Submitted by Now this is one for the rumour pile. Yes, a rumour about a long-gone (mostly) operating system that lots of people have fond memories of. Barbara Darrow, Senior News Director at SearchDataCenter.com, claims that IBM is mulling over a reintroduction of OS/2. Wait, what?
Since this is OSNews, I’m kind of assuming I won’t have to write an exposé about what OS/2 is, where it came from, and how it died. On top of that, you can pretty much read up on OS/2’s history in my review of eComStation 2.0 RC1. OS/2 is still being sold today, except it’s being developed by Serenity Systems under the name eComStation.
According to the rumours, which, Darrow claims, come from within IBM itself, Big Blue’s plan is to re-purpose the OS/2 services on top of Linux. The article is remarkably short on details, making it hard to really say anything sane about this; it also doesn’t led any credence to the rumour’s validity.
OS/2 is still in use in some niches today, and there are still people that run it as eComStation. Back in the day, it was far more advanced than anything Microsoft or Apple had to offer, but as we sadly know, a good product is no guarantee for success (BeOS). NEXTSTEP was probably the only desktop-oriented operating system around back then that rivalled OS/2, but NEXTSTEP required incredibly expensive (but pretty… Oh the prettiness) machines.
Today, however, OS/2 has been overtaken left and right. Windows NT was developed and matured, NEXTSTEP turned into Mac OS X, and the open source world, too, passed the OS/2 station years and years ago. While I like eComStation in a oh-how-minxy kind of way, and while I’m sure it has its niche, I don’t see any solid reason why IBM should invest lots of money into “porting” aspects of it over to Linux.
…With a company as large as IBM backing a linux-OS/2 hybrid it could be an interesting product. Didn’t linux adopt some of the kernel design of OS/2 as well? Or am I way wrong about that? Anyway, it would seem like it could be a good fit and IBM does *seem* to support the open source community to some extent…
IBM failed spectacularly before, so it doesn’t mean they will work this time.
True… true.
I remember when Microsoft was first getting hauled before the DOJ and commentators speculated that OS/2 could be the alternative that could be pitched as a competitor to Windows. 10 years ago OS/2 4 and Windows were at a similar level and thus the opportunity at that time existed for such a ‘rebirth’ taking place. I simply don’t see it happening today because the gap between Windows and OS/2 is so big that any investment made to get it up to feature parity with Windows would never have a business case to justify it.
As much as I think people want to find a holy grail alternative to Windows the problem is that Windows 7 right now, for all its faults, is good enough technology. It isn’t the bleeding edge, it isn’t the most radical or bleeding edge but for the vast majority of people it works – they flick their computer on, load up what they need, do what they need to do – end of story. For those of us here who eat, sleep and drink operating system news we tend to live in a very closed system when compared to the realities that the average user faces each day – with the operating system being a minuscule component of that.
Is there was ever an opportunity to unseat Microsoft it was 10 years ago but now it is pretty much a process of nibbling away at the edges by minor players of giving Microsoft a good hammering in markets they have ignored or grossly lacked resources allocated in a particular area such as Windows on mobile devices as one example.
As for the desktop, one could almost argue that operating systems these days are a natural monopoly if you’re going to attempt to target mainstream users already running windows. The only successful model so far has been the operating system and hardware bundling which Apple do which negates the necessity of having to dedicate large amounts of resources to testing and supporting millions of different hardware combinations versus a limited hardware set. If Linux or *BSD Desktop (of some variant) were ever to take off, it would be on a hardware vendor doing exactly what Apple has done rather than a stand alone software vendor pushing out copies of an operating system.
It’s only good enough because you have eaten enough garbage from Microsoft that you don’t know what good is. Sorry, but it is true. Microsoft has held back the computer industry. We lose at least one year of progress each year due to Microsoft and Windows. The ONLY Microsoft improves their products is when they are running scared.
What a bizarre comment. I have a few questions:
– Exactly how do we lose this mystical year of progress?
– What specifically about Microsoft’s software is holding us back?
– How did you measure this be 1 year? What is the basis of your calculations?
– Can you provide any objective evidence from a reliable source (i.e. Not you) to support any of the statements you have made?
Edited 2010-04-22 00:04 UTC
This was the biggest draw for me in the initial OS/2 days. At the time, both OS/2 and Windows were running DOS apps, and when specially compiled apps came for Windows 3.0, OS/2 could run those apps. For it to be a true “os/2” it should also be compatible with the current level of Windows, something that won’t happen since there has been no collaboration between IBM and Microsoft since the OS/2 – Windows split.
I suspect it will be a IBM branded Linux dist. Rather like its version of Open Office.
