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Only one side will be the true successor to MS-DOS – Windows 2.x
- bitwize 6mo agoBut OS/2 was a better DOS than DOS, and a better Windows than Windows!
- consp 6mo agoAnd yet it failed in the common user's perspective but I've seen many ATMs run it and those were usually the working ones without BSODs on them.
- aleph_minus_one 6mo ago> And yet it failed in the common user's perspective In Germany, the situation was different: there, at that time OS/2 (in particular OS/2 3.0 Warp) had quite a bit of popularity among common users because Escom and in particular Vobis (the latter was an at that time ultra-successful chain for selling computers in Germany) decided they want to challenge Microsoft's de-facto monopoly on operating systems of that time by also selling PCs that had OS/2 pre-installed (you only got DOS/Windows installed for an upcharge): > https://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=OS/2&oldid=266114170#Entwicklung_ab_OS/2_2.0 https://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=OS/2&oldid=266114... "Als die deutschen Computerhändler Vobis und Escom ankündigten, auf ihren PCs zukünftig OS/2 vorzuinstallieren und Windows nur noch gegen Aufpreis anzubieten, übte Microsoft massiven Druck auf die beiden Computerhändler aus. So schloss Microsoft Vobis vom Beta-Programm von Windows 95 aus, bot für die Zukunft Windows-Lizenzen nur zu wesentlich schlechteren Bedingungen an und versuchte, Vobis dazu zu zwingen, eine Verschwiegenheitserklärung zu unterzeichnen." DeepL translation: "When the German computer retailers Vobis and Escom announced that they would pre-install OS/2 on their PCs in the future and offer Windows only at an additional cost, Microsoft exerted massive pressure on the two retailers. For instance, Microsoft excluded Vobis from the Windows 95 beta program, offered Windows licenses in the future only under significantly worse terms, and attempted to force Vobis to sign a non-disclosure agreement." > https://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Vobis&oldid=261716103#Geschichte https://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Vobis&oldid=26171... "1995 setzte Vobis wegen Lieferterminverschiebungen der 32-Bit-Plattform Windows 95 darauf, Kunden standardmäßig das bereits erschienene 32-Bit-Betriebssystem OS/2 von IBM auf PCs vorzuinstallieren, wodurch OS/2 auf dem deutschen Markt einen größeren Bekanntheitsgrad als anderswo erreichte. Microsoft soll in der Folge versucht haben, Vobis die Lizenz für Windows 95 zu entziehen, was einen schweren wirtschaftlichen Nachteil für Vobis bedeutet hätte." DeepL translation: "In 1995, due to delays in the release of the 32-bit Windows 95 platform, Vobis decided to pre-install IBM’s 32-bit OS/2 operating system—which was already available—on PCs as standard, resulting in OS/2 achieving greater recognition on the German market than elsewhere. Microsoft is said to have subsequently attempted to revoke Vobis’s license for Windows 95, which would have caused Vobis serious financial harm." Vobis also produced its own computer magazine named "Highscreen" (named after Vobis' brand name for their PCs) that also contained lots of beginner tips for OS/2 to get PC buyers accustomed to OS/2.
- blisscast 6mo agoIf only every program worked out of the box... :')
- d3Xt3r 6mo agoWell, technically Windows 2.1 (released May 1988) came before OS/2 1.1 (released October 1988). OS/2 1.0 was text-only. So at least for 5 months in 1998, Windows technically beat OS/2. And OS/2 1.1 was very similar to Windows 2.1, so it's arguable if it was actually much better. OS/2 1.2 was a massive leap though, not only beating Microsoft GUI wise by a whole year, they even implemented tons of advanced features that we didn't see until Windows 95.
- mikestew 6mo agoOP is referring to OS/2 2.0 after IBM took over the OS, not the previous Microsoft 1.x versions. The post is a quote from IBM’s marketing. https://www.reddit.com/r/retrobattlestations/comments/nl43aq/os2_warp_3_a_better_windows_than_windows_and_a/ https://www.reddit.com/r/retrobattlestations/comments/nl43aq...
