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What happen to OS/2?
- Thread starter AndreRio
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It required a lot more memory even for business class workstations (at a time when memory was still very expensive), had poor driver support for just about anything not made by IBM and frankly had a lot of IBM's anti-intutative UI features (after OS/2 died it seems like those efforts where transfered to the Lotus Notes UI). It's support for existing DOS and 16bit Windows apps was not that greatdespite IBM having all the source code to both those operating systems.
The poor support for existing hardware and software wouldn't have been too bad if that fancy 32bit protected mode multitasking could be used to bring in apps not possible in Windows and DOS, but IBM was firmly committed to killing this too. Back then you couldn't walk 3 feet at a developer tradeshow without a Microsoft rep handing you a free stack of disks with the Windows SDK and a pin or sticker proclaiming how you wanted your next application to be developed for Windows. Down at the IBM booth, assuming you could get a guy who would do more then just blow hot air at you, you could buy the OS/2 SDK for the low tradeshow price of just $300.
OS/2 began as a joint project between MS and IBM (there was for a time Microsoft OS/2, just like there was IBM DOS). At the time Microsoft sang the praises of OS/2 because it seemed like the only sure way forward - sure they could dump millions and the best talent on 16bit Windows, but because Windows was just a shell over DOS it was still possible for a guy in his garage with a good idea to make something better. This is not to say that Microsoft didn't think they had the best talent, but that the low cost of entry for making a 16bit graphical shell gave it too much of a 'luck' factor to bet the company on.
Things where not all roses with IBM of course - IBM had a sales culture controlled by guys who throught the only business worth persuing involved a golf game with the client (which is why they treated home computing with distain) and this frequently conflicted with the nerd culture at Microsoft. One of the most cited disagreements was IBM's forcing lines of code as the single measurement of performance and success.
But something happened that changed that luck based assessment of the shell market - a company called Apple, who had used some of Xerox's Star Workstation ideas about user interfaces, decided that they owned all graphical interfaces that used Xerox's icons and windows. Everyone is familar with Apple sueing Microsoft for it, but most people don't remember all the other GUI makers who didn't have the money to stand up to them and got steam rolled out of the computing business. When the dust finally settled Xerox had filed suit against Apple for stealing their ideas (the judge decided the statue of limitations had already run out), and Apple had settled in Microsoft's favor out of court to prevent a ruling against them which would have opened them up to counter suit by all the companies they had crushed.
The market had effectively been cleared of everyone but Apple, Microsoft and IBM. At this point Apple didn't have a hope because in addition to sueing all those PC companies, they had been sueing their own third party developers. At the end of the 80s they had scared off their own support and it would be 7 years before Jobs returned and got people to buy an expensive computer by making it chic. IBM still hated the home market and continued to sabotage their own efforts, treating consumers and their own programmers poorly. In 1994 IBM launched OS/2 Warp, in hopes of heading off Microsoft's upcoming Chicago OS (Windows 95). To give an idea of how well Warp went over, those who got their disks on launch day where treated to an OS that could only be installed as an upgrade to their competitors OS (the 'red' edition which would install over Windows). Existing OS/2 customers who tried upgrading got an unusable computer thanks too a buggy installer.
Meanwhile Microsoft had an open field to sell 16bit Windows. They introduced new buttons and stickers with 'I want my next computer preinstalled' which brought in a new idea for PCs - a computer you could buy from your local shop that you just had to plug, instead of reading a 300 page manual first (it would be years before installing an OS became easy enough for the average person to do without a lot of gotchas). That campaign is mostly remember for the fact that shops also got a discount if they preinstalled the OS (which was judged illegal in Microsoft's anti-trust trial) but it did help usher in a new wave in computing that really launched home computing when Windows 95 finally came out.
