Die Windows! Die!

Couldn’t agree more. As an aside I throw another GUI out there that should have made it but really didn’t. GEM. It too was a very fast GUI/OS based on CP/M. There are variants still available for download. Though the application layer is sort of thin…

i’m a GNU/Linux user now and i’m loath to offer any advice that may help microsoft but they really should focus more on security. that’s a big factor why i use linux.
ballmer’s developer, developer, developer, strategy may have been good but at what price? security? i think so. i think they should ship with admin priveleges disabled. security, security, security, should be ballmer’s next move. but please don’t tell him that. i prefer to watch him suffer and die a slow painful death.
it also wouldn’t hurt to stop squeezing nickels and dimes out of everyone.

Hello,

IBM sold OS/2 to eComStation, who continues to sell and update the operating system.

Have you considered switching to a non-Microsoft, non-Linux, non-Apple operating system for a few weeks to a month or so to get an idea of what else is out there besides the “big three?” There are plenty of other operating systems out there, such as AROS, Haiku, MenuetOS, QNX, SkyOS, Solaris, Syllable, Whitix and so forth. Perhaps one of these will be a better fit for you than Microsoft Windows.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

If all you people that repeatedly bad mouth MS put your efforts into making something better maybe you would be happy. MS works fine for me and millions of other.

Aryeh, I have been thinking about FreeBSD again. I used it for awhile, but I doubt I’ll ever completely remove a version of Windows from my home network, simply because I make money working on computers with Windows on them. Also thinking of Solaris. I know about eCom, but was under the impression that the driver support is very, very limited. I would love to use the Workplace Shell again - there was nothing like it!

Thanks for the comment.

wm, you remind me of those who don’t like anyone who has the temerity to criticize America, with the ‘Love it or leave it” schtick - one can criticize in hopes that someone/something will become better after having things less than completely evident pointed out.

That is my reasoning. If you’ve read me at all before, you could see that there are those working at that company who stop by here. One can only hope something gets through.

[...] Die Windows! Die!  lockergnome.com) [...]

Finally! Someone who gives credit where credit is due. OS/2 was the first OS that I became adept at. I was an IBM employee from 1978-1994.

The things that I remember that still exist now in Windows is amazing.

I agree that IBM shot itself in the foot when they announced that they would only pursue the Server Market and not PC Market in the early 90s, this became OS/2’s stand.

At the time IBM preferred to stay in the Main Frame Business. This was another decision (like not filing for a Patent for the PC) where they just made the wrong decision.

Forget IBM. The Commodore Amiga was a powerhouse in its days. Apple was too expensive, IBM compatibles were too limited. And too expensive. The Amiga had an 8 core (yes eight) processor, hardware accelerated 2D graphics over multiple simultaneous desktops with 60Hz splitting of different resolutions, an OS that booted within seconds and no processes where able to take over the entire machine. Well, most of the time, the Amiga had a few bugs. Then again these were different times and there were no such things as patches, updates and new firmware. You got upgraded by buying the next generation machine.

The only thing that sucked on the Amiga was the embedded BASIC, made by -yes!- Microsoft. If you made a typo a bleeping popup box was shown which could only be clicked away with the mouse. I guess the engineer who invented this still works at MS. I just don’t understand why this man is embedding annoying things in the products of his employer. Maybe he hates his boss. Never mind, thank God someone wrote a powerful substitute AMOS, which should have been included in the package. Object oriented programming with many commands and features, a compiler to make ‘executables’. Did you know that the OS didn’t rely on extensions in order to chose the right application to open it? Files just had names. The OS attached the proper icon to it if the icon was not customized.

Commodore made fine machines but also made some terrible mistakes. In the later days all efforts went into an Amiga without a keyboard, the CD32, a gaming and entertainment console like the Philips CDTV. Too expensive, too few titles, no freeware (then called shareware) and it was too limited compared to a real computer. Marketing by Commodore was also terrible. Instead of conquering the desktop market with universal compatible superior machines (there was already plenty of hardware and software to do so available) Commodore aimed its arrows on… I don’t know. I guess there was lack of vision. So we ended up with Microsoft and IBM compatibles.

“I want the computer to be so fast it scares me, a little, wondering if some entire level of processes has been left out, because the completion was so quick.

OS/2 on a 486 DX-2/66 gave that to me with 16 MB of memory”

I’ve run OS/2 on much better hardware. I still wasn’t impressed. Trying to get it installed on hardware with more than 2 gigabytes was a bit of a challenge, but I got it done. IBM never thought to make that variable unsigned instead of signed for how much memory you had. Having to round up drivers to get it running when an install of Windows just worked. The 256 color palette for programs that just look like crap. Support problems with some complex systems that would require a flush of the database cache on the workstation, some simple problems that would require booting, just like a BSOD, the computer just hadn’t given up yet to let you know you were screwed.

And IBM giving up on OS/2 and giving it to eComStation . Who the hell is that? I know way too many IT managers who switched to Windows because of that. Because OS/2 was no longer viable. Mac OS, Linux, Unix, QNX, BSD, they all are long in the tooth according to your analysis as well.

Considering the improvements not just in processor power, but video and disk in that 25 years, I think you’re being melancholic.

We don’t have optimized software for ANYTHING because the hardware keeps being a moving target. It’d be great to have an OS, any OS, that would be optimized for a four core system. Ain’t going to happen because the next hot thing is going to be 8 and 16 and 32 cores. And what’s going to work for a 4 core machine won’t work in the 32 core because of differences in the hardware.

@
Bryan Price
February 15th, 2009
at 2:56pm
Load balancing and cloud computing is what we already see on the net. It works indifferent from how many ‘cores’ are involved.

