5 ms·

OS/2 always intrigued me because it looked like a strange cousin of Windows; it so clearly shared the design language (and some actual code) with that family of

OS/2 always intrigued me because it looked like a strange cousin of Windows; it so clearly shared the design language (and some actual code) with that family of operating systems.

Yoric 7y ago
Well, the Windows NT family (which includes Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows 7, Windows 10) is a descendant of OS/2. In fact, Windows NT 3.1 was basically a reskinned OS/2. I remember fond days of playing several MSDOS games at once under OS/2 (Elite: Frontier and Colonization, iirc) while Windows 95 failed to play any of them :)
- jmspring 7y ago
  Yep, the schism between IBM and Microsoft let to the two products. I preferred OS/2 and workplace shell at the time. Heck, I was using OS2 up until 2000ish. Then got sucked into the land of BSD. I still have a vm floating around of OS/2 Warp so I could play the original Galactic Civilizations from Stardock
  - pjmlp 7y ago
    One of the few things I missed was not getting SOM instead of COM, but we have UWP now, and the DCOP / AIDL / gRPC variants. And the UI had more powerful concepts, but I guess too advanced for most users.
    - llarsson 7y ago
      Please write about some of these UI features, I would love to hear about it! I never got to play with it, because it demanded a much better computer than I had.
      - guessbest 7y ago
        I think the GP was referring to features that were advanced for the day, but these days we take for granted, like a system control panel controlled entirely through a GUI rather than any text files like Autoexec.bat and config.sys
        ptx 7y ago
        Also features that we should be able to take for granted but are broken or missing in current systems, such as spatial file managers. In OS/2 and classic Mac OS, folders you opened would remember their window position and other properties (including custom background image in OS/2) so that you could find things in a very human way by remembering e.g. "the small blue window in upper left". Windows 95 copied this in a slightly broken way – you could open the same folder in multiple windows at the same time and give them conflicting properties, which breaks the model. Windows 98 (and the IE 4 upgrade to Windows 95) merged the whole thing with the web browser which broke it even more. Mac OS X also had a half-broken implementation of this, since the file manager tried to combine the Mac OS Finder with the NeXTSTEP file manager which was completely different. John Siracusa has written extensively on this topic: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2003/04/finder/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2003/04/finder/
      - pjmlp 7y ago
        I also did not own it, but got to play with it at conferences and read quite some literature back then. Here is some information that does better justice than I would be able to do, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workplace_Shell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workplace_Shell http://www.edm2.com/index.php/Extending_the_Workplace_Shell_with_Object_REXX http://www.edm2.com/index.php/Extending_the_Workplace_Shell_... https://books.google.de/books?id=GL59pngdbfQC&pg=PA542&lpg=PA542&dq=workplace+shell+object+orientation&source=bl&ots=j2fO0SEMYF&sig=ACfU3U3rbvQf2W-GytIjEy-xxn9xsHAtyg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiDyOyz0vfoAhXmQRUIHShrBoYQ6AEwBnoECA4QAQ#v=onepage&q=workplace%20shell%20object%20orientation&f=false https://books.google.de/books?id=GL59pngdbfQC&pg=PA542&lpg=P... https://books.google.de/books?id=yurvRCerf_UC&pg=RA1-PA515&lpg=RA1-PA515&dq=workplace+shell+object+orientation&source=bl&ots=sXjWjc4tB_&sig=ACfU3U1K3v7o14_FQzVelIt_lsHi9DOj_Q&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiDyOyz0vfoAhXmQRUIHShrBoYQ6AEwB3oECA0QAQ#v=onepage&q=workplace%20shell%20object%20orientation&f=false https://books.google.de/books?id=yurvRCerf_UC&pg=RA1-PA515&l...
    - ptx 7y ago
      What were the advantages of SOM compared to COM?
      - pjmlp 7y ago
        I really liked that it had support for metaclasses. Here you can find a comparison, naturally biased towards SOM. http://www.edm2.com/index.php/The_System_Object_Model_%28SOM%29_and_the_Component_Object_Model_%28COM%29:_A_comparison_of_technologies_from_a_developer's_perspective http://www.edm2.com/index.php/The_System_Object_Model_%28SOM... Here is some SOM documentation, https://ecsoft2.org/ibm-somobjects-developers-toolkit-os2 https://ecsoft2.org/ibm-somobjects-developers-toolkit-os2 However, UWP now makes COM quite nice to use, this was what VB 6 and C++ should have turned into, instead of racing after Java, and taking 20 years to do a full circle.
- Aloha 7y ago
  NT 3.1 was not just a reskinned OS/2, it was a new kernel, and new internal architecture.