So what happened to OS/2? It ended up in banks and a few other big businesses where the decision makers where far removed from the actual workings of the business and could be wined and dined the way IBM liked - lots of gold plated support contracts and 'discounts' worked out over 18 holes. On the consumer market it flumped due to high hardware requirements, poor hardware support, poor developer support and a generally disinterest in the lowly worker who had to use the machine. Eventually IBM streamlined their business to focus on what they really where - a sales company - and dumped or sold all that internally developed but ultimately non-unique stuff that cost them money (IBM still does R&D into things that aren't commodity items, like the recent Watson). OS/2 was replaced with Linux and the hardware division was sold to Lenovo (it has recently come to light that it was sold to Lenovo in part to gain favor with the Chinese goverment for future sales).
The poor support for existing hardware and software wouldn't have been too bad if that fancy 32bit protected mode multitasking could be used to bring in apps not possible in Windows and DOS, but IBM was firmly committed to killing this too. Back then you couldn't walk 3 feet at a developer tradeshow without a Microsoft rep handing you a free stack of disks with the Windows SDK and a pin or sticker proclaiming how you wanted your next application to be developed for Windows. Down at the IBM booth, assuming you could get a guy who would do more then just blow hot air at you, you could buy the OS/2 SDK for the low tradeshow price of just $300.
OS/2 began as a joint project between MS and IBM (there was for a time Microsoft OS/2, just like there was IBM DOS). At the time Microsoft sang the praises of OS/2 because it seemed like the only sure way forward - sure they could dump millions and the best talent on 16bit Windows, but because Windows was just a shell over DOS it was still possible for a guy in his garage with a good idea to make something better. This is not to say that Microsoft didn't think they had the best talent, but that the low cost of entry for making a 16bit graphical shell gave it too much of a 'luck' factor to bet the company on.
Things where not all roses with IBM of course - IBM had a sales culture controlled by guys who throught the only business worth persuing involved a golf game with the client (which is why they treated home computing with distain) and this frequently conflicted with the nerd culture at Microsoft. One of the most cited disagreements was IBM's forcing lines of code as the single measurement of performance and success.
But something happened that changed that luck based assessment of the shell market - a company called Apple, who had used some of Xerox's Star Workstation ideas about user interfaces, decided that they owned all graphical interfaces that used Xerox's icons and windows. Everyone is familar with Apple sueing Microsoft for it, but most people don't remember all the other GUI makers who didn't have the money to stand up to them and got steam rolled out of the computing business. When the dust finally settled Xerox had filed suit against Apple for stealing their ideas (the judge decided the statue of limitations had already run out), and Apple had settled in Microsoft's favor out of court to prevent a ruling against them which would have opened them up to counter suit by all the companies they had crushed.
The market had effectively been cleared of everyone but Apple, Microsoft and IBM. At this point Apple didn't have a hope because in addition to sueing all those PC companies, they had been sueing their own third party developers. At the end of the 80s they had scared off their own support and it would be 7 years before Jobs returned and got people to buy an expensive computer by making it chic. IBM still hated the home market and continued to sabotage their own efforts, treating consumers and their own programmers poorly. In 1994 IBM launched OS/2 Warp, in hopes of heading off Microsoft's upcoming Chicago OS (Windows 95). To give an idea of how well Warp went over, those who got their disks on launch day where treated to an OS that could only be installed as an upgrade to their competitors OS (the 'red' edition which would install over Windows). Existing OS/2 customers who tried upgrading got an unusable computer thanks too a buggy installer.
Meanwhile Microsoft had an open field to sell 16bit Windows. They introduced new buttons and stickers with 'I want my next computer preinstalled' which brought in a new idea for PCs - a computer you could buy from your local shop that you just had to plug, instead of reading a 300 page manual first (it would be years before installing an OS became easy enough for the average person to do without a lot of gotchas). That campaign is mostly remember for the fact that shops also got a discount if they preinstalled the OS (which was judged illegal in Microsoft's anti-trust trial) but it did help usher in a new wave in computing that really launched home computing when Windows 95 finally came out.
