4 ms·

More like Microsoft had a stranglehold on the consumer PC market already with MS-DOS and everything was so broken/incompatible at the time it was practically a

More like Microsoft had a stranglehold on the consumer PC market already with MS-DOS and everything was so broken/incompatible at the time it was practically a foregone conclusion whatever GUI MS shipped in subsequent versions of MS-DOS would own the PC market. OS/2 only made it worse for IBM by shipping DOS+Windows compatibility, so basically zero developers wrote OS/2-native applications. This gave Microsoft nothing but time to get their Windows stability and multitasking performance up to snuff with NT. In hindsight I feel like the dismal PC situation in terms of constant crashes/need for reboots in pre protected-mode MS-DOS and combinatorial explosion of incompatibilities created by all the random ass hardware peripherals conditioned everyone to fear more change and diversity. If the software being shipped on the computers at the time couldn't make things work well, and these were allegedly the experts most qualified to do it right, what will things be like with some alternative software attempting to emulate the same stuff in a "compatible" way? No way, OS/2 was doomed. And I'm saying this as someone who ran OS/2 WARP for years before discovering an Infomagic 4-CD Linux set in my teens.

bink 4y ago
Back then the OS that shipped with the PC determined what 99% of people would run (much like today). Microsoft used their burgeoning monopoly to make sure that no one shipped a non-Microsoft OS with any PC. OS/2 was so much better than anything that shipped with any PC I bought at the time, but I remember the cost being prohibitive for a student.
tzs 4y ago
> OS/2 only made it worse for IBM by shipping DOS+Windows compatibility, so basically zero developers wrote OS/2-native applications. Practically zero developers wrote for OS/2 because IBM made it hard to do so. I remember something Jerry Pournelle wrote about his experience at a major trade show (COMDEX?) that IBM and Microsoft both attended, after Warp was out and I think when Windows 95 was still in beta. At the IBM booth he told them he'd like to do some OS/2 development and asked how to get started. They gave him a form to fill out to apply for their developer program. They wanted details on what he wanted to develop, his business plan, and stuff like that. If that was all acceptable to IBM then they would let him to buy their expensive SDK. Then he went to the Microsoft booth and said he'd like to develop for Windows 95. They handed him a CD-ROM with the SDK, tools, and documentation. Later, after Windows 95 was released I remember going to a retail software store (Egghead) and in the developer software section there was nothing at all from IBM. Microsoft on the other had everything one needed to start development there. Watcom C/C++ was also there, which supported DOS, Windows, OS/2, Netware, and major DOS extenders, so at least you could get some OS/2 developer tools at retail. And if you did go through all the hoops and develop something for OS/2, IBM didn't seem to care. Apple and Microsoft were always on the lookout for 3rd party programs that could promote their platforms and would run ad campaigns featuring them. They'd pay stores to put such software in better locations. (That same not bothering to market applied to the OS itself. The reason when when you walked into a major software store you would be greeted with a front of store Windows 95 display while OS/2 was on a bottom shelf somewhere in the back of the store most of the lights were burned out and the remaining ones were flickering in a way that made you nauseous is that the stores sell shelf space. Microsoft paid for premium space. IBM did not). They also did a terrible job of hardware support, particular video card support. I wanted to quad boot between Windows 95, Windows NT, OS/2 Warp, and Linux. I had to go through something like half a dozen or more cards video before I found one that worked well enough with OS/2 to support a decent resolution and frame rate. I had expected Linux to be the one to give me the most trouble, but it wasn't too bad. IBM should have had its own team of video driver developers writing drivers for all the common cards that didn't already have good OS/2 support from the card vendors.
- johannes1234321 4y ago
  Developer! Developers! Developers! https://youtu.be/Vhh_GeBPOhs https://youtu.be/Vhh_GeBPOhs One can say a lot about Microsoft and Windows, but they were always keen on building a platform which enabled others to build upon.
  - jrockway 4y ago
    I don't know if we can take this conclusion away. For example, Apple requires you to pay to be in the developer program and buy their hardware in order to make an iPhone app. They beat the crap out of Microsoft in mobile. Microsoft was also in the mobile game way before Apple. (Remember Windows CE? I had one of those right before the first iPhone and Android phone came out.)
    - johannes1234321 4y ago
      Many developers don't go through the steps to develop for Apple since they like ObjC or Xcode or the review process, but since that's where the users are. Apple created great products for users, where the walled garden reduces the risk of catching a bad app harming you. Microsoft on the other hand always tried to give developers tools and access to it with quite good documentation. Enabling people to build on top of their platform. Making sure that other people can built upon their platform. This brought Windows in a ton of embedded worlds except the phone, where they missed the reinvention by Apple. But from say ATMs to Trains Windows is still ubiquitous. And that's the way they built Azure. Want to offer your own Service? - You can integrate it into Azures Cloud Console. And at the same time they still foster developers, with GitHub, VisualStudioCode and TypeScript.
    - ethbr0 4y ago
      Apple beat the crap out of MS in mobile because they made the more technologically correct choice: that mobile ~2003 couldn't support desktop features and needed to be something fundamentally different (and resource-lighter). Microsoft was sucked into the false idea that people wanted desktops on their mobile devices, but hardware at the time couldn't offer that in a cost-effective way. Apple was also cutthroat pragmatic in a way that I don't think was ever in Microsoft's DNA -- specifically: killing Flash support.

