LGR Tech Tales - IBM OS/2's Fight Against Windows
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Date: 2022-04-14
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Comments and reviews: 10
Randall
In my law office, we moved from DOS to OS? 2 rather than Windows 3. 0. It was a far superior operating system, however IBM never adopted a program of support for independent application developers, whereas Microsoft fully supported independent development. We had to use several Windows applications under OS? 2, but when Windows morphed to its post-3. 0 versions and adopted applications which were not compatible with 3. 0, I finally had to make the change over to Windows 95 when that compatibility was required to interface and communicate with third party business systems. OS/2 versus Windows was smaller, faster. more subject to customization for the user. It was more stable and used a faster and more stable file format. Had IBM chosen to support outside developers, there is no reason why OS/2 would not have grown in the consumer marketplace, which was the goal IBM set fr it, even though they acted to defeat same. Instead, we got Microsoft bloat-ware.
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In my law office, we moved from DOS to OS? 2 rather than Windows 3. 0. It was a far superior operating system, however IBM never adopted a program of support for independent application developers, whereas Microsoft fully supported independent development. We had to use several Windows applications under OS? 2, but when Windows morphed to its post-3. 0 versions and adopted applications which were not compatible with 3. 0, I finally had to make the change over to Windows 95 when that compatibility was required to interface and communicate with third party business systems. OS/2 versus Windows was smaller, faster. more subject to customization for the user. It was more stable and used a faster and more stable file format. Had IBM chosen to support outside developers, there is no reason why OS/2 would not have grown in the consumer marketplace, which was the goal IBM set fr it, even though they acted to defeat same. Instead, we got Microsoft bloat-ware.
reply
Scott
Had OS/2 2. 0 or Warp (either) come out just a year earlier, I think it would have been a serious competitor to MS. Those that were around should recall that Windows NT was behind schedule, earning the moniker, -Not There. - I think IBM was happy to concede the consumer market to MS and take the commercial desktop and potentially server market, using their decades long history of building solid server machines (though not PC based) as leverage. Anyway, a buddy of mine worked for IBM at the time. He told me he worked on some of the library code in the Warp release. What was really interesting is that one day I went up to his office. I don't recall the specific brand (I think it was a Compaq) but he was using a non-IBM desktop machine! I asked him about it and he said, -yeah, we don't have any actual IBM made machines anywhere. - I doubt this was the case everywhere at IBM but it was in his office.
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Had OS/2 2. 0 or Warp (either) come out just a year earlier, I think it would have been a serious competitor to MS. Those that were around should recall that Windows NT was behind schedule, earning the moniker, -Not There. - I think IBM was happy to concede the consumer market to MS and take the commercial desktop and potentially server market, using their decades long history of building solid server machines (though not PC based) as leverage. Anyway, a buddy of mine worked for IBM at the time. He told me he worked on some of the library code in the Warp release. What was really interesting is that one day I went up to his office. I don't recall the specific brand (I think it was a Compaq) but he was using a non-IBM desktop machine! I asked him about it and he said, -yeah, we don't have any actual IBM made machines anywhere. - I doubt this was the case everywhere at IBM but it was in his office.
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geoffk777
OS/2 was a popular platform for Lotus Notes in the early 90's, so I have some experience with it. The configuration of the OS was clunky, involving editing an obscure config. sys text file. The GUI was unintuitive and even counter-intuitive. And the stability was far from bullet-proof--an unresponsive thread could easily lock the whole OS.
NT 3. 1 had a far better interface, was easier to configure and was generally more stable. I thought that it was far superior at the time.
Of course, I preferred Unix to both, and I thought UnixWare was an excellent OS. But Unix was just too hard for average users to configure and use back then, and most versions were very expensive (like SCO.
It's no surprise to me that Microsoft won the war, although it's shameful that they didn't move most users to the NT code base until Windows XT in 2003.
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OS/2 was a popular platform for Lotus Notes in the early 90's, so I have some experience with it. The configuration of the OS was clunky, involving editing an obscure config. sys text file. The GUI was unintuitive and even counter-intuitive. And the stability was far from bullet-proof--an unresponsive thread could easily lock the whole OS.