So what happened to OS/2? It ended up in banks and a few other big businesses where the decision makers where far removed from the actual workings of the business and could be wined and dined the way IBM liked - lots of gold plated support contracts and 'discounts' worked out over 18 holes. On the consumer market it flumped due to high hardware requirements, poor hardware support, poor developer support and a generally disinterest in the lowly worker who had to use the machine. Eventually IBM streamlined their business to focus on what they really where - a sales company - and dumped or sold all that internally developed but ultimately non-unique stuff that cost them money (IBM still does R&D into things that aren't commodity items, like the recent Watson). OS/2 was replaced with Linux and the hardware division was sold to Lenovo (it has recently come to light that it was sold to Lenovo in part to gain favor with the Chinese goverment for future sales).
David, Are you an "insider" to some of these issues? I've been in that business area for a long time, and a lot of what you say rings true, even though some of this material is new to me.
Don't forget that the original IBM PC was a bit of a "skunkworks" development, and even after the layoffs in the early 90s, IBM was still a company with lots of "holdover" people who grew up with the "complete account control" mentality developed during the era of mainframe supremacy.
I remember installing OS/2 once from floppies, about 15 of them. It was painful. I did this for a guy who was pretty clueless, but he was my boss's boss and a complete tyrant and a--hole, so I had to do it or I might have lost my job.
Whatever else you might say about Bill Gates, he was adaptable. And let's not forget that the launch of Win 95 was a major consumer event. Did IBM ever do anything like that with OS/2? If they did, I don't remember.
As someone who had worked at Xerox, we were all pretty steamed that Xerox was pretty passive initially when Apple launched the first Macintosh. The Xerox lawyers had the backbone of jellyfish.
Guys like Quarterdeck and Digital Research (GEM)?
IBM still manufactures mainframes and makes a lot of money doing so. They got rid of the PC and disk drive divisions because those businesses had low margins.
GushpinBob
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Isn't this how Windows NT came about? IIRC, it was planned to be the successor to OS/2 1.3 and initially the Windows name wasn't even considered for the NT line. It was just known as "NT OS/2" (the letters NT meaning that it was going to be released on Intel's then-upcoming i860 architecture, under the codename "N-Ten").
Also, didn't Windows 3.x borrow a lot of the GUI elements from OS/2?
IBM was requiring everyone it talked to to sign NDAs before they would even tell them what they were there to talk about prior to doing anything realted to the IBM personal PC.
They showed up to talk to Bill Gates, he signed the NDA they required with asking any questions, and sold IBM a BASIC compiler. Microsoft didn't have an OS at that time.
In what may be one of the biggest business ironies of all time, IBM asked Bill Gates who it should talk to about finding an OS. Bill Gates sent IBM to Digital Research to buy an operating system.
Digital Research was privately held by married co-owners. The male half of the couple was out of town at the time Bill sent the IBM guys to digital Research, and the wife refused to talk to IBM without finding out more information about what they wanted to talk about before she would sign an NDA.
IBM went back to Bill Gates. He told them to give him a week and he'd give them another source. He went to a buddy of his who he knew was bulding a clean room reverse engineered API copy of CPM, bought it from him for $50,000, went on a coding spree with a couple of buddies, and ended up selling the results, MS-DOS 1.0, to IBM as their new operating system. That is how Microsoft started changing from a software company that wrote nothing but compilers into the behemoth it has become today.
For info on how a lot of this happened, there was a great mini-series on PBS that came out in June of 1996 going into all the details of Xerox Park and all the relationsships and accidents that guided computing for the first 20 or so years, Triumph of the Nerds. At the time Steve jobs was still out Apple at Next and he was a bitter, bitter man about the success of Microsoft when he was interviewed. http://www.pbs.org/nerds/
OS 2 1.3 was strictly command line. OS/2 2.0 was the first OS/2 variant that had a GUI.
Windows had a GUI interface long before it was grafted onto OS/2. OS/2 2.0 was really solid, but its graphical interface didn't make any sense to me as an end user. Minimized applications went into an icon that you had to open to see a window of minimized icons. Made no sense at all to me.
At the time, I could sit in front of either a Mac or a Windows box, and the visual metaphors made sense without a manual.
