5 ms·

They did talk in the article about how slow IBM was to adopt the 386.

by D13Fd 5y ago

protomyth 5y ago
Hard to adopt the 386 when they basically bought the whole supply of 286's.
jussij 5y ago
And that then helped to kill OS/2 only because it delayed the release of OS/2 2.0 as that version needed a 386 to run. OS/2 2.0 used features found in the 386 to greatly improve the MS-DOS experience. IBM instead kept pushing the OS/2 1.x versions all of which had very bad support for MS-DOS applications. That delay was a massive bonus for Microsoft as it gave them time to work on Windows 95, which used the same 386 CPU features to deliver similar improvements in running MS-DOS applications.
- redis_mlc 5y ago
  What killed OS/2 was that Gordon Letwin at Microsoft figured out a couple lines of assembler to switch Windows into protected mode. Microsoft then stopped their joint work on OS/2. :) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_Letwin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_Letwin (I did similar work on Minix 1.0 back in the day to use protected mode.) OS/2 was dead after that except maybe in factory automation. (ie. Heinz had an automation project in the late 80's to use OS/2 for a ketchup plant.)
- meepmorp 5y ago
  Yeah, but also remember that Windows NT started as the next version of OS/2 after MS and IBM stopped collaborating. The UI was basically the presentation manager from os/2 until 4.0, and MS provided OS/2 APIs in NT.
  - D13Fd 5y ago
    I think you may be misremembering. Windows NT 3.51 had a UI that generally mirrored Windows 3.1: https://guidebookgallery.org/screenshots/winnt351 https://guidebookgallery.org/screenshots/winnt351
    - meepmorp 5y ago
      You're totally right, I am. Thanks.
- canucker2016 5y ago
  Relased in late 1987, Windows 386/2.0 supported multiple DOS boxes using virtual 8086 mode. Win3.1 added some features which made windowed DOS boxes more usable. Win95 came three years after OS/2 and Win3.1 were released.

They did talk in the article about how slow IBM was to adopt the 386.

by D13Fd 5y ago

They did talk in the article about how slow IBM was to adopt the 386.

protomyth 5y ago

Hard to adopt the 386 when they basically bought the whole supply of 286's.

jussij 5y ago

And that then helped to kill OS/2 only because it delayed the release of OS/2 2.0 as that version needed a 386 to run. OS/2 2.0 used features found in the 386 to greatly improve the MS-DOS experience. IBM instead kept pushing the OS/2 1.x versions all of which had very bad support for MS-DOS applications. That delay was a massive bonus for Microsoft as it gave them time to work on Windows 95, which used the same 386 CPU features to deliver similar improvements in running MS-DOS applications.

redis_mlc 5y ago
What killed OS/2 was that Gordon Letwin at Microsoft figured out a couple lines of assembler to switch Windows into protected mode. Microsoft then stopped their joint work on OS/2. :) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_Letwin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_Letwin (I did similar work on Minix 1.0 back in the day to use protected mode.) OS/2 was dead after that except maybe in factory automation. (ie. Heinz had an automation project in the late 80's to use OS/2 for a ketchup plant.)
meepmorp 5y ago
Yeah, but also remember that Windows NT started as the next version of OS/2 after MS and IBM stopped collaborating. The UI was basically the presentation manager from os/2 until 4.0, and MS provided OS/2 APIs in NT.
- D13Fd 5y ago
  I think you may be misremembering. Windows NT 3.51 had a UI that generally mirrored Windows 3.1: https://guidebookgallery.org/screenshots/winnt351 https://guidebookgallery.org/screenshots/winnt351
  - meepmorp 5y ago
    You're totally right, I am. Thanks.
canucker2016 5y ago
Relased in late 1987, Windows 386/2.0 supported multiple DOS boxes using virtual 8086 mode. Win3.1 added some features which made windowed DOS boxes more usable. Win95 came three years after OS/2 and Win3.1 were released.