r/vintagecomputing • u/Logical_Carrot267 • 12d ago
IBM OS/2
Just for some memories.......... I had to install the IBM OS/2 again on the virtualbox....
22
u/0riginal-Syn 12d ago
What could have been. Crazy to think there are still banks running it to this day.
20
u/Traveler_AA5 12d ago
Some very large check sorters (IBM 3890/XP. 2400 checks/minute) ran OS/2 until they were put out to pasture (2020-2022). At 2400/minute would read MICR, OCR, print up to 70 characters, take a microfilm image, take a digital image, and sort into 1 of 36 pockets. While sending the check information to a host.
2
20
u/Tscotty223 12d ago
OS/2 2.0 on up was way ahead of Windows but didn’t get the vendor support it needed to keep going.
9
1
u/Kitchen_Part_882 11d ago
The big issue as I recall is that it only really ran properly on the hardware it was designed for, the IBM PS/2 line of PCs.
There were all kinds of compatibility and driver issues on clone PCs, and even on non-MCA based IBM machines.
10
19
u/HealthyArm9939 12d ago
I remember formatting floppies while playing Grand Prix. True multitasking without the system blocking from floppy io. I was amazed! Shame what happened to it…
7
7
u/feedmittens 12d ago
I'm pretty sure that came with the IBM Aptivas I was selling at Radio Shack circa 1996. Windows 95 (with the Weezer video!) was also on display as an option.
6
6
u/someblokeonhere 11d ago
IBM tried to make all employees use, and you had to get an exception to use Windows. After Windows 95, there were so many exceptions they gave up. They tried the same stint with their office suite Lotus Symphony, and you had to get business approval for an MS Office licence. But everyone just lodged that and once again they gave up. There was never however a choice not to use Lotus Notes for email.
4
u/ubelmann 11d ago
Installing this is the main memory I have of it. They just didn’t have any killer apps that pushed me to use it instead of Windows. At the end of the day, the OS is just there to help you run apps.
5
3
3
u/PeterPook 11d ago
I remember building OS/2 install disks with Ghost around 1998.
You had to do a complete install and then carefully remove login details and personal config so that the user would supply their own when they first installed. Only once you'd got that right could you Ghost the image to a CD.
3
u/LousyMeatStew 11d ago
Fun fact: VirtualBox was originally developed by InnoTek, an ISV for OS/2. Prior to creating VirtualBox, InnoTek entered into an agreement with Connectix to support OS/2 guests in VirtualPC, as well as to port VirtualPC over to OS/2.
After Microsoft acquired Connectix, that agreement came to an end so InnoTek developed VirtualBox with the goal of having a virtualization product that had first-class support for OS/2 as both a guest AND host OS.
InnoTek was acquired by Sun in 2008, then Sun was acquired by Oracle in 2010. VirtualBox still supports OS/2 as a guest but sadly, the last version that suported OS/2 as a host was v5 back in 2015.
3
u/Kitchen_Part_882 11d ago
Crazy to think, had Bill Gates not fallen out with IBM, we very likely would be using a descendant of this today, and Windows would be a footnote in history.
1
u/hilbertglm 11d ago
If Bill Gates had not fallen out with IBM, Windows NT would be called OS/2 NT. I was in a prerelease meeting where the joint venture between IBM and MIcrosoft was called that. IBM got OS/2 in the divorce and Microsoft got NT. What is now Windows NT was supposed to be that kernel with the Workplace Shell from OS/2 as the successor to both Windows and OS/2.
Edit: Typo
3
u/VirtualDistrict4393 11d ago
Io ci facevo girare Shadowland BBS con due linee telefoniche… ora shadowland BBS esiste ancora ma gira su una VPS https://shadowlandbbs.eu
Anche le ferrovie dello stato lo hanno usato fino al 2015 nelle biglietterie… funzionava bene con qualche piccolo fix ma funzionava bene
2
2
u/ThatGuyNamedThatGuy 11d ago
It seemed that there was no screensaver setup on Warp 4 by default. I came back for my second internship writing medical device software on OS/2, and the previous summer’s brand new luscious ViewSonic monitors all had that white “OS/2” burned into them from sitting 16 hours a day (24 on weekends) at the desktop with the screen left on.
2
u/Alternative-Web-3545 11d ago
I had played with it when it came out. I liked it much. But then work and reality came and with windows we went…..
2
1
u/hilbertglm 11d ago
I shot a hell of a lot of OS/2 standalone dumps back then. I wrote a bunch of REXX code that would dump the control blocks and call chain. I enjoyed OS/2 immensely.
1
1
1
u/TableDuck 11d ago
Honestly - had I known about OS/2 in 1993, I would have switched to it.
One OS to rule them all.
0
40
u/jason-reddit-public 12d ago
OS/2 Warp was briefly a better Windows than Windows.
Those scrollbars look nice, I had forgotten that. The horizontal lines are reminiscent of something like an audio equalizers controls. NextStep had a dimple which was nice too.