advertisements "...with AS/400 and IBM OS/2..."
 
I worked at IBM when OS/2 was developed and was a Beta tester for OS/2 beginning with 1.0. I really liked the OS and started developing apps for it.

While I used and loved OS/2 in my work, I didn't use it at home due to lack of 3rd party support. Regarding Win-OS2, if I had problems with some Windows software and called for support I would almost always be told that Win-OS2 was not supported.

I loved REXX, first used it on IBM mainframes, then OS/2. The Amiga OS used REXX as well.

Always referred to OS/2's DOS command window as the "DOS penalty box" since using it subjected you to all the limitations of DOS.

I still have a copy or 2 of Warp somewhere but haven't used it for about 10 years now.
 
Back in the mid 80's I used OS/2 starting with version 1.0 . I still have a copy of that somewhere, I think it came on four
1.44 MB diskettes :) I recall we were running 1.0 and 1.1 on IBM AT 286 machines at that time. There was no GUI in 1.0 just
a text based menu system that would let you launch multiple programs therefore multitasking.....

I later used other OS/2 versions all the way up through Warp 4. Did a lot of development work on OS/2 products.

I think OS/2 Warp 3 was the first really stable release. This came in two versions, a red box for users that had Windows 3.1
already installed and a blue box that included Windows for OS/2. Installing the red version would install OS/2 and setup to use the existing Windows 3.1. Installing the blue version would install OS/2 and a copy of Win/Os2.

I still think OS/2 was ahead of its time, the main competition being Windows 3.1. One of the main reasons OS/2 Warp 3 didn't do well initially is that OS/2 needed more memory to work well. I think 8MB was the minimum for a usable system. Windows 3.1 would work well with only 4MB memory. At that time I think memory cost was around $50 or more per MB.
 
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i've tried OS/2 Warp 3 on my aptiva. I liked it... and then the install messed up due to a video card error. Oh well. I also tried installing it on MS Virtual PC, but it gave a critical error and i couldn't use the install.
 
linuxlove said:
I also tried installing it on MS Virtual PC, but it gave a critical error and i couldn't use the install.
Click to expand...

I installed OS/2 Warp 3 under VPC 2007 with no problems after I tracked down the floppy disk images needed for IDE CDROMs. What critical error did you see?
 
i don't remember for sure. It happened during the graphical portion of setup, where you select what hardware you have installed.
 
lutiana said:
I have been trying to get hands on a copy of OS2 Warp for a long time, but to no avail. I would like to experience it at some point.

I will read your blog entry later.
Click to expand...

I have a copy of OS/2 Warp 4 in shrinkwrap. That's not getting opened though - it sits next to my copies of other vintage OSes, of note Windows 3.0 on 720K floppies in shrinkwrap.

You can find copies of OS/2 pretty easily "on the Internet", though, especially since most people (albeit improperly, due to eComStation) consider it abandonware.

If you need help finding it "on the Internet", PM me and when I notice your PM I'll help you out with that.
 
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