The end of OS/2 EDIT: maybe I was mistaken.

[Willoughbyva]

Slashdot has a blurb on their page saying that OS/2 is going away. I haven't used it in years, but I did get a little kick out of it. It was different than MS stuff even though it did contain win 3.1 equivilant stuff.

Anyway, just thought I'd say something about an alternative operating system that I had actually used and kind of liked.

EDIT: I was watching Techtv today and they said that IBM is still going to sell (through the internet download or something) and support OS/2. It just won't be packaged and sold like it used to be. I couldn't find anything about it on IBM's site.

 

[GonzoDaGr8]

OS/2 is going away

He He..I thought that it was allready gone.. I still have to use it on a daily basis on one of our machines at work and can't stand it. Once newer program software is found.."Poof" no more O/S2

 

[tigerwannabe]

i don't think ibm even markets os/2 anymore. might be interesting to do a search on ibm's website & see what turns up. i do know a guy who does i/s work for a bank & he says that os/2 is commonly used in atm machines.

 

[2canSAM]

Yeah banks seem to have a thing with OS/2. I manage a team of Field Techs that service on of the southeast' largest banks and I would say that still 35% of thier footprint is OS/2. I hate dealing with it really.

 

[ProviaFan]

I always wanted to try OS/2 back when I had my IBM PS/1. Recently I thought I'd try and "find" it just to play with in VMWare, but couldn't find anything.

 

[LordRaiden]

From what I've heard about, OS2 may have an antiquated frontend, but the backend, the stuff that really counts, is WELL ahead of its time. Especially the file system. Someone on one of my mailing lists mentioned that there's a drive to open source OS2 and bring it's frontend current and integrate much of what OS2 did right into many current and future linux distros. If this is true, the end result should be awesome.

 

[ProviaFan]

Originally posted by: LordRaiden
From what I've heard about, OS2 may have an antiquated frontend, but the backend, the stuff that really counts, is WELL ahead of its time. Especially the file system. Someone on one of my mailing lists mentioned that there's a drive to open source OS2 and bring it's frontend current and integrate much of what OS2 did right into many current and future linux distros. If this is true, the end result should be awesome.

Sounds cool.

 

[Pauli]

Originally posted by: tigerwannabe
i don't think ibm even markets os/2 anymore. might be interesting to do a search on ibm's website & see what turns up. i do know a guy who does i/s work for a bank & he says that os/2 is commonly used in atm machines.

Yes this is true. I actually develop software for ATMs for a large US Bank, but we have an NT 4.0-based platform and have been using NT since 3.51 first came out. We develop our own applications, but most of the "off-the-shelf" standard ATM applications run on OS/2. Its funny this topic came up right now, because Microsoft is jumping at banks right now after IBMs announcement. They have a representative stopping by tomorrow for a presentation -- I don't know why, we already are a Microsoft shop!

 

[JetsFanatic]

Originally posted by: jliechty

Originally posted by: LordRaiden
From what I've heard about, OS2 may have an antiquated frontend, but the backend, the stuff that really counts, is WELL ahead of its time. Especially the file system. Someone on one of my mailing lists mentioned that there's a drive to open source OS2 and bring it's frontend current and integrate much of what OS2 did right into many current and future linux distros. If this is true, the end result should be awesome.

Sounds cool.

That would be GREAT!!!!

 

[Willoughbyva]

I heard about the OS/2 fans trying to get IBM to open up the code. I don't know how much of it they would actually be able to open up because I think Microsoft has their hands in some of the code. Plus I think that IBM is looking to go futher into linux because there is so much more support, programmers, and other people working with it. Still I think that some of that OS/2 code is in things like point of sale devices (cash registers) and other type devices that IBM makes. Maybe they are going with linux with that too now? Anyway if IBM did open it up I am sure that the people who are still working with it would find some useful purposes for it.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: Willoughbyva
I heard about the OS/2 fans trying to get IBM to open up the code. I don't know how much of it they would actually be able to open up because I think Microsoft has their hands in some of the code. Plus I think that IBM is looking to go futher into linux because there is so much more support, programmers, and other people working with it. Still I think that some of that OS/2 code is in things like point of sale devices (cash registers) and other type devices that IBM makes. Maybe they are going with linux with that too now? Anyway if IBM did open it up I am sure that the people who are still working with it would find some useful purposes for it.

