OS/2 Warp, PowerPC Edition | Hacker News Reader

OS/2 Warp, PowerPC Edition

ps-2.kev009.com

136 pointsLammy69 comments

Open articleView on HN

My dad worked for IBM for 30 years and he was called "Mr OS/2" because he was pretty good at selling it.

I have so many memories of OS/2 events when he took me.

Still have some OS/2 Merch

- Team OS/2 Denim Jacket https://pictshare.net/wxj2nz.png

- Back https://pictshare.net/rxny3i.png

- OS/2 Sweater https://pictshare.net/vhtgcj.png

- OS/2 Ambassador coins in Epoxy https://pictshare.net/nelpoj.png

Now he's retired but still tells me at least once a month when he has a computer problem about "How easy that would have been to fix in OS/2 and REXX" :)

oh god that denim jacket goes so hard. It's something you'd see at like a LGR old computer con

Maybe he would appreciate a computer with this updated version of OS/2 https://hackaday.com/2023/02/16/arcaos-os-2-updated-for-the-...

Sadly ArcaOS isn't so usable nowadays. The biggest issue is that an ancient version of Firefox is the only viable option for a web browser.

When usability == browsing Amazon...

>The biggest issue is that an ancient version of Firefox is the only viable option for a web browser.

There was some work done on porting Palemoon, Otter Browser, and QtWebEngine to ArcaOS. A preview version of a QtWebEngine-based browser[0] was available for download and may work with newer websites (given QtWebEngine is based on Chromium), but I have not tested it myself.

[0] https://www.os2world.com/cms/index.php/past-news/80-news/sof...

I run it on a ThinkPad X61 and it is very fun

He my dad did the same.

We also have a basement full of Warp memorabilia. I only remember how shitty it felt to be the OS/2 kid when all the others were on Windows 95 (not that I didn’t defend OS/2 as the superior system).

I remember back in the 90s, I was a little kid at the time, maybe 12 years old, and I was so proud that I had Windows 95.

An acquaintance of the family then commented that Windows 95 was absolute shit. He had OS/2 Warp and it was superior in every way, especially for power users. Honestly it made me feel quite envious, but he wouldn't explain how I would get hold of OS/2 Warp so I just let it be.

> He had OS/2 Warp and it was superior in every way, especially for power users.

The technology of OS/2 Warp was a better than Win9x, but once you started caring about having native 32-bit software it didn't really matter. Windows ran away with that market in short order, leaving too few options over on OS/2 for most users.

In a sense, that was always the OS/2 story... it never did a quite good enough job of both running users' existing software and attracting a big enough space of OS/2 specific software to be differentiated as an OS platform.

Yeah, OS/2 Warp was sometimes the best way to run DOS and Windows 3.1 software, but as soon as you had some good or fun Windows 95 software there was never any reason to go back to OS/2 Warp because you probably didn't own any OS/2 specific software.

This is all completely correct, but ca. 1995 I managed to pick up what I think was called Lotus “SmartSuite” for OS/2. It included Ami Pro, which I expect I’ll go to my grave believing was the best word processor I ever used.

The layout controls in particular were amazing.

Nope.

It kept crashing because the GUI message pump was essentially shared.

This is just the tip of the iceberge, there were a lot of bad technical decisions that made it unstable.

Comparing Windows NT with OS/2, I'd totally agree with you.

Comparing Windows 95 with OS/2, there was way too much 16-bit legacy in Windows. Major parts of Windows 95 were still 16 bit code and protected with a giant lock serializing all access. Windows 95 was a great tactical solution, but not a great OS.

Clearly it was more important that a bug in a user mode GUI app didn't render the system unusable compared to having 16 bit code and a few locks in a mostly serial environment.

The story of OS/2 is a project that dragged on for decades with the benefits only harvested when Windows NT put a GUI and app ecosystem on it.

As someone who had OS/2 Warp installed on a machine for a bit I'm somewhat dubious about the claim that it was just plain better than Win95. My memories of OS/2 Warp included locking up the entire GUI when an application (a goddamn notepad application at that!) crashed and finding it amazingly unintuitive in so many respects. On top of that everything it did felt sluggish, even on fast hardware of the era (a Pentium 75 with 16GB of memory).