NT 3. 1 had a far better interface, was easier to configure and was generally more stable. I thought that it was far superior at the time.
Of course, I preferred Unix to both, and I thought UnixWare was an excellent OS. But Unix was just too hard for average users to configure and use back then, and most versions were very expensive (like SCO.
It's no surprise to me that Microsoft won the war, although it's shameful that they didn't move most users to the NT code base until Windows XT in 2003.
reply
Sexy
In the early 90s I ran OS/2 as my primary OS for a couple of years (versions 2. 0 and 2. 1. I have many fond memories as well as battle scars! It was quite a trick to get both the (very expensive as I recall) TCP/IP stack and Novell stack to work together peacefully. Many three-disk reboots required to get the system operating again after an errant change.
The deepest scars are probably from the time when my boss asked to have OS/2 installed on his brand new ThinkPad along with the Lotus SmartSuite for OS/2 (see above regarding the IP/IPX pains and multiply by 100 because of the need to make it work with PCMCIA Ethernet and modem cards.
The boss used this config for less than a week before demanding that I reinstall DOS/Windows because OS/2 was -hard. -
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In the early 90s I ran OS/2 as my primary OS for a couple of years (versions 2. 0 and 2. 1. I have many fond memories as well as battle scars! It was quite a trick to get both the (very expensive as I recall) TCP/IP stack and Novell stack to work together peacefully. Many three-disk reboots required to get the system operating again after an errant change.
The deepest scars are probably from the time when my boss asked to have OS/2 installed on his brand new ThinkPad along with the Lotus SmartSuite for OS/2 (see above regarding the IP/IPX pains and multiply by 100 because of the need to make it work with PCMCIA Ethernet and modem cards.
The boss used this config for less than a week before demanding that I reinstall DOS/Windows because OS/2 was -hard. -
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Len
OS/2 was remarkable and ahead of its time. It was a royal pain to install from floppy. You know have a snack something to drink and another pc to be working from while it was being installed. Oh that dreaded 12th-14th floppy read error. Sigh the good old days. However as a multi-tasker at the time, I would be running a 3270 session, two ascii Terminal emulations to some mid range. Checking emails while working a spreadsheet or word doc. It just didn't bog down. i guess it was full indoctrination on Focus of a task. Windows NT did not compare and slowly gained function. Silly IBM. aka -Ignorant But Managable- They had some nice stuff at the time and just didn't exploit it.
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OS/2 was remarkable and ahead of its time. It was a royal pain to install from floppy. You know have a snack something to drink and another pc to be working from while it was being installed. Oh that dreaded 12th-14th floppy read error. Sigh the good old days. However as a multi-tasker at the time, I would be running a 3270 session, two ascii Terminal emulations to some mid range. Checking emails while working a spreadsheet or word doc. It just didn't bog down. i guess it was full indoctrination on Focus of a task. Windows NT did not compare and slowly gained function. Silly IBM. aka -Ignorant But Managable- They had some nice stuff at the time and just didn't exploit it.
reply
John
Funny, I had great experiences with OS/2. Back when Windoze 95 came out, my machine was a 386DX40 with 4 meg of ram. If you tried to run Windoze 95 with that setup, even the most basic install (none of the eye candy (exploding windows, etc) it would-ve barfed. OS/2 ran like a champ on my setup, WITH MODS that gave that kind of eye candy. Why? Quality of code. When I learned some basic programming in high school, on my Atari 800XL, with 64K, my friend who also was also an Atari guy, said something that fits well, -anyone can write bloated code, that takes no talent. Writing tight code, that takes talent. - MicroSloth is habitually bloatware.
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Funny, I had great experiences with OS/2. Back when Windoze 95 came out, my machine was a 386DX40 with 4 meg of ram. If you tried to run Windoze 95 with that setup, even the most basic install (none of the eye candy (exploding windows, etc) it would-ve barfed. OS/2 ran like a champ on my setup, WITH MODS that gave that kind of eye candy. Why? Quality of code. When I learned some basic programming in high school, on my Atari 800XL, with 64K, my friend who also was also an Atari guy, said something that fits well, -anyone can write bloated code, that takes no talent. Writing tight code, that takes talent. - MicroSloth is habitually bloatware.