- didgetmaster 6mo agoWhen I started working at Novell in October 1988, I was on the OS/2 team. The version I installed first was 1.0 so I remember that there was no GUI. A few months later we got the update (1.1) with the GUI. What I remember the most is that they ordered us memory expansion cards that gave us an extra 4MB of RAM for a total of 5MB. I didn't see the actual invoice, but I remember them telling me that the expansion card cost about $2,000. I try to remember that when I complain about memory DIMMs measuring in the dozens of GB going up a bit in price.
- didgetmaster 6mo agoI also still have an unopened box (still shrink wrapped) of OS/2 Warp sitting on my shelf.
- fredoralive 6mo agoThat was the slogan of OS/2 2.0. But by then where Windows 3.x was already out and in 386 Enhanced Mode, more than good enough. It also had the extra "escape hatch" of being able to quit to real DOS if a DOS box didn't work. OS/2 1.x's DOS box was bad, with lots of limitations, which isn't good when most existing PC apps are DOS apps. As for GUI, well, lets call the Presentation Manager 1.x v Windows 2.x a no-score draw.
- ahartmetz 6mo agoHas everyone forgotten how crashy Windows 3.x was, though? It was terrible.
- shevy-java 6mo agoMS-DOS was quite simple if you think about it. Past that point complexity kept on increasing. Don't get me wrong - I use modern day linux, modern day ruby ... it's all fine. Modern computers are fast too. But at the same time I feel we lost simplicity along the way. Now this is even more noticable with microslop everywhere.
- blisscast 6mo agoMaybe that's the reason people are going back to older tech? Personally, I use an iPod and I find it's simple enough and does the job
- coderssh 6mo agoFeels like we remember MS-DOS as simple because it fit the time. One user, limited hardware, not much going on in the background. As soon as you try to add multitasking, networking, or even basic isolation, that simplicity doesn’t really hold up.
- blisscast 6mo agoI mean, when it came out, people didn't really need much of that
- graemep 6mo agoThat does not mean that we need things to be as complex as they now are though.
- behringer 6mo agoWhich feature do you want to get rid of? If you try out an OS like fuzix you'll have a blast and you'll also wonder how to do many things since it's got about 1 percent of all the modern features.
- dioxide 6mo agoRemember desqview?
- mikestew 6mo agoJust call me Pepperidge Farms, I loved Desqview for the time. It worked well, given what they had to work with.
- mech422 6mo agoI mostly remember it from BBS's - it was _the_ way to run a multi-line BBS for a while. GEOS was pretty cool too - amazing what you can fit in 64K if use a big enough hammer :-D
- BirAdam 6mo agoWell… it was still far more simple than anything today. Whether we are looking at Concurrent CP/M-86 or at Multitasking MS-DOS 4, these were far more simple than anything OS today. Once we add many users, you start looking at things like Xenix and other early Unices. Those too, we’re more simple than anything today.
- jdw64 6mo ago[dead]
- BirAdam 6mo agoFun fact, while Trower was the manager who got Windows moving, it was Gabe Newell who served as the lead developer of Windows versions 1, 2, and 3. Win95 was the first version he wasn’t really involved with. By that time, he was working on porting Doom to Windows.
- blisscast 6mo agoHe's an awesome guy!
- nik282000 6mo agoIf you play any Valve games with commentary he prefaces them with an invitation to email him directly with comments or questions. He's said that he doesn't have time to answer every one but he tries to read them all. For a multi-yacht owning, industry driving billionaire, he does seem pretty cool.
- keepamovin 6mo agoI love this kind of lore. Thanks for enhancing
- NikolaNovak 6mo agoSorry, are we saying Valve Gabe Newell? That's blowing my mind from both timeline and area perspective.
- johnwhitman 6mo ago[dead]
- Dwedit 6mo agoNot a fan of the pre-collapsed sections of an article. I was wondering where the text was.
