#ibm os2

[europa6502]

So, in addition to that ASUS Terminator P4 I got, I also got an ASUS Terminator K7 featuring an AMD Athlon clocked at 1100MHz and 256MB of RAM.

I've had a lot of fun playing with this machine, and first off I installed Red Hat Linux 9 on it. This went off mostly without a hitch, although my USB mouse gave me issues (but switching to a PS/2 mouse solved them).

I love when installers have fun little quips. I miss when most software was fun in some way.

Installation went well, as did configuration once I figured out the mouse issue. The machine is partially deconstructed here because I needed to troubleshoot a Zip drive (I think it's just broken).

Next up that I wanted to try was OS/2 because the BIOS has an OS/2 compatibility setting and the chipset has OS/2 drivers.

I don't know if the hard drive I was using was on its way out or what though, but I just couldn't get OS/2 to install quickly at all. The first stage of copying files alone took about 24 hours. This is as far as I got before putting the project on hold.

What makes me think it was the hard drive was that it seemed to be behaving strangely and was rather noisy.

Here's a video on RHL 9, and I'll get a video on OS/2 out as soon as I continue the project :3

[never-obsolete]

PC/Computing - July 1994 OS/2 for Windows

[sinclair-speccy]

[spockvarietyhour]

Your OS/2 Warp is on fire.

[possibly-j]

This is probably only funny to me but I just found this promotional image for OS/2 featuring the cast of M*A*S*H and it's just so weird

[moonbasetycho]

Go Team OS/2!

[fabulaturbatory]

IBM’s warp os/2 demo from computer chronicles with stewart cheifet, aired 1994

[boredtechnologist]

IBM's Operating System /2 (OS/2) Standard Edition v1.2

[lycrabustier]

IBM's fans really put the pedal to the metal promoting OS/2 Warp. Like, in a very, very specific and confusing way...

[retrocompmx]

Un día como hoy (29 de septiembre) en la tecnología

El 29 de septiembre del 2000, se devela la versión preview de eComStation, sucesora de OS/2 Warp 4.5 de IBM, ahora a cargo de Serenity Systems, que posteriormente se convirtió en ArcaOS. #retrocomputingmx #ecomstation #OS2

[never-was-has-been]

Brilliant! 👏🏽 👏🏽 👏🏽 👏🏽 👏🏽 👏🏽 👏🏽 👏🏽

That's a big win for the OP and a big loss for the company who kept a "boss" who didn't know his ass from a hole in the ground. I worked for some IBM 1st level management, back in the 1980's. They were clueless and just as arrogant and indignant as the OP mentioned here. I also embarrassed a Senior MFG Engineer that tried to overrule a suggestion of mine (while secretly trying to steal my idea without my knowledge). I was a mfg Technician in IBM's Circuit Packaging & Manufacturing from 1980-1983. Then I got promoted to Senior Methods Specialist in 1984, and again embarrassed a 3rd Level manager (my boss's boss's Boss, with a 6 year degree in Electrical Engineering 😆🤣) because he didn't know how to setup his Office IBM OS2 tower computer to connect to the internal network (intranet)! By the OP's example here, I see nothing has changed in 40 years! 🤦🏽‍♂️😒 😑

Tread here.

[windstalkerwolf]

First of all: That retro windows 95 bar is annoying! That's not how to do humor, @tumblrstaff. Thanks for the effort! You are not aware that IBM's OS2 / warp was a superior OS at the time?

[koney-scanlines]

IBM PS/2 computer for WARP 3 speed: OS/2 3.0 + Win95 + Dos 6.22 + Win3.1

[never-obsolete]

[ultramaga]

I'd say the 3.5" floppy was when computing became mainstream. Personal computers existed for a long time at around the price of a car. Then they crashed.

I don't know anyone who had an 8" at home. 5 1/4 was used for the models that were expensive for a normal household. My introduction was through a friend of the family who was a computer programmer, and whose equipment was paid for by the company. I saw some later at various places, but the few people I knew of who had them at home were definitely better off. Maybe they were relatively cheaper overseas. By the end of the 1980s, 5¼-inch disks had been superseded by 3½-inch disks.

