OS/2, eCS & ArcaOS - Technical > Hardware

The last nail in OS/2's coffin

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Dave Yeo:
The trick with Dooble is to mark as many DLLs that it uses to load high as possible. Also the profile can get corrupt after crashes and hangs so needs to be wiped out. Good trick is to save a copy of the profile after some personalizing, before a crash and use that to replace it if it gets corrupt.
Helps a lot to have the blocklists etc installed as well, a lot of problems come with ads and the JavaScript they use.

ivan:
Hi All,

I have a way round the browser problem.  I use an ITX board with Linux and a USB/HDMI KVM switch, most of which was salvaged from the local dump (I did buy the KVM new).

When our Firefox won't display a site I just switch over to the Linux unit and a few seconds later the site is up (always assuming NoScript allows it).

Edmund Wong:

--- Quote from: Pete on February 02, 2024, 06:51:09 pm ---Hi All

I have to join in to say that I have been looking for a replacement OS since IBM announced OS/2's demise in 2000(?) and have not found anything that I am as happy to use.

The main problem I am currently bumping into is the same as everyone else: We do not have a capable browser. Seamonkey (and, I guess, Firefox) no longer work very well - if at all - on a lot of websites; Doodle (qt5) is simply too flaky to use due to crashes and system hangs.

Thanks to all who have kept OS/2 alive to date.


Regards

Pete

--- End quote ---

It's not just the OS/2 version of SeaMonkey is having issues with websites.  The windows version (2.53.18.x) is becoming a continual chore as websites no longer work properly.     

I don't know much about all this hardware talk(I'm only a user); but I'm guessing it'd take a huge dev group to 'modernize' OS/2.  Having a 64bit OS/2 system would be nice; but since from what I'm seeing in this thread,  the number of people that can actually do that is slowly decreasing by the year.  Am I right?   Is it possible to even modernize the OS/2 code or does it require a rewrite? 

Ed




Martin Iturbide:
Hello Ed


--- Quote from: Edmund Wong on March 21, 2024, 06:47:39 am ---Having a 64bit OS/2 system would be nice; but since from what I'm seeing in this thread,  the number of people that can actually do that is slowly decreasing by the year.  Am I right?   Is it possible to even modernize the OS/2 code or does it require a rewrite? 

--- End quote ---

There had been some discussion about the 64bit kernel for OS/2. - "OS/2 - ArcaOS 64Bits Kernel Discussion"

I'm not an expert but for what we have discuss I can say:
- We don't have the required labor resources to create a 64bit kernel at this moment.
- If we create an OS/2 64bit kernel, it has to be compatible with 32bits, otherwise all the OS/2 software won't work.
- There is no source code available (legally) of the OS/2 kernel, which make it more labor intensive to implement.
- In the case we get an 64bit kernel, we need to have the development tools to start creating 64bit OS/2 applications.
- If we remember the old days, the market had a difficult change to 64bits. Intel Itanium failed, Windows versions were incompatible (Windows XP 64bits), they have to fall back, wait more years to have a easy going 32bits to 64bits application transition.

So, yes it is kind of hard right now. Buy maybe if AI evolves for software development, some development can be automatized requiring less labor.

What is OS/2? the kernel? the applications? the WPS?. My idea is that maybe OS/2 is the desktop experience and the applications we use. That why my approach is more to have an already available 64bit kernel and create the OS/2 interpretation over it.

Regards

Eric Erickson:

--- Quote from: Martin Iturbide on January 22, 2024, 10:44:48 pm ---
--- Quote from: Neil Waldhauer on January 22, 2024, 03:33:16 pm ---The other thing that threatens OS/2 is the aging of its users. I predict that will be the actual cause of death.

--- End quote ---

I'm scared to interpret this like my age group (40's) is going to be last one using OS/2   ;)
Let's try to get people on his 30's to the community !!!   ;D

Regards

--- End quote ---

This is a very similar problem that many of my clients experience, albeit on a different platform (IBM z/OS Mainframe). There is still a very large demand for mainframe developers (hence why one of my clients dragged me out of retirement). The problem is that how do you introduce and get the current crop of developers in their 20's and 30's excited about the mainframe. We are exploring the use of tools like ZOWE Explorer run inside Visual Studio to give them an interface that is more familiar to your average developer than the old 3270 screen and ISPF.  The other big problem is that pool of IBM z/OS Assembler programmers is getting smaller every year, but there are literally millions of lines of code still out there running in production environments. As one of the fish in that diminishing pool, I get about half-dozen inquires a week asking if I'm interested in doing some assembler programming work.

Not sure what the solution is for OS/2. But I will also say that I have not put a lot of thought into what the future might be. Professionally I have not done any OS/2 work in about 15 years, but personally I still run a few copies in VMs and 1 physical machine, which will bring me to the new thread I'm about to start.

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