OS/2 Research Outline

This is a set of wiki pages dedicated to researching the rise and fall of OS/2, with the intent on creating a larger record of the 16-bit and early 32-bit era of IBM's ill fated operating system, with stream ideas, research notes, discussion and more.

This is an effort to fundamental answer is to document the reasons as to why despite IBM's best efforts, OS/2 failed in the marketplace in favor of Windows 3.0, an operating system that is technically inferior in almost all regards.

Goals Of This Project

The fundamental goal of this project is to create a pretty definitive guide to the early history of OS/2, including showing how it worked, functioned, and more as a primary source, and should interest remain, the creation of multiple realtime videos and/or documentaries to document one of the more pivotal moments of the late 1980s, and early 1990s.

This wiki page should use citations for all major facts and statements, as they will be cited in any video. It's expected that each top level section will become its own "realtime video" at some point.

Overview of the 16-bit Era of OS/2

Because the level of general knowledge of OS/2 is so low, a basic understanding has to be established about the 16-bit era needs to be established. The closest thing to a canonical document on this era exists at the OS/2 Museum, but setting up usable and working systems with native apps is essential ...

OS/2 Pre-alphas and 1.0

Scan of page InfoWorld 1987

What was the actual intended goals of OS/2? It's often cited that OS/2 was intended to deal with the shortcomings of DOS, namely lack of multitasking and memory restrictions, but is this actually true?

It's known that Microsoft offered a $3,000 SDK and training materials which had basically everything you could want and more in a single box, but IBM based material is somewhat scant ...

Topics to be researched:

• Descriptions of OS/2 (or ADOS) as found in early programming reference manuals
• Comparison of early alpha versions of OS/2
• In-depth reading and review of the manual and more

Questions to be answered:

• What were the stated goals of OS/2?
• What was actually provided out of the box in 1.0?
• IBM marked OS/2 as a server - understanding the relationship here is important

OS/2 Editions

OS/2 1.0 Splash Description Page

Microsoft OS/2 Splash Screen Startup

In general, OS/2 was first created for IBM hardware, and then by Microsoft, resold for other PC compatible vendors. OS/2 was also available directly from Microsoft as an upgrade. There are known code and behavior differences between the two editions, as well as significant differences in documentation. However, all editions of OS/2 should be able to run the same binaries.

Most (although not all) Microsoft

Later OS/2 Era Stuff Worth Researching

• OS/2 on PowerPC
• Embedded OS/2 such as on the New York City Subway
• eCommStation and AcraOS