In the interest of not having my head explode, I'm going to do a few posts on something other than school finance reform. I'm sure I'll be back to the sausage grinder later on.
Via Dwight, I see that IBM is officially discontinuing OS/2, which (to join in on the snarkery) is kind of like your local music shop announcing that it will no longer sell eight-track tapes. (*)
I supported OS/2 servers in a past life. It was on a token-ring network with DOS LAN Requestor. Those were the days, let me tell you. In retrospect, I wish someone other than IBM had been OS/2's daddy. It coulda been a contender, if only it had been given a chance. Esther Schindler's remembrances give you an idea of what might have been. Alas.
(*) - I was going to say that it was like the Cincinnati Zoo announcing that they were closing down their passenger pigeon exhibit, but the zoo folks are way more dedicated than Big Blue ever was.
Posted by Charles Kuffner on July 19, 2005 to Technology, science, and math | TrackBackAlthough I've never had a chance to use OS/2, all of the people that ever supported or ran it raved about the system.
With that in mind, I am proposing the following poll. Pick the analogy that best applies to OS/2:
1. OS/2 is to operating systems as Beta is to VCRs.
2. OS/2 is to operating systems as floppy disks are to computers.
3. OS/2 is to operating systems as Pepsi Clear is to soft drinks.
Anybody remember the OS/2 Fiesta Bowl in the early 90s? That fact right there probably should tell us everything we need to know about that operating system.
Posted by: Double B on July 19, 2005 12:52 PMOS/2 is to Windows whan Beta was to VHS. Superior technology, but outmarketed by vendors of inferior technology.
Before we became a Mac household in 1996, I ran OS/2. Much better than Windows. Much more stable. Much less able to let one rogue app bring down the machine and force a hard reboot through the reset button or the Big Red Switch.
IBM never really seemed to care enough about it to market it. And when it was developing OS/2 "with" Microsoft, they may not have known Redmond was already planning Windows 3.0 to kill it.
On the plus side, I just sold an old shrink-wrapped copy of OS/2 4.0 on eBay for $102. That's considerably more than I paid for it.