OS/2 Warp on floppies! I bought it to show my OS class different operating systems. Loaded it on Pentium laptop.
About 10 years ago I went and asked around from several local companies if they had any computer hardware they didn’t need anymore and one company gave me a huge load of stuff they deemed useless to them. Among the load of stuff was full set of OS/2 Warp, including the whole box and manuals and all, in an unopened wrapping! I gotta admit I was quite excited and played around with it for a good while
Too bad I lost it in a fire a few years ago :/
Laptop store “Lap-power” gave away their OS/2 sets some day back when I was in school. Lots of people walked buy and fetched theirs =P
Whoo, you were advanced.
I had it installed on my 486dx4 100 MHz system with 64 MB of RAM. Unfortunately, there weren’t any OS/2 drivers for my NIC or my modem, so I had to install Windows for Workgroups 3.11 on top, and use that for network access.
The OS was okay, the desktop was nice, but there were no good applications for OS/2. All the Windows 3.x apps just looked better.
One nice thing about OS/2 was that it run Windows apps better than Windows.
And it had true multi-tasking, even for Windows apps.
I ran v 2.0 on a 386 DX 25 MHz. It was slower than molasses…really unusable…but cool.
2.1 on a 386SX-25, later Warp. Then Linux came along, which was far more fun to tinker with, and a steal compared with the price of Merlin. It was very good for the time (Warp and Merlin easily beated 95 hands down). But it never really took off, now it is an old and stale system (even eComStation) that is not pretty API-wise compared to old competitors (BeOS) and new ones (Qt). And if you thought Ubuntu 10.04 is ugly (actually, I think it is pretty ok), wait until you see eComStation.
I bought a computer from (I think it was DFI) who built OS/2 machines for the customer. It was very nice, used it for awhile! I had Object Desktop/Window Blinds, etc.
What sort of a silly install process asks you to insert disk 1 again after disk 3?
The OS was very good though.
I still have OS/2 3.0 on floppies and 4.0 on CD. And I used it(3.0 mostly) like 1 year in 90’s and it sucked! Having whole sumo team back of Golf doesn’t compare slowness of OS/2. Sure it was exciting at first but finding software was hard since most friends had windows/dos machines, sure it was more stable than win95 but it still could crash pretty easily.
I don’t see any reason to bring OS/2 back. It’s too old, almost everything needs to be rewritten, UI is crap compared to any modern, all tools look crap compared to any modern, it offers nothing radical or new to table. It’s bit like stamping Ferrari logo on those horrible electric cars, just forget it.
On the contrary, the desktop is very advanced (even compared to todays standards). I’m not talking about the look, but the internal design where everything is Objects. I remember doing a demo at a computer show in the early 90’s that when as follows: Drag a fax document template to the desktop – the app opened and I typed my fax message. Close the app. Open by address book app, drag the address I want to fax to and drop in on the fax document icon on the desktop. Now the address is attached to the fax document (shown with a small icon). Now drag the fax document icon and drop in on the modem icon, and away it sent my fax.
Even with today’s OS’s (Mac, Linux or Windows), I doubt such elegance is possible – and OS/2 had it in the early 90’s.
The company that created Object Desktop (product now know as Window Blinds I think) even commented on how easy it was to customize the look of the OS/2 desktop because it had such a great design.
As for the file system. You created a shortcut, then moved the origin file, an any shortcuts are automatically updated to point to the new location. Such a feature doesn’t exist in Linux, Mac or Windows. Again, OS/2 had this in the early 90’s.
Multi-tasking, truly threaded applications and stability – that is what OS/2 was decades ago!
If IBM could give Linux a new GUI interface (similar to what Apple did with BSD and Mac OS X) by getting rid of X11 I say: GO FOR IT!
OS/2 installer can boot from CD since 1999, there is no need from floppies anymore. eComStation can boot live from since since version 1.2.
Seems that people only remember OS/2 from 1990 and back.
Free eComstation Boot Live Cd is available for download – http://www.ecomstation.com/democd/
OS/2 Warp 3.0 came on floppies. It wasn’t until Warp 4.0 that it came with an install CD.
Most people used/remember Warp 3.0.
Well… then I’ve got something strange… I have it right here in my hand – OS/2 Warp Version 3 – installation CD and BonusPak CD. With box and manuals. “World’s most popular 32 bit operating system” is written on it. But OS and handbook are in German. The box also contains three IBM didks: Installation disk for CD-ROM, disk #1 for CD-ROM, and BTX disk.
