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Exactly. OS/2 was compatible only in the sense that with a vastly more expensive computer you could run windows, dos and os/2 apps. There were lots of DOS apps
by waps 13y ago
Exactly. OS/2 was compatible only in the sense that with a vastly more expensive computer you could run windows, dos and os/2 apps.
There were lots of DOS apps. A few windows apps. And no OS/2 apps.
Windows always had compatibility AND reasonable system demands. On a windows 3.0 supporting machine you could not run OS/2. On a windows 3.1 machine you could -badly- run OS/2, but not OS/2 2.0. And on a windows 95 supporting machine you could maybe run OS/2 2.1.
OS/2 is an example of why design by committee loses out to a technical person really controlling the development of an application. OS/2's code, I'm betting, is far more flexible than the windows code, and has support for all sorts of weird features that no-one but academics care about, and massively increase demands on hardware. They also constantly require rewrites to actually make use of these features.
OS/2's failure had nothing to do with application support. If anything that was one of OS/2's redeeming features.
I like to think that the first thing you should do to make something succeed is to make it possible for said thing to succeed. OS/2 did not make it possible for itself to succeed, because nobody could run it. Somebody should have stopped the software architects and forced them to change until that happened. Nobody did.
The academic community was really proud. They even pushed it into the huge IT environments, like banks. No-one ran OS/2 for fun, because that was a $5k proposition. Running a windows 95 was a $500 proposition, that also got you access to duke nukem 3d and loads of other games.
- yuhong 13y agoVastly more expensive? I think it run well on a 386 with 8MB of RAM, and if you got rid of the Workplace Shell as the original MS OS/2 2.0 SDK betas from 1990 did, it would run well in 4MB.
- waps 13y agoIf we're going to quote official hardware requirements, then I'd say that Windows 3.0, the version that imho is comparable to OS/2 2.0) ran on a 286 with 384 kb of ram. Windows 3.1 ran on a 286 with 1 megabyte of ram. Both ran well enough to run wordperfect on a 286 with 1 meg of ram. OS/2 wouldn't even boot under 4 megabytes of ram, or with a 286 processor. So yes, vastly more expensive hardware requirements is certainly a valid criticism. In 1992 nobody had 386 machines. Some even say IBM purposefully designed it like that, to sell more machines. But if they did indeed intend that, why not release the OS for free ?
- yuhong 13y ago>In 1992 nobody had 386 machines. In 1992? I think this was after for example the infamous AMD 386DX-40 was released. Granted there probably still were a lot of 286s out there back then of course, which is one of the reasons why I never suggested abandoning DOS/Win3.x immediately. Of course, as mentioned before this would cause some pain for application developers, but this would last only a few years, and even PX00307 mentioned "Porthole" (aka WLO).
- dragonwriter 13y ago> In 1992 nobody had 386 machines. By 1992, 386 machines were common, and new machines for serious work were generally 486s.