• Ability to run multiple applications at the same time • Filesystem with long file names • Buggy DOS programs couldn't crash the entire system These sound s

• Ability to run multiple applications at the same time • Filesystem with long file names • Buggy DOS programs couldn't crash the entire system These sound silly and lame by today's standards, but you'd have to look at OS/2 through the lens of the late 1980's: The Apple Macintosh couldn't multitask anything and crashed all the time! DOS was a world where important files were stored in a directory called USPLDNGS or NODELETE. In the 1990s when Microsoft tried their hand at long filenames, we got gems like PROGRA~1 Microsoft and Apple didn't really solve any of these problems for consumers until 2001 (Windows XP and OSX) but it was already too late for OS/2 at that point.