When Windows 95 came out there really wasn't a question as to who was going to be the thing going forward. Even beyond Microsoft's already dominant position in the marketplace.

> 16GB of memory

Speaking of memory, I think yours is failing! Ain't no way!

Indeed: Pentium 75 is P54C and from 1995, while PAE (Address Extension to get beyond 4GB) was only introduced in the Pentium Pro (P6) series in 1995.

Yeah, 16MB. Orders of magnitude get lost easily when talking about computer technology. Hell, the computer I owned before that (A Commodore 64) had 64KB of memory and that was a lot when it came out. And now 16GB is probably the most common memory size you see on PCs in the wild.

Around that timeframe, I was selling computers out of a tiny shop --- one of the salespeople convinced a customer to buy a computer w/ OS/2 which we installed (my only experience w/ it) and then delivered to the customer and set up.

Naturally, they then went to Wal-Mart to buy a printer since it was cheaper there, but the customer called us to ask how to install it --- I was able to do this over the phone by just asking the customer what they saw on the screen and walking them through it (remember kids, this was before Plug-and-Play).

If I could get a copy of OS/2 for Pens, I'd buy it in a heartbeat.

"How easy that would have been to fix in OS/2 and REXX"

I loved REXX when I used OS/2. Besides using it for scripting, I wrote a few programs using Watcon VX-REXX which was similar to Visual Basic but used REXX. I was most proud of the graphical ftp program I created. I uploaded it to the OS/2 BBS but can't find it in any of the archives of the site.

In the mid-2000s I used REXX one final time to program an IVR system. I was not and had never been a developer by profession but I was the only one with any familiarity with REXX, so it fell to me.

REXX was awesome. Completely blew away cmd.com batch scripts. I used it in DOS constantly. Shame it died with OS/2.

I last used REXX last year, to write BDD tests for my Amiga software on AmigaOS 3.2. IBM still support it on MVS and z/OS, too.

https://hobbes.nmsu.edu/

I've searched Hobbes and other repositories. It isn't there. There is another VX-REXX based ftp program there.

ObjectREXX is there.

https://hobbes.nmsu.edu/download/pub/os2/dev/proglang/orexx/...

As mentioned in my comment I was looking for my old program I uploaded to OS/2 BBS and not a REXX implementation.

REXX is still available for many different OSes including most flavors of Unix: https://regina-rexx.sourceforge.io/

There is also an "Object Oriented" flavor called OORexx and one that works with Java for scripting purposes called NetRexx etc., all listed here: http://rexxinfo.org/downloads/index_downloads.html

That's wonderful. I used OS/2 for a bit as a young man and loved it. As a professional developer-in-the-making, I learned REXX as well (although in college we were using it on IBM big-iron at the time too). I can't remember what class it was, but I was daydreaming and wrote an arbitrary (integer) root finding algorithm in REXX one day. eg: show me the 6th root of 872378294, using a variation of finding a square root iteratively.

I have an OS/2 poster somewhere. It is a picture of a tree with three different fruit on it. Each representing the three worlds it lived in - OS/2, Windows, and DOS.

OS/2 Warp for PowerPC is a distant cousin of today's macOS because it also uses the Mach microkernel.

This was not the case for OS/2 for x86 which was a regular monolithic kernel.

It's mentioned in the article that IBM's original goal was to have a single desktop OS with multiple personalities:

"Going deeper into the kernel, OS/2 PPC had precious little in common with the Intel version. The product was based on the IBM microkernel, which was a refinement of the Carnegie Mellon University MACH microkernel. The microkernel bore no resemblance to the Intel OS/2 kernel whatsoever and it was also very different from other operating systems.

"The initial grandiose plan was to build the Workplace OS, the One Ring to Bind Them All of operating systems. Workplace OS (or WPOS for short) was supposed to be built on top of the MACH microkernel and support multiple "personalities". The personalities would implement existing operating systems such as OS/2, AIX, Windows NT and perhaps even MacOS. In the end this never happened and the only supported personality was OS/2.