And what else happened at around that time? Home internet. In fact, I'm pretty sure icons themselves came in at that time. There's no point having a symbol for a 5 1/4 when most of the save functions will be done either on a command line or something similar, and when the word processors came in, there was no standardisation anyway.

I think this was the first word processor I used. Not fun. Microsoft changed all that. So did Apple. Suddenly the same icons used in word processor would appear in a database. I can remember using the Amiga while most PC systems were using a CLI.

Notice the icon top right? It doesn't mean save.

Have a look at Windows 1.0. This was a bit of a flop. I never saw much point in Windows until 3.1, when it blew everyone away.

And there's the 3.5". So my theory is that by the time windows based systems were taking off, the 5 1/4 was on the way out, the 3.5 was taking over and the home internet was becoming mainstream.

This article points out that the 3.5 was actually around for a very long time.

"the format held out far longer than anyone expected, regularly shipping in PCs up until the mid-2000s" I can tell you sometimes the operating system manufacturers would release their product on 3.5".

I was flabbergasted when I bought OS2/WARP and found out it was on floppy. No, they didn't warn me, certainly didn't install it for me, and it was NO REFUNDS. I think I bought it over the phone, along with a desktop from a shop in Parramatta. It was cheap, I was poor, and back then I had no idea that shops would be willing to burn the customers in exchange for a quick buck. After that time, I have always preferred being able to walk in and inspect before buying - but it is impossible nowadays. The install would often fail halfway through. Start again. One time I had the tech support guy on the phone with me for hours, because my hardware was supposed to be supported but it clearly wasn't. I gave up on that OS and it failed as a competitor to windows, perhaps because windows was being sold on CD. Oooh, Windows 95 was also sometimes sold on 3.5. I'd forgotten about that.

So there you are. Icons were around earlier but they only really took off with the Apple 1.0.

But I don't really remember seeing them used at home. And look at the drive it was using.

I think my first exposure to Macs was maybe 88? So I think of them as being pretty late; maybe they were more common in the US/Europe. But that was back in 84, and the snazzy 3.5 was quite prominent. I was already familiar with that sort of a computer - I think I must have already been using an amiga 500 at home, and started ahead of most students in being able to use the system. Whereas I had a lot of friends who were still using a command line interface.

The Amiga 500 was a lot cheaper, and it showed, but under better management it could have been a real competitor to IBM/Microsoft. It was affordable for most families. That was mind-blowing. And the interface was a hell of a lot friendlier than the IBM clones had available. MS-DOS dominated the IBM PC compatible market between 1981 and 1995.

Windows 3.1, made generally available on March 1, 1992.

So basically everyone else had a GUI by that time. IBM Clones were more business machines than anything else, but with 3.1, computing was starting to get to the point where granny could do it. Windows 95, and microsoft office, changed everything I would say, and pretty much crushed all opposition. We still technically have Apple computers, but they pretty much exist to be an expensive toy now. And of course, the consoles have taken over in gaming, and mobile computing continues to erode the very concept of the desktop, with top down pressure to get rid of the very idea of owning a computer or an application, and just have people rent computing power and stream the results. At some point, I expect neural interfaces will take over. Embedded interfaces are weirdly popular in business already, I am told. And then I expect the current generation of iconography to disappear. But until then, the icons we know are largely there because of one woman working for Apple, and the save icon in particular is there because one form of technology was just so damned useful... and used long after it shouldn't have been for those bloody operating system installs....

TiL (click to go to the thread, which probably has more interesting tidbits I missed).

Bonus:

[possibly-j]

I had to make a discussion post for my management class on a company that failed to plan. While everyone else was posting about companies failing to adapt to the internet like Blockbuster or Walmart, or talking about the 2008 financial crisis, this was me explaining the downfall of OS/2 and how Windows became the dominant operating system