- hvs 7y ago
  This isn't quite true. Microsoft and IBM were working on OS/2 together and Microsoft got fed up with the development delays and decided to build their own system. So NT was designed from the ground up. It originally had multiple subsystems (Win16, Win32, Posix) one of which included an OS/2 1.0 subsystem. https://www.itprotoday.com/compute-engines/windows-nt-and-vms-rest-story https://www.itprotoday.com/compute-engines/windows-nt-and-vm...
  - WorldMaker 7y ago
    With WSL bringing back the spirit of a POSIX-flavored subsystem, it might be fun to see some other retro-computing subsystems such as a modern OS/2 subsystem, though I can't think of a good reason to do that other than fun. Maybe if someone can think of a good reason to need OS/2 running on Azure it could happen. Maybe there's a bank somewhere with the OS/2 apps investment and enough money to throw at Microsoft (and IBM) somewhere to make it happen.
    - rrdharan 7y ago
      Also Microsoft already gave up on WSL1's subsystem approach and just made the VM-based WSL2, focused on fixing the UX issues with VMs.
      - WorldMaker 7y ago
        WSL2 is certainly doing fewer kernel interactions as a subsystem than WSL1, but my impression is that it is still classified as a subsystem in the way that it launches and manages its more VM-like approach. The comparison/analogy I've heard, and I'm not sure it is apocryphal but it certainly makes sense to me, is to the Xbox One's game subsystems, which while rarely described in great detail from an NT Kernel engineering standpoint, when they are briefly described as such they are often described as subsystems and that they are "VM-like" in operation.
        rrdharan 7y ago
        The point is in WSL2 rather than emulating the Linux kernel, they just run it: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Subsystem_for_Linux https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Subsystem_for_Linux https://github.com/microsoft/WSL2-Linux-Kernel https://github.com/microsoft/WSL2-Linux-Kernel The Xbox One also uses a hypervisor to run multiple OSes, one of which was Windows 8: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_One_system_software https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_One_system_software https://wccftech.com/xbox-one-architecture-explained-runs-windows-8-virtually-indistinguishable/ https://wccftech.com/xbox-one-architecture-explained-runs-wi... They started doing that with the Xbox 360.
- rlkf 7y ago
  Kernel-wise, there isn't much common code between OS/2 and NT. Windows NT 3.1 is more like VMS with the Windows graphical subsystem ported on top of it. But yes, running OS/2 was fun days, much better than Windows 3.11 (if you had memory enough).
  - guessbest 7y ago
    Sorry to be pedantic, but Windows NT 3.5 was the VMS version of windows to compete with OS/2, and Windows 3.0 and 3.1 was the mass market version built on top of DOS. If you bought through a small shop, they would add a batch file to autorun the windows executable that launched the GUI from an ini file. Nobody had the Windows 3.11 version if I remember correctly
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - caspper69 7y ago
      This is just not true. Windows NT has ALWAYS been based on Dave Cutler's code, which shares a lot with VMS, because he architected that as well. Windows 3.0 and 3.1, the non-NT flavors, ran on DOS. Windows 3.11 added networking to Windows 3.1, and was wildly successful. Google Windows for Workgroups.
      - guessbest 7y ago
        I don't think you read my comment. I know that Windows 3.x were not based on NT. They were DOS shell extensions essential that could run DOS, but not as well as OS/2. Windows 3.11 didn't sell hardly at all, but everyone mentions it like it did. It is a common mistake. Windows NT 3.1 was just something I forgot about. Windows 3.51 was the popular version. All this was before the internet as we knew it took off. People only had access to what was available in the book store or computer store, and online updates was usually for enterprise subscribers only.
cxr 7y ago
There's also Breadbox/GEOS, nowadays available under Apache license.
- UncleSlacky 7y ago
  And OpenGEM/FreeGEM: http://www.opendawn.com/opengem/ http://www.opendawn.com/opengem/ https://www.owenrudge.net/GEM/ https://www.owenrudge.net/GEM/
  - gindely 7y ago
    I recall using GEM on the Atari ST (the first computer I bought, for about $50 at a garage sale), and then using Owen's FreeGEM distribution at some point later on. I didn't really think it fit in with the theme of being DOS-Windows-OS/2 ish, although the Atari ST veresion seemed to use some modified form of FAT on floppy disks (based on the fact that the filesystem was readable but with mutations on the family DOS/WFW 3.11 machine). I certainly didn't feel like Windows in the same way that OS/2 feels like Windows.