The initial design is still tangible in OS/2 PPC. The OS/2 personality is implemented in the "OS/2 Server" and there are certain "personality neutral" services. Most device drivers were personality neutral and worked directly with the microkernel. This included disk and network drivers. A notable exception were display drivers, where OS/2 PPC introduced the GRADD model, later ported to Intel OS/2."

The XNU kernel in macOS is based on the Mach 2.5 kernel, which is not a microkernel, but rather a BSD-derived monolithic kernel with the Mach IPC mechanisms baked in. The OSF/1 operating system for the DEC Alpha (later known as Tru64) also used Mach 2.5

AFAIK, the Mach microkernel was version 3.0 onwards, and used in projects such as IBM Workplace OS, MKLinux, and GNU HURD. These operating systems rarely progressed past the experimental or research project phase.

Xnu is based on Mach 3, only the older NeXT/OpenStep kernels were based on a mix of Mach 2.0 and 2.5.

MacOS uses a BSD personality colocated in the same address space as the Mach part, so it is no pure microkernel system.

You can check the last (OpenStep-based) Rhapsody kernel sources from Darwin 0.3 at

https://github.com/evolver56k/Darwin-0.3/tree/master/kernel-...

and the first archived version of the MacOS X xnu kernel at

https://github.com/apple/darwin-xnu/tree/xnu-123.5/osfmk

Specifically XNU is continuation of OSFMK, which was mix of 2.0 and 3.0 stuff, with built-in bsd server instead of separate process, and which was the basis for OSF/1 (and thus also Tru64, and quite possibly common with WPOS - IBM at one point was involved partially in the OSF consortium)

Currently Apple has been in the process of fixing this, by forbinding any kind of third party code as kernel extensions.

Their long term roadmap being every time a new framework for userspace drivers gets introduced, the developer community is given one year transition period to migrate their kernel extensions to userspace, before that capability is removed from the following macOS version.

End goal being macOS will provide a microkernel like experience for everyone outside Apple's HQ.

It also frees them to significantly modify the kernel or even replace it outright without breaking anybody, too.

GNU Hurd got a small upswing in development in recent years, and there is an actively maintained version of Debian for it.

Still very few developers behind it though, compared to other Unix/-like projects.

Not active enough to keep it an official port though. And now that it isn't, packages are dropping patches to support Hurd. So no, I disagree with what you've just said.

> AFAIK, the Mach microkernel was version 3.0 onwards, and used in projects such as IBM Workplace OS, MKLinux, and GNU HURD.

GNU Hurd was based on CMU Mach 3 for a while in lieu of Mach 4, which was an oft cited reasons for delays with the Hurd development due to missing critical features anticipated to arrive in Mach 4. Then CMU dropped Mach, the University of Utah picked it up and developed for some time, and finally the active development fizzled out altogether, which added the further delays with GNU Hurd. GNU Mach was branched off Mach 4 at some point and has been (was?) developed as a separate endeavour.

In reality, the CPU's at the time were not powerful enough to operate message passing, microkernel based operating systems so, whilst the idea itself was great, it was not a viable one. It could have been a different story today, but with the large scale operating system reasearch and experimentation all but having ceased in the last couple of decades, it does not seem likely there will be a large scale microkernel (or something else) success story any time soon, which is kinda sad.

I loved OS/2 so much.

Used it a lot in my home PC and it was better at running Windows and DOS apps than Windows. Loved the theme of Merlin (v4.0) with its WarpSans font, the window decorations and coloured tabs! Looked so futuristic.

The memories of seeing DOS Doom in a OS/2 Window. Looked so crisp on a window, in all its 320x200 glory.

Not only that, but being able to play Doom (or maybe it was Wolfenstein) while downloading at 14.4k was amazing. I believe I used PMComm and of course a 16550 serial card.

I used it extensively in college in early 90’s, as Windows 3.1 seemed so primitive, but then a couple of years later Linux kind of took everything by storm.

But DOS windows only updated at (IIRC) 10Hz, so while you could run four or five DOOMs, a single DOOM in a window would still be unplayable slow.