- clickety_clack 6mo agoSame here. We use notion at work, and I’m often sent notes with a handful of lines of fairly bland text, which I dismiss. I only sometimes later realize that there was more text hiding under those visible lines. I’m not really going to put any cognitive effort into fully concentrating on something like this to the point where I see that there is something that looks like it might be an expansion button. If I’m supposed to see it, it should be visibly on the page.
- blisscast 6mo agoI'm very sorry about that, we're testing this system as it's a brand new UI; we had left it closed not to overwhelm people, but we can leave it open by default if needed.
- airspresso 6mo agoI had the same confusion and closed the tab, only to discover here on HN that there's more. Open by default sounds reasonable.
- breakingcups 6mo agoHeya, while you're taking feedback, the link in "If you haven’t read OS/2’s side yet, you can do so by either scrolling the page up (on bigger screens), or clicking here." doesn't do anything for me when clicked. It's also not immediately obvious that the OS/2 article is in the upper-right and needs to be clicked again. Why not link to that article straightaway? :)
- blisscast 6mo agoI'll fix it immediately, thank you!
- ndiddy 6mo ago> This is a major release of Windows and, similarly to the previous one [ep 10], it is not a complete operating system, but it’s simply a graphical user shell that is meant to be run on top of MS-DOS; thus, it inherently gains its limitations, albeit the developers had time to fix some things with this release, as well as add new features such as icons on the desktop and keyboard shortcuts. This is largely untrue. When Windows is running, it's about 95% of a complete operating system. MS-DOS is only used to run DOS software and for file access. Windows takes control of the memory management, process management, video hardware, system timer, keyboard, mouse, printer, serial port, etc (basically every system resource except disk I/O) while it's running. Despite how bad early Windows looks, it's doing some very impressive technical wizardry under the hood to be able to work in real mode on the 8086 and 286. It's a lot more complex than something like Mac OS 1 or GEM, and it makes sense why it kept getting delayed over and over for years. For example, they got multiple DOS programs to run simultaneously in real mode by intercepting all the DOS API calls and patching them on the fly to avoid breaking Windows. To get multitasking to work at all in 384 KB, they had to be able to dynamically load and unload chunks of programs when necessary to deal with memory pressure, and then walk all the stacks on the system and patch out any calls/returns to the unloaded code to instead call the memory manager and make it reload the code from disk. Making this transparent to software authors required a series of complicated workarounds which Raymond Chen has written about. See here if you're interested: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20110316-00/?p=11203 https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20110316-00/?p=11... https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20120622-00/?p=7303 https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20120622-00/?p=73... https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20120629-00/?p=7253 https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20120629-00/?p=72... https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20140103-00/?p=2173 https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20140103-00/?p=21...
- dcrazy 6mo agoI would posit that Windows only became more technically sophisticated than early Mac OS with the release of Windows/386, the version of Windows 2.1 that ran multiple DOS VMs in protected mode.
- 6mo ago
- mwkaufma 6mo ago"Gui Wonderland" series header is underlined but isn't a hyperlink. Oversight, or minor nit designed to make me crazy?
- blisscast 6mo agoHello, I'm the author of this article, I checked it, and it looks fine on my end. Where is the problem exactly, and which browser are you using? Edit: I spoke to EmeraldDM8, who made the UI, and if it's what he thinks it is, it's because the series page is not done yet, and once it's ready, that will include a link to that page.
- snvzz 6mo agoThey did a dirty to RISC OS with that blurry pic at the end.
- blisscast 6mo agoThat's the only one I could find, but I'll try and emulate it to get better ones for the actual article
- snvzz 6mo agoIf you've got some Raspberry Pi (older than 5), you can run actual RISC OS[0] on these. 0. https://www.riscosopen.org/content/downloads/raspberry-pi https://www.riscosopen.org/content/downloads/raspberry-pi
- blisscast 6mo agoWould that be able to run the first release, Arthur? I have a Raspberry Pi 4, but I can source an even older one if needed
- dmitrygr 6mo ago> with the 286, you could only go back to real mode by rebooting the PC No. By resetting the processor which while slow (milliseconds) was sometimes done for this reason. Too slow for context switch but doable occasionally.