It's been super amazing to see how much they could continue to support newer hardware and keep it going considering that I don't believe they have the kernel source.
It wasn't too long ago I saw OS/2 on some ATM machine that was crashed.
I used to love OS/2 back when developing DOS applications (since I could crash the app and not the machine). OS/2 got me interested in "real OS's" and then SunOS in college, etc.
Up til 20 years ago there were a surprising number of ATMs still running OS/2; NCR and Diebold supported old machines for a long time. Especially small market/small regional banks wanted to get the absolute most out of their capex investment. Over the years, I've worked with a couple of those dead-enders on different GRC projects, mostly because I'd actually seen OS/2 before. AFAIK, those vendors stopped supporting OS/2 in the 2000s; I'd be very, very surprised if there were any left now.
I you're interested in how a very "not Unix" operating system is architected, I really recommend Deitels' "Design of OS/2". Very interesting.
It's definitely true that they do not have access to the original OS/2 source - this has been confirmed by people from Arca Noae in various interviews/presentations I've seen. I've never heard a definitive explanation for why, but two reasons are usually speculated:
1) Due to the amount of third party code in OS/2 (most notably, the DOS and Win 3.x layer) that IBM is unable to license out the code, or unwilling to go to the trouble to figure out the legal implications.
As far as I know, yes. There were no changes made to eCS which required source - everything was implemented as drivers, or layers on top of the base OS.
Who is the target audience for this? I can't imagine that many modern applications support OS/2 the way that they support e.g. MorphOS, and $139 is a steep price for a borderline useless OS that doesn't have a community like the Amiga-derived OSes do.
I couldn’t argue with you, but here’s their answer. The arguments appeal explicitly to people “who remember when”:
> Need more convincing? How about a commercial operating system which doesn’t spy on you, does not report your online activity to anyone, and gives you complete freedom to choose the applications you want to use, however you want to use them? How about an operating system which isn’t tied to any specific hardware manufacturer, allowing you to choose the platform which is right for you, and fits perfectly well in systems with less than 4GB of memory or even virtual machines?
1) There's a bunch of commercial software which only runs on OS/2. A lot of it was vertically integrated software either developed for a specific customer by IBM, or developed in an "IBM shop". The ticket machines for the New York subway were powered by OS/2 until relatively recently. There are also supposedly a bunch of banks which have OS/2 dependencies.
2) There are still hardcore OS/2 fans who use OS/2 as their main OS. As you correctly assume, getting something like a modern web browser to run on OS/2 is a challenge, but some people grin and bear with it anyway.
3) Strange people like me who run things like OS/2 on spare computers or VMs for the novelty value.
ArcaOS is great in its own ways, it doesn't phone home, doesn't spy on your files, it's very stable, works on modern hardware, has a working browser, okay, it's not cutting edge, but it's fun and brings some of the joys of old-school computing back.
It's been super amazing to see how much they could continue to support newer hardware and keep it going considering that I don't believe they have the kernel source.
It wasn't too long ago I saw OS/2 on some ATM machine that was crashed.
I used to love OS/2 back when developing DOS applications (since I could crash the app and not the machine). OS/2 got me interested in "real OS's" and then SunOS in college, etc.
Up til 20 years ago there were a surprising number of ATMs still running OS/2; NCR and Diebold supported old machines for a long time. Especially small market/small regional banks wanted to get the absolute most out of their capex investment. Over the years, I've worked with a couple of those dead-enders on different GRC projects, mostly because I'd actually seen OS/2 before. AFAIK, those vendors stopped supporting OS/2 in the 2000s; I'd be very, very surprised if there were any left now.
I you're interested in how a very "not Unix" operating system is architected, I really recommend Deitels' "Design of OS/2". Very interesting.
I have heard that many times. Is it know why, if true?
Seems to ve very weird that IBM will give them a license to keep OS/2 updated but no access to the kernel.
It's definitely true that they do not have access to the original OS/2 source - this has been confirmed by people from Arca Noae in various interviews/presentations I've seen. I've never heard a definitive explanation for why, but two reasons are usually speculated:
1) Due to the amount of third party code in OS/2 (most notably, the DOS and Win 3.x layer) that IBM is unable to license out the code, or unwilling to go to the trouble to figure out the legal implications.
2) IBM has lost some or all of the source code.
You couldn't convince me that IBM lost it..
The licensing would be my guess, Microsoft owned some of the code, there may have been other third party code in there too.
Did eComStation also lack access to the source? Weird.
As far as I know, yes. There were no changes made to eCS which required source - everything was implemented as drivers, or layers on top of the base OS.
Who is the target audience for this? I can't imagine that many modern applications support OS/2 the way that they support e.g. MorphOS, and $139 is a steep price for a borderline useless OS that doesn't have a community like the Amiga-derived OSes do.
I couldn’t argue with you, but here’s their answer. The arguments appeal explicitly to people “who remember when”:
> Need more convincing? How about a commercial operating system which doesn’t spy on you, does not report your online activity to anyone, and gives you complete freedom to choose the applications you want to use, however you want to use them? How about an operating system which isn’t tied to any specific hardware manufacturer, allowing you to choose the platform which is right for you, and fits perfectly well in systems with less than 4GB of memory or even virtual machines?
The doesn't spy on me is indeed a strong argument, considering we can't even properly trust linux distributions nowadays.
There are roughly three categories:
1) There's a bunch of commercial software which only runs on OS/2. A lot of it was vertically integrated software either developed for a specific customer by IBM, or developed in an "IBM shop". The ticket machines for the New York subway were powered by OS/2 until relatively recently. There are also supposedly a bunch of banks which have OS/2 dependencies.
2) There are still hardcore OS/2 fans who use OS/2 as their main OS. As you correctly assume, getting something like a modern web browser to run on OS/2 is a challenge, but some people grin and bear with it anyway.
3) Strange people like me who run things like OS/2 on spare computers or VMs for the novelty value.
I used to work for IBM and run some servers and my ThinkPad was running OS/2.
Really nice OS. Which it was a more reasonable $50 for personal use.
Wish not Which
ArcaOS is great in its own ways, it doesn't phone home, doesn't spy on your files, it's very stable, works on modern hardware, has a working browser, okay, it's not cutting edge, but it's fun and brings some of the joys of old-school computing back.
How does it do on 4k-screens? Does it even support the (i)GPUs which can power them?
First thing I always look for is screenshots.
https://www.arcanoae.com/arcaos/arcaos-screenshots/
Ars Has a good / long article on the history of OS/2.
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/11/half-...
They shall learn from the masters (Microsoft): a pirated version shall be easily available, else people will use alternatives.
They could have rebuilt it on top of osFree and have 64bit support.
That would kill half the point.
OS/2 is amazing as a 32bit pmode OS that can still run DOS and Win16 software while being far more stable than Windows (of the time).
And have an unstable base for the supposed commercial applications they sell to?