I think it was worked well enough, but after your comment I’m not so sure now. Could it be a os/2 port? Well, I still loved it.

I bloody want my Linux and apps on it could look like this or something of this flavour. Most retro themes are poor quality shams (Chicago95[1] is the only good one, yet still not perfect). I feel like I would gladly pay serious money for a really high quality conversion of all the parts, including themes for all widget libraries and no quirks.

[1]https://github.com/grassmunk/Chicago95

Check out Trinity Desktop

https://www.trinitydesktop.org/

The hard part is the icons. Nobody does aliased bitmapped icons anymore.

We should've made SVG icons the default, like the vector icons in IRIX. Then we could just tweak the renderer.

I'm pretty sure TDE uses SVGs

CDE is still a thing and it's free.

Really, for a full fidelity reproduction of old OSes one needs a dedicated DE rather than a theme.

Such DEs are on my list of things I want to work on should I find myself with an excess of spare time. I think 1:1 old OS repro DEs would be surprisingly popular, and would eventually be among the most stable and efficient options available since they’d have a strictly bounded well defined feature set (meaning dev efforts would shift to exclusive bug hunting and performance improvements once feature completeness had been achieved).

Fact: I have never felt more connected with a computer than when using Workplace Shell with a TrackPoint. I can even use it ambidextrously.

Interesting comments from a former IBM employee involved in the development of the PowerPC version of OS/2: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20888274

I distinctly remember a mud-slinging campaign aimed at OS/2 Warp because it had "one-button internet access", and this was deemed as deeply unsafe by various PR machines.

I remember hearing that for weeks on local radio.

OS/2 was a pretty nice system. Too bad it never caught on

Howard Stern liked it https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1PErQUubZCs

I think it's fun to ponder the "what if?" universes if other operating systems had caught on.

I'm not going to claim which is "better", but OS/2 was different enough from Windows to where I do think the world would be a different place if it had managed to win the OS wars of the 90s instead of Windows.

I suppose the same question can be asked about BeOS and NextStep (though the latter more or less did get the success to know what the future would be like).

I'll claim that it was better.

The trouble was that it was made by IBM who engaged in countless acts of bureaucratic incompetence and corporate self-sabotage. From the product arriving too late, to IBM not caring about how much it cost its customers, to IBMs hubristic attitude towards third parties, to hilariously incompetent marketing.

I've only played with OS/2 in emulators/VMs, and not really enough to form concrete opinions. What do you think made it better?

There's also Arca Noae take on it - ArcaOS[1].

[1] https://www.arcanoae.com/

Geez, OS2/Warp. Memories! Trying to install it on my 486DX

so, so, so many discs...

I remember OS/2 Warp on a single CD that came as a cover disc for a magazine.

Installation instructions: First copy to 18 floppy disks ...

I got OS/2 2.x when IBM sold it very cheaply one time (about 60 Deutschmarks, I think). But it came on soo many floppies and had such requirements that I never got around to install it. I used the floppies years after for warez, though…

Took OS/2 Warp on a CD for me to finally give it a try. If it would've been more stable on my system, it might have postponed my journey to Linux for a few years…

Then randomly fail on like disk 10. Turn off the 'turbo' on your computer and try again (taking twice as long this time).

The heady days of the PowerPC, what could have been.

Who else was waiting for the 615 and OS2 to replace Wintel?

OS/2, maybe not, but I sure longed for one of those upcoming PReP machines! (PowerPC Reference Platform)

> OS/2 PPC included a full fledged PC emulator, which supplied a virtual x86 CPU as well as common PC hardware

Was x86 emulation built into PowerPC or would this have been all software?

I don't think POWER ever had a full set of x86 instructions, but I vaguely recall that some chips had a few extra instructions that made emulation easier. The rest would have to be done in software with something like this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowerVM_Lx86

There's also Solaris for PowerPC.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23341721

https://virtuallyfun.com/2020/05/28/powerpc-solaris-on-the-r...

I remember seeing the roller coaster demo on a powerpc prep machine connected to a token ring network. Now those were the days!

God help us, OS2/Warp.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com