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I ran a network of OS/2 machines circa 1995 or 96, for a library system where the book tracking app would only run on OS/2. Client/server was the new hotness,
by kjellsbells 4y ago
I ran a network of OS/2 machines circa 1995 or 96, for a library system where the book tracking app would only run on OS/2. Client/server was the new hotness, and OS/2's TCP/IP networking and stability was streets ahead of Windows at that time.
Unfortunately it was too little, too late. By the time NT 3.51 came along, the game was over.
- jmmv 4y agoIs that right? I don’t remember 3.51 as being the thing that made OS/2 go away. (I don’t recall ever seeing it and NT 4.0 was also not super-common.) Sure, NT was the right technology to do so, but my recollection is that Windows 95 is what made OS/2 irrelevant due to its widespread and quick growth. Warp 4 came around the same time but didn’t get sufficient traction. I didn’t have any visibility into the industry at that time so I could be very mistaken.
- blantonl 4y agoWin95 was the OS/2 workstation killer. OS/2 Lan Server was the direct competition to Windows NT. When NT 4.0 hit (with the hardware discovery and Win95 interface) that was it for Lan Server. OS/2 Lan Server was a dream server OS for IBM environments. Those things could crank out File/Print and 3270 Gateway etc services for months without a reboot. They were great during the time, and could collect dust in the back of a branch back office for years, kind of like the AS/400s.
- kjellsbells 4y agoWin95 certainly put several nails in the coffin. My experience was a bit different because of the app I was running, where the vendor was convinced that Win95 was not robust enough to handle it. In consumer space, Win 95 was undeniably the death knell for normie use of OS/2. IIRC, OS/2's IP stack was a straight port of BSD UNIX, so it was pretty solid. I think NT's was as well, which killed off the last reason to stay on OS/2 for the org I was with at the time.