4 ms·

"It coulda been a contender. In 1987, we knew no better. We might have gone for it." Again how could it have been a contender in 1987 targeting 386 systems whi

by tssva 2y ago

"It coulda been a contender. In 1987, we knew no better. We might have gone for it." Again how could it have been a contender in 1987 targeting 386 systems which for the most part didn't exist and didn't exist in quantity at a reasonable price for a few more years after?

lproven 2y ago
The way the industry developed is this: First, in the early to mid 1980s, cheap PCs were all 8088/8086 machines (we called the XT class hardware). That was the baseline even when you could buy faster because it was so expensive. Then, from the mid-1980s, 80286 PCs came along (called AT-class kit). DOS couldn't really do anything much more on a 286 than it could on an 8086, so 286s were just used as faster XT-class boxes. There were 3 OSes that could use the 286: Digital Research's Concurrent DOS, SCO Xenix, and IBM/MS OS/2 1.x. Xenix was a hit. The others not so much. Then came the 386DX. Via UMBs and improved DOS memory management, 386s could do way more in plain old DOS. There were memory managers like QEMM386 and 386Max. (Now FOSS: https://github.com/sudleyplace/386MAX https://github.com/sudleyplace/386MAX ) For power users they could multitask. There was a brief flowering of multitasking DOS extensions and replacements: Concurrent DOS 386, DESQview, DESQview/X, PC-MOS 386, TSX-32, and others. Most aimed at multiuser stuff because 386DX kit was expensive. (PC-MOS is FOSS now. https://github.com/roelandjansen/pcmos386v501 https://github.com/roelandjansen/pcmos386v501 ) This drove the market towards the 386. It could do more, even just for DOS and DOS users. I made a good living optimising the memory management of DOS PCs. Once it was established, the much cheaper 386SX came along and made 386 PCs cheap. The tech and the software and the skills were already there. But OS/2 1.x couldn't do any of it. It could barely run DOS at all. If you were a DOS user OS/2 gave you nothing worth having. NT was a hit by aiming at the PCs of the near future. That's what OS/2 should have been targeted at as well. Then gradually, incrementally, Windows 3 took over because it worked on XTs and ATs but on 386s it gave you DOS multitasking and copy-and-paste between DOS apps. It gave you the good stuff you got from DESQview. AND you got new apps. OS/2 1.x was gradual developing. It got a GUI after 1 version. It got a decent GUI next. Then it got smaller and faster. NT was incremental too. 3.1 worked but was huge. 3.5 got VFAT and was smaller and faster with better networking. 3.51 got smaller and faster and stabler and started ditching the OS/2 legacy stuff. The point being, OS/2 1.0 should have gone up against DESQview and Concurrent DOS as a DOS multitasker for rich power users, then OS/2 1.1 against Windows 2, then OS/2 1.3 would have taken the place of Windows 3.
- tssva 2y ago
  Thanks for the recap but it wasn't needed I was involved in the industry throughout this history and used most of the OSs and other products you mentioned and more either personally, professionally or both. You still didn't address why an operating system whose development was started in 1985 should have initially targeted a processor which wasn't available in a production PC until late 1986 and wasn't available in large quantities at a reasonable price for a couple of more years. Who exactly would they have been selling OS/2 too? How do you think customers they were selling large quantities of 8086/8088 and 80286 systems to would have reacted to being told they were a dead end for their next gen OS?
  - lproven 2y ago
    OK. I had no way to know that, though. I started my first job in 1988, at an IBM (and Apple and Compaq) dealer. We sold lots of PS/2s, and yes, they were mostly 286s -- and they mostly ran plain DOS, no Windows and definitely no OS/2. 386s were servers. But even then there were a few executives or managers with 386s on their desktops. By just a couple of years later, 386SX boxes were everywhere, including on laptops. I got 2 free Librex machines from my 3rd job, because Nippon Steel pulled out of laptops. I ran OS/2 2.0 on mine and while it wasn't _quick_ it was pretty good. OS/2 1.x was comparable in price to DOS + DESQview386. It didn't sell at all to any of my DOS-using customers in any of my jobs, because they needed their apps. It was expensive and it didn't deliver any benefit. But DESQview did. Not a lot but it was there. QEMM386 was everywhere, and DR-DOS/Novell DOS was quite a hit. MS-DOS 5 and 6 sold great. DOS users would pay a bit extra for stuff that enhanced their use of DOS apps. If OS/2 1 had been a 386 OS, which it nearly was, I think it could have sold to DOS power users. The offer would be: you get multitasking -- and a CD drive and networking without faffing around with memory management. Then on top of that you get a GUI, and you get it with half a dozen DOS apps at once, in 4MB of RAM, and every one of them gets 620kB of available memory. I do reckon we could have sold that, yes. It was close. MS had demo versions that have leaked. MS had a nearly complete 32-bit OS/2 2.0 with Program Manager and File Manager, almost ready to roll in 1990, earlier the same year Windows 3 came out... and that was after wasting ~5 years on 286 OS/2. For a whole new OS to succeed, aim at the hardware available to rich power users the year it launches and available to everyone 2-3 years later. NT 3 needed a nearly £10K PC when it launched but just a few years later it could run well on a bog-standard office PC, like a Pentium 66, so long as you exercised a little care over the choice of components. I know this because I ran it myself in such an office, when everyone else was on WfWg 3.11.