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DarKnightKilla13
I still have my 1993 IBM Aptiva Multimedia PC that runs Windows 3. 1 and also has OS/2 Warp. I always loved Warp, but it would often take forever just to load into it. Still runs to this dqy. will have to mess around with it for the nostalgia factor. Had such great software and games. actually that whole PC had great games. Cyberia, Descent, Jack Nicklaus Golf, Jump Start K and 1, etc. I think the PC was pretty advanced too. I believe 75MHz Pentium, 12 or 16 MB's RAM, Quad Speed CD drive, 1 GB hard drive, 1 or 2 MB Trident onboard video, and floppy.
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I still have my 1993 IBM Aptiva Multimedia PC that runs Windows 3. 1 and also has OS/2 Warp. I always loved Warp, but it would often take forever just to load into it. Still runs to this dqy. will have to mess around with it for the nostalgia factor. Had such great software and games. actually that whole PC had great games. Cyberia, Descent, Jack Nicklaus Golf, Jump Start K and 1, etc. I think the PC was pretty advanced too. I believe 75MHz Pentium, 12 or 16 MB's RAM, Quad Speed CD drive, 1 GB hard drive, 1 or 2 MB Trident onboard video, and floppy.
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Sidney
I still have OS2 versions 3 and 4 and loved them. The operating system was great and I loved working with OS/2 and the only problem was the lack of drivers for use with the hardware I had. Even though many companies promised to make drivers for the OS, but did not. I also have eComstation 1. 0 which I used, but there was the problem with drivers. I just ordered another version of OS/2 for the new machines and some of the older ones and it is called ArcaOS 5. 0 and I will be downloading it and installing it on a new machine and see how it works.
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I still have OS2 versions 3 and 4 and loved them. The operating system was great and I loved working with OS/2 and the only problem was the lack of drivers for use with the hardware I had. Even though many companies promised to make drivers for the OS, but did not. I also have eComstation 1. 0 which I used, but there was the problem with drivers. I just ordered another version of OS/2 for the new machines and some of the older ones and it is called ArcaOS 5. 0 and I will be downloading it and installing it on a new machine and see how it works.
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DataWaveTaGo
I moved from 8 bit CP/M on my first machine (1979 S-100, to 16 bit CP/M (1983 S-100, to DOS, to Windows 1. 1, 2. 0, 3. 0 3. 1 and finally to OS/2 around 1993. I liked OS/2 a lot for better look and feel over Windows 3. 1. BUT, OS/2 needed 12 megabytes of RAM to operate smoothly. So I removed it, since my best 386 system was maxed out at 4 megabytes. As memory & motherboard prices dropped I continued to try each release of OS/2. BUT, Windows 95 stopped that dead in it's tracks.
reply
I moved from 8 bit CP/M on my first machine (1979 S-100, to 16 bit CP/M (1983 S-100, to DOS, to Windows 1. 1, 2. 0, 3. 0 3. 1 and finally to OS/2 around 1993. I liked OS/2 a lot for better look and feel over Windows 3. 1. BUT, OS/2 needed 12 megabytes of RAM to operate smoothly. So I removed it, since my best 386 system was maxed out at 4 megabytes. As memory & motherboard prices dropped I continued to try each release of OS/2. BUT, Windows 95 stopped that dead in it's tracks.
reply
prismstudios001
For years IBM WAS MY HOMETOWN-s second largest employer ( The University of Kentucky was #1. As the university colors are blue and white, they are also called -Big Blue -. Wonder if there-s any connection there. Corporate HQ was a few blocks from my house, literally across the road from my elementary school. We knew lots of employees, and had lots of interesting experiences then. My hometown? Lexington, Ky. Any other memories and stories out there in YT land?
reply
For years IBM WAS MY HOMETOWN-s second largest employer ( The University of Kentucky was #1. As the university colors are blue and white, they are also called -Big Blue -. Wonder if there-s any connection there. Corporate HQ was a few blocks from my house, literally across the road from my elementary school. We knew lots of employees, and had lots of interesting experiences then. My hometown? Lexington, Ky. Any other memories and stories out there in YT land?
reply
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