OS/2 had a built-in functionality to create installation disks (floppy disks) from the CD, and you could even do this under DOS (or OS/2, if you wanted to). This way you could create installation media to boot a system that didn’t provide booting from the CD drive. It resulted in 14 disks for OS installation (1 for initialization, 13 for installation), 3 for printers and 4 for graphics drivers.
I remember Warp 3 having a CD for booting, an installation CD and the Bonus Pack CD. I think I bought it twice, once in German and once in English.
I also remember that I bought a shrink-wrapped OS/2 2.0 box in 1992. It weighed like 3kg, had lots and lots of little manuals and 21 HD installation floppies… 15 for the OS and 6 for printer drivers. I never got around to getting or trying Merlin (OS/2 4.0), though.
Even though I loved OS/2 and have some fond memories of it (REXX was one of the first programming languages I learned) and I really enjoy collecting old software, I don’t think IBM would even dream about resurrecting OS/2. The WPS (or worse, Presentation Manager) would look as out of place today as CDE does. There is no hardware support and no modern software to run (except for the few corporations and ATMs that still use OS/2).
But if there would be a simple way to run OS/2 on VMware, I’d love to go back in time.
Cool. Didn’t know it was also released on CD. I have the same thing … but all floppies (even the Bonus Pack is floppies).
I had the floppies and later the CD, far more convenient. Especially once one of the floppies decided to bail out
. In the days I wished for Warp Connect which had decent network capabilities.
As I recall, OS/2 2.1 was, also, available for install from CD but ONLY if you had a SCSI CD-ROM drive – which I did.
We sold OS/2 in my store during the mid 90’s and I always thought it held a lot of promise. IBM just couldn’t market it properly to the “average” consumer of the day. They only had one decent marketing campaign during its entire run that I can remember (The one with the Nuns).
All versions of OS/2 from 2.0 on were available on CD. 4.0 was simply the first version that wasn’t available on floppy at all (though the CD still included floppy images so you could make your own if you were really masochistic)
With that said, if they were to actually port WPS to *nix, that would be cool, especially if its released under a FOSS license. That wouldn’t be unprecedented BTW, they actually ported WPS to Windows 3.1 back in the 90s and released it under a FOSS license a few years back: http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=18004… AFAIK, nobody’s ever done anything with the source code, but it is there in case anybody wanted to port it to a more modern system like WinNT/Reactos or *nix.
Edited 2010-04-21 12:51 UTC
Correction! The “original” OS/2 Warp 3.0 came on floppies, but the OS/2 Warp 3.0 Connect came on floppies and CD-ROM.
Actually, my copy of OS/2 2.1 is also on CD-ROM, but it had limited cd drive support (but I remember it worked on my SoundBlaster Pro attached CD-ROM).
I still have the box sets of OS/2 2.1, 3.0, 3.0 Connect, and Warp 4.0. 🙂
So why not for OS/2, those OS have some advantages, but just never went mainstream enough for those features to become most-have, like window or menubar.
So lemme get this straight, it will Linux kernel with OS/2 GUI on top?
I hope is a modern WPS (Workplace Shell) removing the obvious design errors of the original implementation; but if the rumor is true, I think it will be something like Wine, another way to run your legacy applications on top of Linux.
Edited 2010-04-20 17:40 UTC
I still remembered when my colleague brought me 0S/2 warp 3.0 in floppies…
I’ve used OS/2 2.1 for about 4 years. It was great back then (1993-1997), compared to Windows NT 3.1 or Windows 3.11
Ran fine on a 486 with only 32MB RAM. Hardware support was minimal also…
My last encounter with OS/2 was actually a big let-down: eComStation 2.0 RC7 is still as low on resources as the original was, but hardware support is worse then it should be, measured by today’s standards. As is the interface.
Conclusion: Don’t try to revive something that is essentially dead. OS/2 is a thing of the past.
A beautiful past, that is.. But let it rest now.
Uh… I would think that’s one of the primary reasons for basing OS/2 on the Linux kernel in the first place: in Linux, the hardware support is already there. Not to mention it’s constantly developed by people other than IBM (though not excluding them of course) so less work and maintenance on IBM’s part when it comes to the kernel; just some patches to make it “fit” OS/2.
Perhaps it would be like Wine, but for legacy OS/2 applications? It would allow IBM to sell beefier hardware and software to existing OS/2 users.
Yea, it should be called OIL (os2 interface layer)
I prefer:
Standard Network Application Knowledge Environment Os2 Interface Layer.
SNAKE OIL
eCommstation with better HW support and < half the price I would consider it. If it is linux under the GUI I prefer the real thing.
