Chris writes: “According to this press release,
SciTech software is effectively taking over all OS/2 graphics driver development, validation, and support for Intel integrated graphics chipsets from Intel as of January 1, 2003. Given that OS/2 isn’t really “dead” (as some have claimed), this is a substantial fillip for SciTech.”
No OS/2 is not dead… we still use it here at work for some stuff.
I haven’t kept up with OS/2 for a number of years, but it seems there’s still a niche market for it out there. I’m surprised IBM hasn’t licensed it out to someone else to do further maintenance and development. You’d think they’d be eager to be in a situation where they could just earn a few bucks from the license fees without actually having to support it themselves. I’m sure there’d be a few takers out there.
IBM has already done this. Have you ever heard of eComStation? Go to http://www.ecomstation.com/ and http://www.serenity-systems.com/ecs/ecs-main.html for more information. IBM licensed OS/2 to “Serenity Systems” and eComStation (e Commerce Station) as a result of that. There are coming out with another update soon. And IBM constantly has updates for OS/2.
OS/2 isn’t dead.
Maybe if enough of us asked really nicely they’d give a downloadable demo?
eComStation 1.1 pre-release was made available to German users (one of the biggest OS/2 markets) a few weeks ago in the form of a magazine cover-disk.
I *think* but am not sure that an English version of the demo is being worked on.
I use eComstation 1.02 and am very please with it, though it does of course have a few rough edges.
It’s very bizarre – a commercial OS that has some of the same community feel as the Linux world since the bulk of software being written for it now (other than the OS itself and a few ISV’s) is open source.
If you’ve ever used OS/2 and liked it, you’ll almost certainly like eCS too, only a whole lot more! 🙂
I have ECS demo 1.1. Though its not in German. Looks really nice. But I am biased I have used Os/2 for years. At least when I install an applications I don’t have to hunt for a bunch of dependencies.
Where can I get my hands on that demo disk?!
I got some Warpstock Europe 2002 CD, where most of the presentation are archived, and which boot on a eCS demo placed on a virtual disk. No modification on the hard drive or installation needed.
I can give you a copy.
Or I create a image of the CD, and we have to find a way to make you download it, or I send you a copy.
Please contact me at my email adress: [email protected] or [email protected]