bink 4y ago

Back then the OS that shipped with the PC determined what 99% of people would run (much like today). Microsoft used their burgeoning monopoly to make sure that no one shipped a non-Microsoft OS with any PC. OS/2 was so much better than anything that shipped with any PC I bought at the time, but I remember the cost being prohibitive for a student.

tzs 4y ago

> OS/2 only made it worse for IBM by shipping DOS+Windows compatibility, so basically zero developers wrote OS/2-native applications. Practically zero developers wrote for OS/2 because IBM made it hard to do so. I remember something Jerry Pournelle wrote about his experience at a major trade show (COMDEX?) that IBM and Microsoft both attended, after Warp was out and I think when Windows 95 was still in beta. At the IBM booth he told them he'd like to do some OS/2 development and asked how to get started. They gave him a form to fill out to apply for their developer program. They wanted details on what he wanted to develop, his business plan, and stuff like that. If that was all acceptable to IBM then they would let him to buy their expensive SDK. Then he went to the Microsoft booth and said he'd like to develop for Windows 95. They handed him a CD-ROM with the SDK, tools, and documentation. Later, after Windows 95 was released I remember going to a retail software store (Egghead) and in the developer software section there was nothing at all from IBM. Microsoft on the other had everything one needed to start development there. Watcom C/C++ was also there, which supported DOS, Windows, OS/2, Netware, and major DOS extenders, so at least you could get some OS/2 developer tools at retail. And if you did go through all the hoops and develop something for OS/2, IBM didn't seem to care. Apple and Microsoft were always on the lookout for 3rd party programs that could promote their platforms and would run ad campaigns featuring them. They'd pay stores to put such software in better locations. (That same not bothering to market applied to the OS itself. The reason when when you walked into a major software store you would be greeted with a front of store Windows 95 display while OS/2 was on a bottom shelf somewhere in the back of the store most of the lights were burned out and the remaining ones were flickering in a way that made you nauseous is that the stores sell shelf space. Microsoft paid for premium space. IBM did not). They also did a terrible job of hardware support, particular video card support. I wanted to quad boot between Windows 95, Windows NT, OS/2 Warp, and Linux. I had to go through something like half a dozen or more cards video before I found one that worked well enough with OS/2 to support a decent resolution and frame rate. I had expected Linux to be the one to give me the most trouble, but it wasn't too bad. IBM should have had its own team of video driver developers writing drivers for all the common cards that didn't already have good OS/2 support from the card vendors.

johannes1234321 4y ago
Developer! Developers! Developers! https://youtu.be/Vhh_GeBPOhs https://youtu.be/Vhh_GeBPOhs One can say a lot about Microsoft and Windows, but they were always keen on building a platform which enabled others to build upon.
- jrockway 4y ago
  I don't know if we can take this conclusion away. For example, Apple requires you to pay to be in the developer program and buy their hardware in order to make an iPhone app. They beat the crap out of Microsoft in mobile. Microsoft was also in the mobile game way before Apple. (Remember Windows CE? I had one of those right before the first iPhone and Android phone came out.)
  - johannes1234321 4y ago
    Many developers don't go through the steps to develop for Apple since they like ObjC or Xcode or the review process, but since that's where the users are. Apple created great products for users, where the walled garden reduces the risk of catching a bad app harming you. Microsoft on the other hand always tried to give developers tools and access to it with quite good documentation. Enabling people to build on top of their platform. Making sure that other people can built upon their platform. This brought Windows in a ton of embedded worlds except the phone, where they missed the reinvention by Apple. But from say ATMs to Trains Windows is still ubiquitous. And that's the way they built Azure. Want to offer your own Service? - You can integrate it into Azures Cloud Console. And at the same time they still foster developers, with GitHub, VisualStudioCode and TypeScript.
  - ethbr0 4y ago
    Apple beat the crap out of MS in mobile because they made the more technologically correct choice: that mobile ~2003 couldn't support desktop features and needed to be something fundamentally different (and resource-lighter). Microsoft was sucked into the false idea that people wanted desktops on their mobile devices, but hardware at the time couldn't offer that in a cost-effective way. Apple was also cutthroat pragmatic in a way that I don't think was ever in Microsoft's DNA -- specifically: killing Flash support.