OS/2 always intrigued me because it looked like a strange cousin of Windows; it so clearly shared the design language (and some actual code) with that family of operating systems.

Yoric 7y ago

Well, the Windows NT family (which includes Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows 7, Windows 10) is a descendant of OS/2. In fact, Windows NT 3.1 was basically a reskinned OS/2. I remember fond days of playing several MSDOS games at once under OS/2 (Elite: Frontier and Colonization, iirc) while Windows 95 failed to play any of them :)

jmspring 7y ago
Yep, the schism between IBM and Microsoft let to the two products. I preferred OS/2 and workplace shell at the time. Heck, I was using OS2 up until 2000ish. Then got sucked into the land of BSD. I still have a vm floating around of OS/2 Warp so I could play the original Galactic Civilizations from Stardock
- pjmlp 7y ago
  One of the few things I missed was not getting SOM instead of COM, but we have UWP now, and the DCOP / AIDL / gRPC variants. And the UI had more powerful concepts, but I guess too advanced for most users.
  - llarsson 7y ago
    Please write about some of these UI features, I would love to hear about it! I never got to play with it, because it demanded a much better computer than I had.
    - guessbest 7y ago
      I think the GP was referring to features that were advanced for the day, but these days we take for granted, like a system control panel controlled entirely through a GUI rather than any text files like Autoexec.bat and config.sys
      - ptx 7y ago
        Also features that we should be able to take for granted but are broken or missing in current systems, such as spatial file managers. In OS/2 and classic Mac OS, folders you opened would remember their window position and other properties (including custom background image in OS/2) so that you could find things in a very human way by remembering e.g. "the small blue window in upper left". Windows 95 copied this in a slightly broken way – you could open the same folder in multiple windows at the same time and give them conflicting properties, which breaks the model. Windows 98 (and the IE 4 upgrade to Windows 95) merged the whole thing with the web browser which broke it even more. Mac OS X also had a half-broken implementation of this, since the file manager tried to combine the Mac OS Finder with the NeXTSTEP file manager which was completely different. John Siracusa has written extensively on this topic: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2003/04/finder/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2003/04/finder/
    - pjmlp 7y ago
      I also did not own it, but got to play with it at conferences and read quite some literature back then. Here is some information that does better justice than I would be able to do, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workplace_Shell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workplace_Shell http://www.edm2.com/index.php/Extending_the_Workplace_Shell_with_Object_REXX http://www.edm2.com/index.php/Extending_the_Workplace_Shell_... https://books.google.de/books?id=GL59pngdbfQC&pg=PA542&lpg=PA542&dq=workplace+shell+object+orientation&source=bl&ots=j2fO0SEMYF&sig=ACfU3U3rbvQf2W-GytIjEy-xxn9xsHAtyg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiDyOyz0vfoAhXmQRUIHShrBoYQ6AEwBnoECA4QAQ#v=onepage&q=workplace%20shell%20object%20orientation&f=false https://books.google.de/books?id=GL59pngdbfQC&pg=PA542&lpg=P... https://books.google.de/books?id=yurvRCerf_UC&pg=RA1-PA515&lpg=RA1-PA515&dq=workplace+shell+object+orientation&source=bl&ots=sXjWjc4tB_&sig=ACfU3U1K3v7o14_FQzVelIt_lsHi9DOj_Q&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiDyOyz0vfoAhXmQRUIHShrBoYQ6AEwB3oECA0QAQ#v=onepage&q=workplace%20shell%20object%20orientation&f=false https://books.google.de/books?id=yurvRCerf_UC&pg=RA1-PA515&l...
  - ptx 7y ago
    What were the advantages of SOM compared to COM?
    - pjmlp 7y ago
      I really liked that it had support for metaclasses. Here you can find a comparison, naturally biased towards SOM. http://www.edm2.com/index.php/The_System_Object_Model_%28SOM%29_and_the_Component_Object_Model_%28COM%29:_A_comparison_of_technologies_from_a_developer's_perspective http://www.edm2.com/index.php/The_System_Object_Model_%28SOM... Here is some SOM documentation, https://ecsoft2.org/ibm-somobjects-developers-toolkit-os2 https://ecsoft2.org/ibm-somobjects-developers-toolkit-os2 However, UWP now makes COM quite nice to use, this was what VB 6 and C++ should have turned into, instead of racing after Java, and taking 20 years to do a full circle.
Aloha 7y ago
NT 3.1 was not just a reskinned OS/2, it was a new kernel, and new internal architecture.
hvs 7y ago