As things were going to head into the next OS, Microsoft and IBM programmers clashed over how the interface and subsystems should be developed, so the business side OS split into two projects. Windows NT and OS/2 Warp, with Windows 95 becoming the stop gap that MS saw was needed on the consumer side to tide things over from a compatibility standpoint until enough backwards compatilbility could be grafted on to Windows NT to make it consumer acceptable while not affecting the reliability of the OS itself.
I remember installing a copy of the Windows NT 3.1 beta from 8 floppies onto the same machine I had main Windows 3.11 running, and only needing to hack apart one inf file to get my sound card working.
Between what I had seen out of IBM OS/2 2.0, which in no way would i be able to get running on hardware i could afford at the time, and what I saw in Windows NT 3.1 even at the BETA stage. I knew IBM would be out of the OS business on the PC in very short order.
Oh, the arguments we got into on FIDONet BBS member servers between the OS/2 zealots and the Windows NT zealots about WIN16 apps and which implementation would end up with superior performance characteristics. The OS/2 approach which was bacscially a completely separate copy of windows 3.1 running for each app, or Windows NT and the WOW (Windows on Windows) approach which used a single shared core of libraries providing replacement functionality for all WIN16 apps from a common provider. the good old days.
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They had Captain Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) and Star Trek references. Microsoft had Leno and anyone who was alive then remembers just how big the Windows 95 launch was - and that's the thing, everyone remembers. People who where not involved with computers at all where telling me they where going to line up on launch day to be one of the first to get a copy.
For all the smart ideas, dirty tricks and lucky breaks handed to them by incompetent rivals it was the Gates idea that computers would one day be like TVs and dishwashers, a "computer on every desk and in every home" that helped Microsoft become dominant. IBM pointed the OS/2 Warp launch at the people who in their mind where interested in computers, nerds. Microsoft pointed Windows 95 at everybody and changed how the world understood computers.
You are either a young thing or a hermit if this does not bring back memories and make you smile:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VPFKnBYOSI
GushpinBob
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Are you sure about that?
But that sounds exactly how the MS-DOS Executive from Windows 2.x and Program Manager from Windows 3.x worked. Or were you refering to Windows 95?
heatlesssun
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Windows happened to OS/2.
SuperSubZero
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I attended the OS/2 3.0 launch event in New York City in the mid-90's. The "guest speaker" was to be Patrick Stewart so people were really pumped up. However, at the last moment they had Kate Mulgrew (Captain Janeway from Voyager) come out instead. They said it was "a new OS so they wanted a new spokesperson".. At this point I don't think Voyager had even aired yet so this was pretty weird and it was a letdown. I think I still have the watch they gave me.
Prior to this they had a whole segment on the Joan Rivers show with OS/2 2.1 and they managed to crash it. On live television. Oh the OS's of the 90's were so cute.
Stone Cold
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OS/2 wasn't Windows. Everything else is irrelevant.
Microsoft has carried people from DOS to 7 smoothly because of strong backwards compatibility each step of the way, which OS/2 couldn't do so well. Also, this was at a time when MS was a very abusive monopolist. Companies that sold OS/2 were often forced to also buy Windows for each OS/2 machine sold, making OS/2 uneconomical.
Microsoft has carried people from DOS to 7 smoothly because of strong backwards compatibility each step of the way, which OS/2 couldn't do so well. Also, this was at a time when MS was a very abusive monopolist. Companies that sold OS/2 were often forced to also buy Windows for each OS/2 machine sold, making OS/2 uneconomical.
Are you sure about that?
But that sounds exactly how the MS-DOS Executive from Windows 2.x and Program Manager from Windows 3.x worked. Or were you refering to Windows 95?
Sorry, I was thinking OS/2 1.0, not 1.3. I never actually saw a machine with OS 1.3 installed. OS/2 got a GUI and GUI API with version 1.1.
As to the Windows 95 minimization versus Windows 3.x, I'm not confusing that. When you minimized an application in windows 3.x, each app went to its own icon that was visible on the desktop space directly. By default, this was to the bottom left of the desktop.
http://www.guidebookgallery.org/screenshots/win30
See the "Desktop with applications" screenshot. All minimized and some running programs had a separate icon directly on the desktop to take you directly to the app when clicked if the program that currently had focus wasn't running full screen.
