What if OS/2 lived?

I remember back just before Windows 95 was released, OS/2 was quite intriguing at the time. My uncle and I went out and bought OS/2 Warp version 3.0, and I was just blown away. Awesome shell interface, it could run DOS games with full sound, tons of program options, it could run Windows 3.1 applications. It was a great OS. The HPFS file system at the time was efficient too, I believe NTFS is just a derivation of HPFS.

But alas, installing the thing was a hassle. I had real fun installing all 13 floppy disks 3 straight times, and of course driver support was weak. But the OS was powerful, and awesome at multitasking. I could easily multitask on my old 486 DX2/8MB RAM with OS/2, something I couldn't do with Windows 95. It even ran faster on a 386 with 4MB RAM, something that Windows 95 would balk at.

So, if OS/2 were still mainstream today, I think it could have been something pretty good. Alot of companies were using OS/2 Warp Server, but most of them have ditched it for NT.

What are your thoughts on OS/2? I for one always thought it was a promising OS.

Intriguing question. OS/2 was used in the banking industry for years in the US especially in ATM's. There is a book by Paul Carroll called Big Blues, the Unmaking of IBM, which goes into the IBM mentality and how it dealt with a force called Bill Gates. It doesn't answer your question, which is speculative, but it does go into why OS/2 failed to capture the PC user along with other areas that IBM failed to comprehend or exploit.

Well its still alive in an NT based machine.

Since they are cousins

Perhaps Linux wouldn't have been the upstart that it is today and being the competitor to Windows that it is.

IBM is a big company, if they made a few decisions here and there, it might have survived in the home user market. It was definitely had potential...

Yes I remember Merlin OS/2. Most banks used it. NO OTHER non MS commercial OS WOULD'VE SURVIVED, MS makes sure of that. It's either Windows or Some flavor of Unix/Linux.

Yes because we all know ms was the powerhouse when windows 95 launched. Oh wait no it wasn't, IBM was still bigger at the time. If IBM would've played their cards right linux would be competing against OS/2 7 or something like that.

It's war like any other. It's all about strategy. That is why we are not speaking french or german right now.

Very true, Microsoft played their cards right...Windows 95 was a success and once Windows 98 hit the street it was over. In between though they had NT Workstation 4.0, which people loved so much...

OS/2 was a great step up for OS's

A lot of good ideas came from it.

IBM was horrible at marketing it,

Linux companies should take note of that.

pmistry what ver was that being it sure wasn't v4 it dog low on 486DX100 how ever v2 was good I know I have all OS/2 start with ver first one.
OS/2 is still a round just under a new name which know as eComStation but nothing has change in last 7yrs with it
Nope the biggest problem was OS/2 major leck of mouse support and few other thing.
But tell you all the truth OS/2 warp run dame good on a P3 600MHz CPU unlike old days 90 to 166Mhz CPU hehe.

I never got to use OS/2 Warp 4, the one I ran on a 386 and 486 was OS/2 Warp Version 3.0, that and the other was v2.1 which ran really nice on a 386.

Anyone remember GeoWorks?

I do... Am I showing my age?

Wow! I remember this on the old Commodore 64 - so if you're showing your age, this must make me feel positively ancient!!!

Rgds
AndyF

try eComStation you are going to love it... that's the new OS/2 reencarnation.
Greetings
www.ecomstation.com

try eComStation you are going to love it... that's the new OS/2 reencarnation.
Greetings
www.ecomstation.com

I worked as a contractor at IBM from 2001 through 2004, supporting the last, large scale OS/2 application IBM wrote. It was a hospital information system called CIS, written for Kaiser Permanente Colorado. It was finally retired just last year.
It was an interesting system, and way ahead of its time. It was writtn back in the mid nineties, when Windows was still way too immature to handle the client side of such a mission-critical application.

Does OS/2 still exist? It was before my time but I heard that it was pretty good. At least much better than the Windows OS of that time.

Quite a few ATMs still use OS/2 as their OS (saw one booting up the other week, and almost fell over laughing when I saw the bootscreen appear!)

Originally posted by AndyFair:

Wow, I have seen this on an ATM too! Perhaps OS/2 is still more widespread than we think.

I remember being given a demonstration of Warp 3.0 in the April of 1995 (just before Windows 95's release) and being blown away by it. It's a pity IBM didn't ramp up the marketing campaign until it was too late; things could have been very different.

I just may have to buy a copy off eBay. 8)