Introducing IBM OS/2

"What are you talking about?" or "Are you talking about Star Trak" with a puzzled look is all I get nowadays, when I mention OS/2 WARP. Even though not so long ago it was a very populare operating system. OS/2 was in the early 1990s with a 32bit, stable, secure, multi-tasking, multi-threading GUI OS there, where MS Windows still can dream of. With OS/s you get an easy to use FDISK and Boot Manager and a Windows look-a-like GUI. You can run OS/2 applications written for all versions, DOS application and you even can run win16 software under WIN-OS/2 (even more stable then under native Windows 3.*). To be hornest I don't quite like OS/2 as a client workstation. I rather prefer the Server version. It is very fast, secure and easy to use. And as a file server you don't care if you get applications for your system. That's the biggest drawback of OS/2, you just don't get software. IBM and IBM owned Lotus are the biggest OS/2 software manufacturers and there is not much more. So you still don't know this OS/2? It may be because it is almost dead not quite but the hole is dug, the kofin is made the only thing to do is to fill up the hole.

Histoty

When IBM first started to make IBM compatible (Intel) PCs it had to think what operating system they could use. Microsoft (newly formed by the ex IBMer Bill Gates) offered to supply MS-DOS for the systems. IBM was happy enough with it. However they also gave Gates the offer to make a GUI operating system. MS and IBM together started developing OS/2 and was available in the late 1980s with version 1.0, a Command line based OS. From the version 1.3 it got a GUI (you will not believe it but it looked more like Windows 3.1 then anything else) and was 32bit. After that IBM and Microsoft split up and IBM released (this time without MS) version 2.0 with new looks. Because OS/2 was loosing ground and Windows 3.1 was taking that OS/2 2.1 got a new application called WIN-OS/2. Oh, yes you could run a lot more applications now but it did not save OS/2. In 1993 IBM released OS/2 WARP with a lot more features but a facelift came only in 1996 with WARP 4 (codename MERLIN).

Future

There is not much future for OS/2. As I said already it is almost dead. Only Banks, Insurace Companies and IBM itself are using OS/2 and even the biggest users like Deutsche Bank are about to migrate slowly everything to Windows NT. Neverthless IBM is just about to release AURORA, OS/2 WARP Server for eBusiness. It is only a question of time and OS/2 will be gone forever. Other operatin systems are going to take over. Just think about Windows NT (or 2000) and Linux.

HOWTOs
OS/2 FDISK and Boot Manager	In my oppinion the best FDISK and Boot Manager in the Software market
Large HDD not recognised right	trouble in FDISK if IDE HDD is bigger then 4,3 GB
Small HDD not recognised right	trouble in FDISK if IDE HDD is smaller then 4,3 GB
SCO Dual-Boot	Dual-Boot OS/2 and SCO Unix as the OS/2 Boot Manager can not access a Sco Unix partition