In OS/2 2.0, it was minimized into another icon on the desktop (no animation involved to give a clue where it went). The "Minimized Windows Viewer" application.
http://www.guidebookgallery.org/screenshots/os221
See the screenshot in the "Empty Desktop section" for the icon version. The "running applications" section of that page to see the minimized applications.
I just remember it took me several minutes to find it the first time after i read about it in the online help because the admins had the drive lisitng app start up on logon, and the icon was always under that when logon completed. You double-clicked that icon, then got a window with all the icons for the applications that you had running, but were running minimized. Then you double-clicked the minimized application's icon in that window, which then brought up its window and made it the active application. Think a separate app that acted like Windows 3.x Program Manager, but all it held was the icons for other minimized running programs, instead of all the programs you could run. There was an application like Windows 3.x Program Manager that you used to launch the program orginally.
Drove me nuts to take two extra steps the first time I wanted to restore an application I minimized, because you couldn't default the app with the role of holding other minimized apps to be in windowed mode at logon, you had to go double-click it so you could see your minimized apps every time you logged on. Drove me nuts!
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I don't know how true this is; but back in the late nineties, I spoke with a retired IBM worker and asked him the same question. He told me that IBM wouldn't push OS/2 because to do so and push Microsoft's Windows out of the market (supposedly they could have made OS/2 compatible with DOS, Windows 3.x and of course all OS/2 programs before Win95 could get a foothold in the market) would again violate the same antitrust laws that they had previously been taken to court over when they had too great a market share with their hardware and software systems in the sixties. A second violation and they were to be broken up ( like AT&T was). In contrast, while Microsoft wound up with a huge market share of software in the late nineties, they had no hardware market to speak of.
YeuEmMaiMai
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OS2 was never going to be able to do what Windows 95 did and that was unify the Work and Home computer....This is the one and only reason that MS is where it is today.....
And now they think the money is in services. And this time they're right. They've successfully offloaded Lenovo in full, and only maintain the heavy iron hardware, that is only there because of the software specialization that it runs with.
Truly IBM today doesn't look like IBM of cash register days, but it certainly is a company that transitioned itself like you never would have expected. A company that big, with that much history, and that much...prestige, really did a 720 degree spin and came out looking better than ever.
Just a tad biased and not what I remember at all. I was a poor student in the early 1990's. I had a no name clone, with typical memory and it ran OS/2 just fine. All the Windows programs I had worked fine.
The UI was light-years ahead of the horribly bad Windows 3, UI. The superior UI was one of the main reasons I used OS/2.
It was a lot worse than a discount for pre-installing. It was borderline exclusionary deal. Shops had to pay for a Windows license on every machine they sold, even if the machine didn't have Windows. If you want OS/2 or just DOS, or any other OS, and not MS Windows, you effectively had to pay for MS Windows and your OS of choice. It helped strangle any alternative before it had a chance to start. No wonder it was considered illegal.
Things like the above, better marketing, and ultimately Win95/WInNT killed OS/2.
I switched away from OS/2 to Win95, when it was released. Underpinnings were still kind of rickety, but UI was better than OS/2, and win32 API brought 32 bit programming.
Maybe 95 + the web... the web made getting support and software drivers/patches a lot easier.
Also Win 3.11 introduced "enhancements" that wouldn't allow OS/2 to dual install/boot easily. I never had a problem with any hardware using OS/2. Drivers were available through BBSes - though, sometimes you had to call an esoteric IBM support line halfway across the globe to find out where to get them.
Redbeard80
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I worked at General Electric from 2001-2007 and they still used a ton of OS/2 client machines.
Also OS/2 was a very popular OS for Diebold (and other) ATMs.
It was a good OS that lasted for a long time.
Also OS/2 was a very popular OS for Diebold (and other) ATMs.
It was a good OS that lasted for a long time.