OS/2, eCS & ArcaOS - General > Events

Do not forget: Spock (Leonard Nimoy) introduced OS/2 Warp

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Sigurd Fastenrath:
Completly different experience, using OS/2 and Windows on a lot of different hardware since 1994. To get a Game like BIOFORGE to run under pure DOS was as tricky (remember the 640kb free RAM needed) as to install Warp 3. Windows 95 was faulty, but cool and all the new Games have been supported. And the Stones advertisement "Start me up" was just fantastic. Windows 98 SE was quite a good and stable version.

Windows xp was great, felt to me like: this is what OS/2 would have look alike if serious development would have continued. Pretty fast and stable. Indeed a lot of OS/2 was still inside. Vista was a mess as it was to slow and did try to prevent the user from making mistakes by restrictions in the rights. I remember feeling to spent more time on checking confirmation boxes than actually working with it.

Windows 7 was and is really great. It corrected almost every short coming of Vista. 64 bit became really usable. I personally was impressed by Windows 8.1 as I like the Touch interface very much. I even used a Windows 8 (Nokia 640) and Windows 10 Mobile (Microsoft Lumia 950XL- personally the best phone so far) phone as long as possible.

Funny: Microsoft did exactly the same errors with Windows phone that IBM did with OS/2. History repeats if you take a closer look at it...

Using Windows 10 for about 4 years for my business now (Windows for more than 20 Years now), never had problems. Yes, I am the lucky one. Installed this May my new Sever with Windows Server 2019 and have to admit: the easiest and best Server Software I ever installed. So easy to install and manage, compared to other or earlier versions.

Changed the phone to a Samsung Galaxy, not because of the phone but for the future hardware: the Galaxy Watch LTE. The best piece of hardware I bought during the last 10 years... If it would have a camera and a bit more space (both I think will come in the next couple of years) I would have had already sold my mobile phone. It is such a fantastic device. Using the watch since almost a year now.

I am about to switch from collecting Laptops to collecting Smart watches.

As time permits I am still "falling back" on my hobby to try to get OS/2 to run nativ on modern hardware, with the Thinkpad 25 ( aka a special Lenovo Thinkpad T470 version) as my latest, and I would guess, greatest success in this case.

EDIT: I have to correct myself: thinking about it the greatest success was the Lenovo X200Tablet Laptop, because:

- I was able to install eComstation 2 next to Preloaded Windows 7 (something Mensys said is "Not Possible" at that time)
- I managed to get to run:
-> LAN
-> WLAN (Thanks to a patched BIOS and the 4965 WLAN Driver by Willibald Meyer)
-> WWAN / UMTS (!) (Thanks to the USB Modem Driver and Injoy Dialer)
-> Stylus Support (later Touch support as well) thanks to Wim Brul
-> ACPI Support (Thanks to Mensys ACPI Driver)
-> SNAP in VESA Mode, so WinOS2 and DOS running both seamless and fullscreen
-> SMP Support
All in all I would say this was the best supported Laptop regarding OS/2 I ever had (and still have :-)  )

Will see where the future will lead me to, but my focus is going to change on Smart Watches, I guess.

Doug Bissett:

--- Quote ---And what would be OS/2 like today if IBM hadn't abandoned it? Would it be nothing like ArcaOS?
--- End quote ---

If IBM had done it properly, it would probably be more like the large system operating systems (which have probably morphed into something that I know nothing about). If they had simply continued on the same path, it would probably resemble ArcaOS, in some ways, but, assuming they still had the source code, it would have been relatively easy to add goodies like 64 bit capability, WiFi, USB 3, etc. Arca Noae is basically flying blind (no source code), and trying to do the same things that IBM did with a couple of hundred people. IBM also had access to manufacturers, to find out exactly how various pieces of hardware actually work.


--- Quote ---Later it was only Windows and then only Linux
--- End quote ---

You missed all the fun...


--- Quote ---Windows Vista and 7 completely messed up how network configuration is done... And what were they thinking when making Windows 8? Windows 10 is a completely mess.
--- End quote ---

 XP was getting to be pretty good, near the end of life. Vista was a mess. Hackers made it necessary to change the way networking was done (not that MS got it right, but they sort of made the rules). 7 is arguably still the best windows, ever, but 10 is pretty well there, as long as you avoid as much of the additional windows crap as you can. 8 was an attempt to turn the PC into a cell phone, 8.1 almost succeeded. 9 was so bad that it never saw the light of day. I have never seen a windows cell phone. I do know that I would never actually use one, voluntarily. Android is bad enough, and, from what I have seen, Apple isn't any better.

