OS/2 – Yes, THAT OS/2 – is getting an upgrade

Slugger · 13 Nov 2015

There are some technologies that just refuse to die, kept alive and kicking by a small but very devoted and enthusiastic cluster of users. The Amiga is one such example, still running more than 20 years after the last Amiga rolled off the lines.

Also still kicking is OS/2, IBM's last stab at a competing operating system to Windows, which the company abandoned in 1996 after its fourth and final major release, known as OS/2 Warp. An organization called Arca Noae not only continues development of the OS but also offers support to companies still using OS/2.

read more here http://www.networkworld.com/article/...n-upgrade.html

Almighty1 · 13 Nov 2015

Saw that the other day, does it only support Windows software made for 3.0 and earlier or does it support newer ones?

Slugger · 13 Nov 2015

I was running OS/2 until I had problems running my kids program. Then I changed to Windows. It has been 20 years. wow

BunnyJ · 13 Nov 2015

I recall running OS/2 at work years ago. Very nice OS IMO. :)

Almighty1 · 13 Nov 2015

It was a real time OS but seemed like software ran better under Windows so I went that route instead. Ofcourse Windows NT 4.0 on a DEC Alpha AXP was slow compared to the x86 platform. Remembered the old jokes... OS/2 = 1/2 a OS and NT = New Trash. QNX was a nice OS too.

Jody Thornton · 13 Nov 2015

Now is eComstation still a going concern? Serenity Systems was licensed the OS/2 operating system to incorporate into their workplace system product (basically repackaging OS/2 as a corporate OS with modern day additions)

Ztruker · 13 Nov 2015

I'm running OS/2 Warp in a Oracle VM. Ugly as sin and pretty useless any more but it runs! I worked in OS/2 support for several years so it still has a piece of my heart. Back in those days MS was the "Evil Empire" :) and IBM had no idea how to sell or support a PC based OS.

I'll have to take a look at the Arca Noae offering.

Jody Thornton · 14 Nov 2015

Seems like Blue Lion is just another eComStation if you ask me. It would be good if they added WLAN support, which I recall was still missing in eComStation.

I will tell you though, eComstation, whether on bare metal or VM is a slow OS. Windows may have been inferior back in the 1990s, but it has really come along and is much more intuitive now than OS/2 ever was. I loved OS/2 then, but trying out Warpzilla (Firefox for OS/2) was painful as a browsing experience. It's been difficult to drum up developer support, and many are pulling out.

Remember, both eComstation and Blue Lion are based on Warp release 4 with external code added for DVD and USB support. It would be like making additions to Windows NT 4.0 so that you could run USB, DVD-ROM, multi-core CPUs (all without access to the source code). You'd have to build improvements around it.

fireberd · 14 Nov 2015

We had OS/2 running at work in a LAN/WAN Network Control and help desk site. We used IBM's Token Ring for the LANs and used IBM's "LAN Network Manager" to manage and monitor the LANs, which required OS/2. We ran OS/2 on a 486 CPU system and a couple of PS/2 PC's.

Antilope · 14 Nov 2015

I remember installing OS/2 in the late 1990's. It was on something like 25 3.5-inch floppies. Around the same time, I remember replacing it with Windows 95.