JFS, the file system of OS2 (also the name of the filesystem for AIX which is bigger and more basass as I understand it) is already open sourced. IBM, like Sun, has been playing by some of the Free Software rules, hopefully they arent pulling the same BS Sun is. ;disgust:

I always wanted to play with OS2, but its expensive (or was last time I saw it). Im not paying >$100USD, let alone over $300USD for an Operating System!

 

[tigerwannabe]

i'm going back in my memory on this, so i could be wrong. didn't microsoft & ibm buddy up to create os/2? as i recall, ibm & ms intended to market os/2 for the beefier pc and windows was gonna be the "little brother".

 

[Willoughbyva]

I had heard that MS and IBM worked on the code together.

I got my copy of OS/2 when I first started college. It was still over $100.00 though (academic version). The oly thing I didn't like about OS/2 was when you added hardware or something it had to go through all that process to get it working.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: Willoughbyva
I had heard that MS and IBM worked on the code together.

I got my copy of OS/2 when I first started college. It was still over $100.00 though (academic version). The oly thing I didn't like about OS/2 was when you added hardware or something it had to go through all that process to get it working.

But NT was easy

 

[TonyRic]

OS/2 started as a replacement for DOS back in the earlymid 80's. It stagnated in the market due to lack of hardware support (no surprise with the way IBM handled things then) and lack of app support. Took off with v2.0 and the Workplace shell. All versions up to v4 were fantastic and worth using. Kicked MS' ass in anything it did. Was ahead of the time with the object oriented interface which MS still doesn't have. The backend is still state of the art because IBM has kept it pretty much up to date. The interface which now is antiquated from a user perspective, the code is still fantastic. I think I may just install it again update it to the latest fixpacks, add an X server and see what I can do with it today. See what the Open source community has done for it. It was simply the best OS on the market from 1992 to 1997, but the MS marketing machine and IBM's lack of experience in the marketing arena (remember the Nuns?) was the killer for OS/2, not the lack of apps, or the lack of driver support. They were both there. It was IBM's fault.

 

[Buddha Bart]

there's no way they'll open source it. Like you guys have said, lots of ATM machines, POS terminals, etc still run it. If it was opensourced and any schmuck could find a vulnerability to a buffer overflow or something those machines woudl be in a world of crap.

"hey look i just hacked an ATM, free money"

bart

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: Buddha Bart
there's no way they'll open source it. Like you guys have said, lots of ATM machines, POS terminals, etc still run it. If it was opensourced and any schmuck could find a vulnerability to a buffer overflow or something those machines woudl be in a world of crap.

"hey look i just hacked an ATM, free money"

bart

Yeah... And Windows has never had an exploit written for it

 

[Buddha Bart]

no but finding an exploit when you have all the source sitting on your screen is easy (in fact there are automated tools).

finding an exploit when you have to buy an atm, disect it, sniff its connection (whatever it may be), get memory dumps, and reverse engineir them.... a wweeee bit harder.

bart

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: Buddha Bart
no but finding an exploit when you have all the source sitting on your screen is easy (in fact there are automated tools).

finding an exploit when you have to buy an atm, disect it, sniff its connection (whatever it may be), get memory dumps, and reverse engineir them.... a wweeee bit harder.

bart

Ahhh, so closed source proprietary tools are harder to crack... Interresting...

 

[ProviaFan]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: Buddha Bart
no but finding an exploit when you have all the source sitting on your screen is easy (in fact there are automated tools).

finding an exploit when you have to buy an atm, disect it, sniff its connection (whatever it may be), get memory dumps, and reverse engineir them.... a wweeee bit harder.

bart

Ahhh, so closed source proprietary tools are harder to crack... Interresting...

I'm learning a lot of new stuff about how secure Windows and other closed systems are from this thread - and how insecure Linux is.

Perhaps it's just because open source systems get security patches faster that they seem more secure to me, or perhaps it's just because you need to know more to properly administer an open source system, so you tend to know how to stay up to date on security patches as well. Maybe having a not-quite-as-easy-to-use-as-Windows system isn't so much of a disadvantage after all.

 

[tigerwannabe]

i had forgotten about the dancing nuns marketing os/2! dang, that was a long time ago anyway, here's some food for thought.
i'm speculating here, but assuming ms & ibm did build os/2 together(which i think they did), how much os/2 code ended up in windows nt, 2000, & xp? i'm guessing more than a little.