This isn't quite true. Microsoft and IBM were working on OS/2 together and Microsoft got fed up with the development delays and decided to build their own system. So NT was designed from the ground up. It originally had multiple subsystems (Win16, Win32, Posix) one of which included an OS/2 1.0 subsystem. https://www.itprotoday.com/compute-engines/windows-nt-and-vms-rest-story https://www.itprotoday.com/compute-engines/windows-nt-and-vm...
- WorldMaker 7y ago
  With WSL bringing back the spirit of a POSIX-flavored subsystem, it might be fun to see some other retro-computing subsystems such as a modern OS/2 subsystem, though I can't think of a good reason to do that other than fun. Maybe if someone can think of a good reason to need OS/2 running on Azure it could happen. Maybe there's a bank somewhere with the OS/2 apps investment and enough money to throw at Microsoft (and IBM) somewhere to make it happen.
  - rrdharan 7y ago
    Also Microsoft already gave up on WSL1's subsystem approach and just made the VM-based WSL2, focused on fixing the UX issues with VMs.
    - WorldMaker 7y ago
      WSL2 is certainly doing fewer kernel interactions as a subsystem than WSL1, but my impression is that it is still classified as a subsystem in the way that it launches and manages its more VM-like approach. The comparison/analogy I've heard, and I'm not sure it is apocryphal but it certainly makes sense to me, is to the Xbox One's game subsystems, which while rarely described in great detail from an NT Kernel engineering standpoint, when they are briefly described as such they are often described as subsystems and that they are "VM-like" in operation.
      - rrdharan 7y ago
        The point is in WSL2 rather than emulating the Linux kernel, they just run it: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Subsystem_for_Linux https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Subsystem_for_Linux https://github.com/microsoft/WSL2-Linux-Kernel https://github.com/microsoft/WSL2-Linux-Kernel The Xbox One also uses a hypervisor to run multiple OSes, one of which was Windows 8: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_One_system_software https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_One_system_software https://wccftech.com/xbox-one-architecture-explained-runs-windows-8-virtually-indistinguishable/ https://wccftech.com/xbox-one-architecture-explained-runs-wi... They started doing that with the Xbox 360.
rlkf 7y ago
Kernel-wise, there isn't much common code between OS/2 and NT. Windows NT 3.1 is more like VMS with the Windows graphical subsystem ported on top of it. But yes, running OS/2 was fun days, much better than Windows 3.11 (if you had memory enough).
- guessbest 7y ago
  Sorry to be pedantic, but Windows NT 3.5 was the VMS version of windows to compete with OS/2, and Windows 3.0 and 3.1 was the mass market version built on top of DOS. If you bought through a small shop, they would add a batch file to autorun the windows executable that launched the GUI from an ini file. Nobody had the Windows 3.11 version if I remember correctly
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - caspper69 7y ago
    This is just not true. Windows NT has ALWAYS been based on Dave Cutler's code, which shares a lot with VMS, because he architected that as well. Windows 3.0 and 3.1, the non-NT flavors, ran on DOS. Windows 3.11 added networking to Windows 3.1, and was wildly successful. Google Windows for Workgroups.
    - guessbest 7y ago
      I don't think you read my comment. I know that Windows 3.x were not based on NT. They were DOS shell extensions essential that could run DOS, but not as well as OS/2. Windows 3.11 didn't sell hardly at all, but everyone mentions it like it did. It is a common mistake. Windows NT 3.1 was just something I forgot about. Windows 3.51 was the popular version. All this was before the internet as we knew it took off. People only had access to what was available in the book store or computer store, and online updates was usually for enterprise subscribers only.

cxr 7y ago

There's also Breadbox/GEOS, nowadays available under Apache license.

UncleSlacky 7y ago
And OpenGEM/FreeGEM: http://www.opendawn.com/opengem/ http://www.opendawn.com/opengem/ https://www.owenrudge.net/GEM/ https://www.owenrudge.net/GEM/
- gindely 7y ago
  I recall using GEM on the Atari ST (the first computer I bought, for about $50 at a garage sale), and then using Owen's FreeGEM distribution at some point later on. I didn't really think it fit in with the theme of being DOS-Windows-OS/2 ish, although the Atari ST veresion seemed to use some modified form of FAT on floppy disks (based on the fact that the filesystem was readable but with mutations on the family DOS/WFW 3.11 machine). I certainly didn't feel like Windows in the same way that OS/2 feels like Windows.