[...] at Chris Pirillo’s Web site (he is a Microsoft MVP), more dissent can be seen in the form of Vista 7 bashing. Well, even some of Microsoft’s fans have already expressed dissatisfaction/disappointments, [...]

Ball Gites, if you read the article of Dvorak’s, he speaks about his fondness for the Amiga.

I never had the chance to use one, a C64 was as close as I got.

Bryan Price. perhaps your experiences would have been different on more standard hardware. Nonetheless, the Workplace Shell did things no other shell has ever done, or now does.

As for your comparisons with other OS’s, none of them are recycling older features and trying to sell it as innovation.

Other things you simply are wrong about - I never ran OS/2 at 8 bit color, however, at the same time, most Windows users were.

As for your other comments, I think you don’t remember things as they were. Before Windows 2000, it sucked compared to the same-timeframe version of OS/2.

Bryan:

I ran OS/2 Warp and Merlin on a 486DX4-100 with 16MB of RAM and an ATi Mach64 (those were the days!). I had 16bit colour space. My Mach 32 (which I ran in 8514/A mode) did have 8 bit colour space. My only question is, “what video card did you use?”

And at that time, 2GB was a stupendous amount of RAM, so I’m not surprised that it was “difficult”. I was in college at that time and even 64MB was a “wow, that’s a lot of RAM” thing for us (electronics students).

[...] Die Windows! Die!  lockergnome.com) [...]

@bill gites: The stupid network computer still has to prove itself, it’s been a couple of decades so far, and while it looks like netbooks may actually make the cut, I don’t see anybody calling that to be the be all end point for everybody’s computing needs. We still have desktop computers, with only now being last year where laptops outsold desktops, and that’s a prediction that’s been waiting a few years to actually happen.

@the oracle: I didn’t run my video cards at 8 bits either. The minimum was 16 bits of color. And it still looked bad. It looked the same, always. The Windows running computers always looked better. Some people managed to get rather obnoxious colors of pastel running.

And I had my regular workstation in front of me. It didn’t work much different or faster than the Windows workstation I had before it, and those two were comparable in memory and CPU. They did what I expected them to do, manage my networks and run the usual office tasks of email and wordprocessing.

And I’ve been running OS/2 probably longer than you have. Look up 3Com 3+Open some time.

And I don’t think that you remember that Windows NT was made on the same codebase as OS/2 at the time.

@Donovan: I ran 16 bit at least at the time. I think we even ran some workstations at 24 bit because they were stations using our Imaging system that used 19 inch monitors to bring up all of our documents (internal and external). Everything was handled electronically, and ran beautifully. It should. There was the application server, the database server and the Magnetic-Optical storage server, which was a jukebox that held all the cartridges for the data, which was designed to hold seven years, and was heading to 15 years with a hardware modification and new cartridges. I got the Application server upgraded to 4 gigs and Warp Server. A lot more than what IBM got done with the database server, probably due to the issues with over 2 gigs (which they solved by taking out the last two!). Funny I go my server working without that problem, and it could definitely have used the memory at the time.

So yeah the hardware on some of the machines was bit extreme, but pretty tame today, with some cards running what? 1 gig to 2 gigs just for video memory?

I still run OS/2 today on a PII 350Mhz 768MB. I still like using it, after all these years. I’ve started with the 2.11 Gold beta CD (November or December 1992, I think ?), and, have not looked back since. Luckily, I have all OS/2 apps. Mulithreading. WPS. REXX.
I can throw everything I have at the OS/2 machine, and, it just works, just like it did the day I set it up.
I also have windoze XP with P4 3GHz 2GB. No prizes for guessing which one can do more faster.
OS/2, logic, not magic.

OS/2 in the form of eComStation *ROCKS BETTER THAN EVER* - My low powered EeeePC 701 4G Netbook flies with eComStation 2.0 on it - performs far better that with Linux or Windows XP.
So for what is the latest form of PC, the Netbook, the almost 20 year old OS/2 is the best option (IMHO). It’s fully backwards compatible - all application that have been written for it in all versions of the OS, still work on the latest version, there NO VIRUSES, but the best thing about the OS is it’s “Workplace Shell” GUI interface - this linked to an Object based (note based, not orientated) Operating System is still simply awesome!

voytek, Someonekindai, thanks for the comments. I wasn’t sure it was still in use by non-point-of-sale operations anymore.

Did you know that you can even run OS/2 Warp or Windows 3.1 on a modern Mac today with Parallels Desktop?

Windows On Mac, yes, but thanks, as I’m sure that’s new information for some.

@All_OS/2_and_eCS_Entusiasts
OS/2 was a wonderfull Operating System at 1992 to 1994…the first 32 Bit Operating System for x86-PC. But it lost the OS-War against Microsoft. IBM withdraw OS/2 from the Consumer-Market. OS/2 Warp 4 was not even a nice try against Windows NT 4.0. Today OS/2 is dead, not because no one is using it any more, but because the sources are closed and the melting number of Team OS/2 Users which don´t want to give it up, don´t have a chance to modify the kernel.
eComStation has a ever growing need in drivers for current hardware. eCS is on the same technical level than OS/2 Warp 4.52 was (because it is the same OS).
You even have to pay money if you want to use OpenOffice under eCS.
eCS is nice if you are a die-hard OS/2 Zelot who wants to use his old DOS, Win3.1 and OS/2 Apps for a little bit longer.
If you are locking for a “REAL” state-of-the-art Operating System take Linux, MacOS X or even Vista.

That’s why I use a Mac!