by tssva 2y ago

lproven 2y ago

The way the industry developed is this: First, in the early to mid 1980s, cheap PCs were all 8088/8086 machines (we called the XT class hardware). That was the baseline even when you could buy faster because it was so expensive. Then, from the mid-1980s, 80286 PCs came along (called AT-class kit). DOS couldn't really do anything much more on a 286 than it could on an 8086, so 286s were just used as faster XT-class boxes. There were 3 OSes that could use the 286: Digital Research's Concurrent DOS, SCO Xenix, and IBM/MS OS/2 1.x. Xenix was a hit. The others not so much. Then came the 386DX. Via UMBs and improved DOS memory management, 386s could do way more in plain old DOS. There were memory managers like QEMM386 and 386Max. (Now FOSS: https://github.com/sudleyplace/386MAX https://github.com/sudleyplace/386MAX ) For power users they could multitask. There was a brief flowering of multitasking DOS extensions and replacements: Concurrent DOS 386, DESQview, DESQview/X, PC-MOS 386, TSX-32, and others. Most aimed at multiuser stuff because 386DX kit was expensive. (PC-MOS is FOSS now. https://github.com/roelandjansen/pcmos386v501 https://github.com/roelandjansen/pcmos386v501 ) This drove the market towards the 386. It could do more, even just for DOS and DOS users. I made a good living optimising the memory management of DOS PCs. Once it was established, the much cheaper 386SX came along and made 386 PCs cheap. The tech and the software and the skills were already there. But OS/2 1.x couldn't do any of it. It could barely run DOS at all. If you were a DOS user OS/2 gave you nothing worth having. NT was a hit by aiming at the PCs of the near future. That's what OS/2 should have been targeted at as well. Then gradually, incrementally, Windows 3 took over because it worked on XTs and ATs but on 386s it gave you DOS multitasking and copy-and-paste between DOS apps. It gave you the good stuff you got from DESQview. AND you got new apps. OS/2 1.x was gradual developing. It got a GUI after 1 version. It got a decent GUI next. Then it got smaller and faster. NT was incremental too. 3.1 worked but was huge. 3.5 got VFAT and was smaller and faster with better networking. 3.51 got smaller and faster and stabler and started ditching the OS/2 legacy stuff. The point being, OS/2 1.0 should have gone up against DESQview and Concurrent DOS as a DOS multitasker for rich power users, then OS/2 1.1 against Windows 2, then OS/2 1.3 would have taken the place of Windows 3.

tssva 2y ago
Thanks for the recap but it wasn't needed I was involved in the industry throughout this history and used most of the OSs and other products you mentioned and more either personally, professionally or both. You still didn't address why an operating system whose development was started in 1985 should have initially targeted a processor which wasn't available in a production PC until late 1986 and wasn't available in large quantities at a reasonable price for a couple of more years. Who exactly would they have been selling OS/2 too? How do you think customers they were selling large quantities of 8086/8088 and 80286 systems to would have reacted to being told they were a dead end for their next gen OS?
- lproven 2y ago
  OK. I had no way to know that, though. I started my first job in 1988, at an IBM (and Apple and Compaq) dealer. We sold lots of PS/2s, and yes, they were mostly 286s -- and they mostly ran plain DOS, no Windows and definitely no OS/2. 386s were servers. But even then there were a few executives or managers with 386s on their desktops. By just a couple of years later, 386SX boxes were everywhere, including on laptops. I got 2 free Librex machines from my 3rd job, because Nippon Steel pulled out of laptops. I ran OS/2 2.0 on mine and while it wasn't _quick_ it was pretty good. OS/2 1.x was comparable in price to DOS + DESQview386. It didn't sell at all to any of my DOS-using customers in any of my jobs, because they needed their apps. It was expensive and it didn't deliver any benefit. But DESQview did. Not a lot but it was there. QEMM386 was everywhere, and DR-DOS/Novell DOS was quite a hit. MS-DOS 5 and 6 sold great. DOS users would pay a bit extra for stuff that enhanced their use of DOS apps. If OS/2 1 had been a 386 OS, which it nearly was, I think it could have sold to DOS power users. The offer would be: you get multitasking -- and a CD drive and networking without faffing around with memory management. Then on top of that you get a GUI, and you get it with half a dozen DOS apps at once, in 4MB of RAM, and every one of them gets 620kB of available memory. I do reckon we could have sold that, yes. It was close. MS had demo versions that have leaked. MS had a nearly complete 32-bit OS/2 2.0 with Program Manager and File Manager, almost ready to roll in 1990, earlier the same year Windows 3 came out... and that was after wasting ~5 years on 286 OS/2. For a whole new OS to succeed, aim at the hardware available to rich power users the year it launches and available to everyone 2-3 years later. NT 3 needed a nearly £10K PC when it launched but just a few years later it could run well on a bog-standard office PC, like a Pentium 66, so long as you exercised a little care over the choice of components. I know this because I ran it myself in such an office, when everyone else was on WfWg 3.11.