Well, except that the WSEB kernel it uses was always unstable as hell, as well as the drivers. I don’t particularly have fond memories of b0rked JFS filesystem. Even if they’d pay me, I wouldn’t run it.
Edited 2010-04-20 20:02 UTC
With VMWare there’s absolutely no point is revving OS/2. Just run those little apps in a box.
VirtualBox supports OS/2 guests (I have Warp 3 Connect and Warp 4 running), I don’t think VMWare does though.
April’s Fools is supposed to be on the 1st, not at the end of the month.
It took this long for the joke to pass through IBM’s bureaucracy.
It could be a pre-built on Qemu package, if such things exist.
I can vouch that OS/2 is still used in production environments. At my last job, There was one OS/2 desktop running price matching software that the client considered critical.
Thom, what is the deal with the recent minxy meme? Yeah, she’s cute and well endowed, but I’m afraid I’m not getting it besides that.
I would venture to say it is still the most stable OS I have ever used.
Los Angeles: 68
New York: 55
London: 52
Melbourne: 78
Hong Kong: 63
Hades: 674
Nope, not happening.
Is that IBM is leveraging the name for an entirely *new* experience going forward, perhaps with something like Rosetta for bridging the old and the new
from their site
“The latest release of eComStation Version 1.2R is now shipping and is the only release able to install onto Celron 64 CPU.
For an overview of what’s changed, see ewiki MediaRefreshWhat’sChanged..
Principal features include a new installation program jointly developed with IBM, enhancements to the desktop environment, improved device support and additional Internet connection features such as Cable, ISDN and xDSL.”
I remember getting a copy of OS/2 2.0 LA (Limited Availability, a pre-release, test version for IBM clients and resellers) from an acquaintance in late 1991, several months before the regular release (GA – General Availability) version. It was still a tad buggy when it came to running Windows 3 but it was amazing for its time.
Driving an hour to get to MicroCenter on release day was like xmas for my geeky self at the time. lol I ran OS/2 from 1992 until, I think, Mid 1997 when I switched to Windows NT and, later, Windows 2000, before finally settling on OS X in March 2001.
Having worked for 3 years as level 1, 2 and three for OS/2 @ IBM back then, please don’t.
It was nice. it was ahead of Win3.11 and win95 was a DOS with a GUI, but still, OS/2 had a lot of annoyances.
I still remember running a BBS on one tho’. Also Lan Manager was nice. But right now it has no room in modern computing.
I still remember running Netscape Communicator… (and also remember that 2.11, 3.0 warp and 4.0 merlin used to HANG the PM and continue working on background, forcing a hard reset). Telnet FTW!
I brought a lot of shareware for OS/2 back then! It was nice. But no.
Maybe someone-somewhere is thinking (dreaming?) of the same kind of revival BeOS now has achieved with Haiku.
Whatever the quality of the rumour, it rings similar to what the Voyager project is all about, http://wiki.netlabs.org/index.php/Voyager_FAQ .
Given the fond memories (and main gripes) about OS/2, one could wonder about the motivation of Voyager – it’s all about objects:
“OS/2: Everything is an object [tm]
MacOS X: Not everything is an object
Gnome: We once tried objects
KDE: We claim there are objects
Windows: There is no object”
The aim of Voyager appears to hybridize the GUI (Workplace Shell) and a more modern kernel/resource manager:
“Voyager is the codename for the idea of having a replacement OS/2, or rather of the OS/2 Workplace Shell (WPS) on top of modern technology. This idea is the result of thinking a lot about what we can do in the future as current OS/2 and eComStation users.”
If IBM was to put a sizeable amount of resources to an hybridization project, in symbiotic relationship with an open-source project, then maybe the fond memories of OS/2 would not be memories anymore and the gripes about OS/2 might no longer be stumbling blocks.
Actually, big parts of OS/2 “nice gui” came from Amiga DOS. That is the reason Amiga had Arexx, an IBM scripting language.
IBM got “AMIGA Workbench” technology, and AMIGA got Arexx scripting language. AMIGA was way advanced back then with some new cool features.
Ha ha! What?
You have been smoking some strong stuff!
Rexx was ported to Amiga on its later versions, and only because some of its developers liked Rexx.
OS/2 doesn’t has anything from the Amiga.
There are Amiga and OS/2 history articles from the early days pointing to the cross-exchange of the Amiga GUI Concepts for REXX.
The Wikipedia article for OS/2 references a vintage articles about cross-licensing of technology between Amiga OS and OS/2, which does include REXX.
I’ve versions of OS/2 from 2.1 to Warp but never used them long-term. I also have the eComStation demo CD.
