3 ms·
There used to be a guy around here who had an incredible fixation on this. I tend to believe him that Microsoft OS/2 2.0 probably did ship to some limited exten
by flomo 3y ago
There used to be a guy around here who had an incredible fixation on this. I tend to believe him that Microsoft OS/2 2.0 probably did ship to some limited extent through OEMs.
However, MS and IBM were already getting "divorced", and this may have been a token part of the settlement. A year later, MS shipped Windows NT.
- pavlov 3y agoWindows NT didn't ship until July 1993, a full three years after Windows 3.0. The OS/2 interregnum was quite long. All those years Microsoft was still selling their 16-bit OS/2 1.3 because their server software (including SQL Server) ran on that platform.
- flomo 3y agoApologies for lack of background info leading to confusion. Microsoft and IBM had a joint development agreement for many years. When they "divorced" in 1992, they both retained rights to DOS 5, Windows 3.0, and OS/2 2.0. Microsoft had NT, which was a multiuser system, unlike OS/2. Plus it had an OS/2 1.3 layer, specifically so you could migrate SQL Server. So after the divorce, MS obviously didn't promote OS/2, because they had a better thing coming.
- lproven 3y agoFWIW WinNT was based on OS/2. There were 3 editions of OS/2 planned: OS/2 1.x, 16-bit, for the 80286 OS/2 2.x, 32-bit, for the 80386 OS/2 3.x, portable, for RISC and other CPU families When MS and IBM split, IBM kept 2.x and Microsoft got 3.x. It hired Dave Cutler and his team from DEC and gave them OS/2 3.x to complete. It was built on the Intel i860 RISC CPU, codenamed N-Ten. So this version was codenamed OS/2 NT. Windows 3 was a big hit and Windows 3.1 even bigger, so OS/2 NT was renamed Windows NT. Much of the world still runs it.
- wil421 3y agoThere’s a fantastic interview on YouTube with Dave Cutler. It’s 3 hours long but there are a few 10 minute highlight clips on the same channel. https://youtu.be/xi1Lq79mLeE?si=Pqvm2XYwrYxNLutR https://youtu.be/xi1Lq79mLeE?si=Pqvm2XYwrYxNLutR
- cmrdporcupine 3y agoNT had an OS/2 personality but Cutler's team didn't "complete" OS/2. They built a new OS from scratch, with some inspiration from the work they had done at DEC before coming to MS. My recollection from interview was ... he didn't like it (OS/2), and built their own OS arch from scratch but with some OS/2 back-compat to fulfill contractual obligations.
- flomo 3y agoCorrect, the NT kernel etc has nothing to do with OS/2. But they raided OS/2 for parts: LAN Manager was ported over ("Windows networking"), OS/2 1.3 personality, I think NTFS may have been based on HPFS, etc.
- sillywalk 3y agoApparently heavily based on VMS[0] and MICA[1] from DEC. I believe DEC sued because of this Microsoft, but they settled out of court. [0] https://www.itprotoday.com/windows-client/windows-nt-and-vms-rest-story https://www.itprotoday.com/windows-client/windows-nt-and-vms... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DEC_MICA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DEC_MICA
- cmrdporcupine 3y agoThe joke/story is that if you increment each letter in "VMS" by one, you get WNT. That's not where the name comes from, but it's kind of funny.
- randombits0 3y agoI had a copy of MS OS/2! It was a part of their email gateway product as it ran on OS/2 at the time. I got a NFR copy when my company was a partner I could get MS software for cheap.
- flomo 3y agoWas it OS/2 2.0? If so, rare. But MS OS/2 1.3 LAN Manger was pretty widely distributed.