Windows 10 is actually getting better, as long as you stay away from the garbage that it includes. However, OS/2 can still get the job done, without all the extra bells and whistles that simply slow things down (not to mention the required malware protection). Too bad it is taking so long to get the basics (WiFi, USB3, etc.), for OS/2, but that is slowly taking shape.


--- Quote ---I am about to switch from collecting Laptops to collecting Smart watches.
--- End quote ---

It would be interesting to get OS/2 working on one of them, but I suspect that Panorama won't run the video.  :P

Tuure Linden:
Personally I think that Windows 10 really has mixed everything up. They are getting rid of the tradiotional Control Panel and it's hard to find right places to change the system settings. They also have changed the terms used which makes it more difficult to find what you're looking for. Yes, it's a stable and usable system and can be tweaked to look better and there are even third party free tools like ClassicShell. It could be worse but I don't like the way they're going. In the lates major update they made some changes, however, that I like. And I use Windows 10 when needed and I don't absolutely hate it. It just could be much much better. I like using MacOs more than Windows and I also own several Macs.

At some point I wanted to try Windows Phone and bought a second-hand Nokia Lumia to run it for a couple of weeks. It wasn't bad. Android has had more confusing UI. I've also tried SailfishOS but now I have an iPhone 6s and Nokia 8 so I run boght iOs and Android. And off-topic: I personally thas hate everything Samsung does, I hate their customer service, the quality of their software and the crappy design of the products (I refuse to repair any Samsung electronics, I say to customer that I just won't touch them anymore, I've had enoght of them). And Samsung seems to hate me because it doesn't matter if it's a SSD drive or a DVD-player or a microwave oven: everything made by them always breaks if I happen to own it or get in touch with it. I have unwillingly had their product withing computers and for free from customers when selling new electronics to them. Some years ago I made a mistake and actually bought some products made by them, but I won't do that mistake again.

But anyway, I like to test things and back in the day even used BeOS for a while and have occasionally tested HaikuOS.

Doug Bissett:

--- Quote ---They are getting rid of the tradiotional Control Panel
--- End quote ---

Well, it is still there, FWIW. It can look, and work, pretty much the same as winXP, if you simply click on View by -> small icons (or large icons, if you prefer). A few things have moved around, but it is essentially the same old thing (vista and 7 also have that. I never saw 8, or 8.1).


--- Quote ---They also have changed the terms used which makes it more difficult to find what you're looking for.
--- End quote ---

Microsoft is making a feeble effort to appear to protect the user from themselves, and from hackers. If that happens to work out in their (MS) favor, that is a bonus (for them). It does make life more difficult for those who manage, and maintain, computers, but it also makes them a LOT more money, so they don't complain.


--- Quote ---It just could be much much better
--- End quote ---

All software (and almost everything else that you could name) could be a lot better. The problem is, that nobody bothers to do it, because they know that the public will accept whatever they throw at them. Of course, there is also the lack of time, talent, and cash, to do it better. Even Microsoft won't spend the cash, and if they did, they would price themselves out of the market. It all depends on what the market will buy, and somebody will always be willing to do it cheaper. Of course, the old saying "You get what you pay for" comes into play. Then again, if you buy a toaster for $10, and it lasts half as long as a $30 toaster, it may be worth the aggravation of having to replace it.

I am not trying to defend anybody here, it is just the way that the market economy works. If people will buy it, somebody will supply it (then, somebody else will supply it cheaper, and so on, until whatever it is won't work any more and people stop buying it). That includes selling advertising on web sites, and in operating systems. Of course, somebody needs to pay the developers, somehow, or the product goes away. The sad part is, that when a product goes away, because somebody undercut others, it can be very difficult, and expensive, to get somebody else to start building a product that does work. There is also the knowledge factor, If nobody, or only a few people, know how to do something, it is much more difficult to produce a working product. OS/2 seems to be a classic example of that.

Mathias:
Tuure Linden> I liked the time when you needed to complie the kernel yourself and edit XF86Config, lilo.conf etc. It was logical and clear. Nowadays it's not anymore.

Hehe, you can still do this, if you prefer so. Distributions like [Gentoo Linux] do it that way.
First you boot from a minimal CD/stick (unfortunately no floppy bootable medium supported), then you download kernel and co, configure it, compile it, install the boot manager and tools like cron (if you like), and so on. YOU can choose what you want to use on that system. They advertise their distro with the words: "It's all about choice."

I went away from Windows (like you) when XP introduced that st*pid online activation and used Gentoo since then. But I stopped using Gentoo (was it 2017?) because it became wayyy tooo much choice for me. YOU need to maintain numerous Python installations to make all depedencies happy, and if you like to have a GUI, it's getting even more interesting. :>

Well.. back then it was easier because it was less choice than today. But IF you prefer choice over comfort, then Gentoo is for you. :>

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