The OS/2-on-top-of-Linux reminds me of what IBM tried do do with its never released Mach-based Workplace OS that was supposed to have an OS/2 personality. Imagine if that had succeeded.
As someone else pointed out, the Amiga (which I agree was very nice) did not get anything GUIish from OS/2.
REXX came from the mainframe first. The Amiga folks liked it.
–Esther
co-author of Teach Yourself Rexx in 21 Days
later updated/re-released as http://tinyurl.com/y2ocrja“>Down which yes, still sells some copies
Didnt you read my post? I did not write that Amiga got GUI from OS/2 – I claim it is the other way around: OS/2 got GUI from AMIGA.
Read here to see OS/2 got GUI from Amiga, and AMIGA got REXX in exchange:
http://www.os2bbs.com/os2news/OS2Warp.html
TylerDurden, Moondevil
Before you accuse someone of lying, you should be careful, it only makes you look silly if he is correct?<
Edited 2010-04-24 06:19 UTC
Thanks, people, for remembering and mentioning OS/2 and eComStation. To paraphrase kaiwai:
For all its faults, it is good enough technology. It isn’t the bleeding edge, it isn’t the most radical or bleeding edge but for me it works – I flick my computer on, load up what I need, do what I need to do – end of story.
There’s one topic, however, nobody of the commentators mentioned. Apparently because nobody of them uses eComStation on a daily base.
Although I’m cruising the net now for more than 15 years, > 12 h/day I never cared for malware. Because there’s no need to. And everytime a relative or a client calls my helpdesk to ask how to get rid of the newest worm or virus I’m glad he doesn’t see me smile.
Of course, I appreciate Linux. But excuse me, there can’t be a fair comparison: my eCS box runs circles around my Fedora box.
It’s a good thing to speak Greek. Even if most people don’t understand the advantages and have misconceptions due to their lack of knowledge.
I suspect the reason no one mentioned that is that it’s practically a given when you run any os that’s outside of the mainstream.
As others have said there is a big distance between OS2 from other OS’s. IBM should either open the platform as Opensource and perhaps the community might adapter it as a front end on linux, or they should let it rest.
Probably, it’s because they have some big customers (IBM has a lot of big customers…) which has products that relies on some OS/2 technology.
In Italy, OS/2 was used by the national train company and the postal service, and several banks. Are they big enough?
Quoting Will Zachman, Steve Mastriani, and, well, me. http://blogs.computerworld.com/15960/could_os_2_come_back_from_the_…
There are a lot of rubbish/ignorant posts here.
If you had the specs that were on the box for OS 2.0 and later OS/2 was not slow in ANY way, shape or form. In fact, it was as fast or faster than Windows 3.1 on the same hardware.
PLUS, you could actually multi-task with Windows 3.1 and DOS.
One thing that was fun was that DOS and Windows 3.1 games and Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheets actually ran BETTER in a DOS or Win3.1 box than it did natively. This is because you could free up more DOS memory in an OS/2 DOS/Win box. Plus, memory management was leagues better.
IBM had a bunch of idiots when it came to marketing. Instead of putting nuns speaking Italian in the ads, they should have ads showing the OS/2 desktop. If they had, Microsoft would have looked like idiots when they released ’95.
IBM, like Novell, have extremely good engineers but pathetic marketing people which spelled doom for their NOS (network operating systems) and desktop attempts.
OS/2 was stable. Running an OS/2 server or desktop was a dream as far as reliability. If you didn’t have to run a patch/update that rebooted the computer, it would be up for years without a crash. Maybe an app crash but the OS didn’t crash. When you say 24/365 OS/2 really meant it. Windows is a joke in comparison. It still is.
OS/2 has become a joke though. Mostly due to IBM’s pathetic marketing people. The problem was at the top of IBM.
Should they “revive” it? Well it is still in use by banks because they need something that won’t crash so why not. Just because it isn’t for you (Windows isn’t for me) that doesn’t mean anything. Sorry but life doesn’t revolve around Windows or Linux or Mac (I’m one of these) fan boys and girls.
Interessanting.
OS/2 Warp 4 still in use nowadays by Bank of Brazil,
the major bank in Brazil, that is public
(it is major than private ones)
+1
The marketing department killed OS/2. It just goes to show that you need more than just a superior product to make it in the market. What a shame though, I loved OS/2.
What a pity. OS/2 what Win 95 should have been but killed off by IBM themselves and with shit hardware support.
What IBM – like the world wasn’t ready for a decent OS at the time or something??? Wankers. Choke on your OS/2 and move on.
It would seem best for IBM to port OS/2 libraries to Linux and run OS/2 apps like WINE does.
Better that than loosing OS/2 products & services to Microsoft.