Reply to: AV on OS2

[VectraMan]

What were your reasons for wanting NT 3.5?

Proper multitasking, and not crashing all the time. Developing multimedia software on Win3.1 was often a case of having to reboot after each debug session, and Win95 wasn't a whole lot better. Things only really improved with NT. I actually ran NT3.51 with the NT4 alpha shell for a while - remember that?

[DimPrawn]

IBM still deliver OS/2 as its the OS for the zSeries HMC (although thats going over to Linux as I speak.) There is a company here in Germany who have taken over OS/2 from IBM and are still actively developing for it and there is the open source OS/2 project.

My understanding that the reason why IBM can't just make the OS/2 product Open Source, is large chunks of the code were developed by MS (and are shared with the long dead Win 3.0 code base) and MS would sue the pants off IBM if they tried it. Probably lots of MS patents in there too.

[Troll]

Who was it who originally developed OS/2? Oh yes, it was Microsoft. People tend to forget that.

I only saw OS/2 once, and I don't know why, just somebody set it up to look at. Where I worked back then us developers wanted to run NT3.5, but the company wouldn't stump up the cash for the 16Mb of RAM it needed, so everybody was stuck using Win3.1 and then Win95 on 4Mb machines. That's why Windows flourished.

OS/2 was a joint effort >v1.3 IBM & Microsoft
NT was in the early days of OS/2 (up to v2.0???)still vapourware
agree with the analysis on windows winning

What were your reasons for wanting NT 3.5?

[Churchill]

I loved developing software under OS/2. Fantastic API.

[VectraMan]

yup the germans want a non-Microsft strategic product

Who was it who originally developed OS/2? Oh yes, it was Microsoft. People tend to forget that.

I only saw OS/2 once, and I don't know why, just somebody set it up to look at. Where I worked back then us developers wanted to run NT3.5, but the company wouldn't stump up the cash for the 16Mb of RAM it needed, so everybody was stuck using Win3.1 and then Win95 on 4Mb machines. That's why Windows flourished.

[Troll]

IBM still deliver OS/2 as its the OS for the zSeries HMC (although thats going over to Linux as I speak.) There is a company here in Germany who have taken over OS/2 from IBM and are still actively developing for it and there is the open source OS/2 project.

yup the germans want a non-Microsft strategic product

[darmstadt]

IBM still deliver OS/2 as its the OS for the zSeries HMC (although thats going over to Linux as I speak.) There is a company here in Germany who have taken over OS/2 from IBM and are still actively developing for it and there is the open source OS/2 project.

[Troll]

flip OS/2 that takes me back

Lan Server was a decent product

desktop was a no no because of it's hardware requirements.. although there were many who tried

herd mentality meant that windows took over although it did provide a nice niche market for some time

[daviejones]

That's probably because they can't find anyone who knows how to move away from it

Seriously, OS/2 is effectively a not supported OS that will never be developed further - one really need to move away from it ASAP.

That is truer than you think. They run a project in 2000 to try and enable the same functionality on a Windows PC so that they could move away from it but it just ended up with the users having 2 PC's on the desk, one OS \ 2 and the other NT4...

OS \ 2 skills were virtually non existent.

[Churchill]

weren't ATM's all running OS\2 up until very recently?

IMHO Microsoft have made the Windows Operating System (at least at the back end) very stable and secure - if the admin knows what he's doing then it's one of the best OS's there is. Even as a firewall! (ISA Server)

Not all ATMs, no. Although NCR were very large customers.

OS/2 Antivirus? What are you connected to on the outside world? Couldn't you place a windows machine in the line as a firewall? Establish virtual drives on't windoze boxes and let them handle virus checking?

Churchill - In "Hursley Park ~1986" mode!

[Diver]

True: Goodnight

[DimPrawn]

Unless you're patching the kernel itself you should never need to reboot any OS, unless it has a retarded file locking scheme where an in memory process cannot be swapped out on the disk...

Like I said, IBM themselves recommend migrating to Linux and Java. The one thing they don't recommend is using OS/2. It's dead Jim.

[Cowboy Bob]

uptime for a few boxes almost 2 months now, the main reason for reboot is application of patches.

Unless you're patching the kernel itself you should never need to reboot any OS, unless it has a retarded file locking scheme where an in memory process cannot be swapped out on the disk...

[AtW]

Woolwich and Barclays still use OS/2 for some systems...although Woolwich is no more obviously.

That's probably because they can't find anyone who knows how to move away from it

Seriously, OS/2 is effectively a not supported OS that will never be developed further - one really need to move away from it ASAP.

[daviejones]

The irony I think is that the only OS that can probably run those OS/2 programs would be Windows.

I used OS/2 ages ago, in the time when Windows 3.1 was around, but nothing better - IMO, it's time is gone and your client should move away from the past into the future.

HTH

Woolwich and Barclays still use OS/2 for some systems...although Woolwich is no more obviously.