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https://www.arcanoae.com/shop/arcaos-5-personal-edition/ https://www.arcanoae.com/shop/arcaos-5-personal-edition/ > Personal Edition $129 > ArcaOS may not ins

https://www.arcanoae.com/shop/arcaos-5-personal-edition/ https://www.arcanoae.com/shop/arcaos-5-personal-edition/ > Personal Edition $129 > ArcaOS may not install or run on all systems, and Arca Noae makes no claim that it does. If you are unsure as to the suitability of your hardware for ArcaOS, please review this wiki page or contact us. *There is no trial or demonstration version available.* Wow, that's some "You must really, really want to run OS/2" level marketing right there

someweirdperson 4y ago
With VMs being able to run the original IBM Warp4 (didn't notice any issues when I tried), not only really really want to run it, but really really want to run it on some bare metal modern hardware. The $129 are a lot cheaper than $250 in 1995-$, inflation-corrected probably nearly doubled since then. If someone needed it back at that time, today that's a real bargain.
- macrolime 4y ago
  I got OS/2 on a CD that came with a computer magazine in 1995. That magazine was like $10, so the OS/2 version was probably just a trial.
  - unixhero 4y ago
    The shame was that by that time, it was too late.
  - jaclaz 4y ago
    Around 1995, I remember that some German PC seller (Vobis) pre-installed OS/2 (for some time together with DOS/Windows, 3.11 at the time, if I recall correctly), so most probably there were some kind of low cost OEM versions, later they had OS/2 only: https://www.nytimes.com/1995/03/09/business/company-news-vobis-computer-drops-microsoft-s-ms-dos-software.html https://www.nytimes.com/1995/03/09/business/company-news-vob...
ThinkBeat 4y ago
It is a shame that there is no way to take it for a demo test drive. Open sourcing it would be awesome as well. (there is no reaso to believe they would)
- giamma 4y ago
  There have been many requests to make it opensource, but apparently this was not possible because some part of the code are owned by both IBM and Microsoft who collaborated on OS/2 at the beginning before Microsoft decided to build its own Windows. Rumors are that while IBM was positive about open sourcing OS/2, Microsoft did not give consent. I have been an OS/2 user back in the days, the system was great at that time, much better than the Windows counterpart, with a great UI and file system (which for example did not need defrag). It was however affected by one major issue: at the UI level it had a single event queue (http://www.os2ezine.com/v1n5/queue.html http://www.os2ezine.com/v1n5/queue.html) and if some application would hang while processing its events, it would freeze the UI for good.
  - ch_123 4y ago
    Fun fact: Arca Noae doesn't even have access to the source code for OS/2. All enhancements to the core OS are implemented as drivers or binary patches.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - mdaniel 4y ago
      That's amazing; do you have a citation for that? Also, how does that work given their $129 price tag? I have to separately buy a license to OS/2 and then their software modifies the distributed binaries?
      - ch_123 4y ago
        This was discussed in an interview between Bryan Lunduke and the founder of Arca Noae which is sadly no longer online. No - when you buy a copy of ArcaOS you get an OS/2 license. Arca Noae have an agreement with IBM to resell OS/2 licenses, they just don't have access to the source code.
BirAdam 4y ago
This is more: I’m a bank with many old systems that are reliant on OS/2 and I need some kind of update for my systems! There are other industries beyond finance, but that was a large one. Personally, I’m happy for it existing. I hope that at some point open source efforts succeed or that Arca can secure access to the source at some point in the future.
- mdaniel 4y ago
  Unless I'm misunderstanding your assertion, wouldn't that situation apply to the business license, priced higher, than the personal license that I linked to, which explicitly states it can't be used for commercial purposes?
mwexler 4y ago
Funny enough, this was original list pricing for the personal edition of OS/2 Warp. See https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-1994-10-17-1994290088-story.html https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-1994-10-17-19942900... for example.

someweirdperson 4y ago

With VMs being able to run the original IBM Warp4 (didn't notice any issues when I tried), not only really really want to run it, but really really want to run it on some bare metal modern hardware. The $129 are a lot cheaper than $250 in 1995-$, inflation-corrected probably nearly doubled since then. If someone needed it back at that time, today that's a real bargain.

macrolime 4y ago
I got OS/2 on a CD that came with a computer magazine in 1995. That magazine was like $10, so the OS/2 version was probably just a trial.
- unixhero 4y ago
  The shame was that by that time, it was too late.
- jaclaz 4y ago
  Around 1995, I remember that some German PC seller (Vobis) pre-installed OS/2 (for some time together with DOS/Windows, 3.11 at the time, if I recall correctly), so most probably there were some kind of low cost OEM versions, later they had OS/2 only: https://www.nytimes.com/1995/03/09/business/company-news-vobis-computer-drops-microsoft-s-ms-dos-software.html https://www.nytimes.com/1995/03/09/business/company-news-vob...

ThinkBeat 4y ago

It is a shame that there is no way to take it for a demo test drive. Open sourcing it would be awesome as well. (there is no reaso to believe they would)

giamma 4y ago
There have been many requests to make it opensource, but apparently this was not possible because some part of the code are owned by both IBM and Microsoft who collaborated on OS/2 at the beginning before Microsoft decided to build its own Windows. Rumors are that while IBM was positive about open sourcing OS/2, Microsoft did not give consent. I have been an OS/2 user back in the days, the system was great at that time, much better than the Windows counterpart, with a great UI and file system (which for example did not need defrag). It was however affected by one major issue: at the UI level it had a single event queue (http://www.os2ezine.com/v1n5/queue.html http://www.os2ezine.com/v1n5/queue.html) and if some application would hang while processing its events, it would freeze the UI for good.
- ch_123 4y ago
  Fun fact: Arca Noae doesn't even have access to the source code for OS/2. All enhancements to the core OS are implemented as drivers or binary patches.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - mdaniel 4y ago
    That's amazing; do you have a citation for that? Also, how does that work given their $129 price tag? I have to separately buy a license to OS/2 and then their software modifies the distributed binaries?
    - ch_123 4y ago
      This was discussed in an interview between Bryan Lunduke and the founder of Arca Noae which is sadly no longer online. No - when you buy a copy of ArcaOS you get an OS/2 license. Arca Noae have an agreement with IBM to resell OS/2 licenses, they just don't have access to the source code.

BirAdam 4y ago

This is more: I’m a bank with many old systems that are reliant on OS/2 and I need some kind of update for my systems! There are other industries beyond finance, but that was a large one. Personally, I’m happy for it existing. I hope that at some point open source efforts succeed or that Arca can secure access to the source at some point in the future.

mdaniel 4y ago
Unless I'm misunderstanding your assertion, wouldn't that situation apply to the business license, priced higher, than the personal license that I linked to, which explicitly states it can't be used for commercial purposes?

mwexler 4y ago

Funny enough, this was original list pricing for the personal edition of OS/2 Warp. See https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-1994-10-17-1994290088-story.html https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-1994-10-17-19942900... for example.