Well, I've written about OS/2 too much here before.
ISTM, still, that if IBM had listened to MS, made it 386-specific and able to multitask DOS apps from v1.0, which MS already had demonstrated that it had the tech to do, it probably would have been a rousing success.
Whether that would have been better for the industry is an entirely different question. :-)
That, IMHO, was the core error that doomed IBM.
Inasmuch as there is simply no way they could ever spend themselves out of the resultant mess, no matter how many people they threw at it -- 100% agree.
The point about incremental progress is a strong one. OTOH, with that sort of safe, cautious progress, it's very very hard to ever make big steps. And ISTM that contemporary computing is caught in several difficult blind alleys, to do with large-scale distributed systems built from poorly-chosen tech, and that will require giant leaps to escape.
As in, Plan 9 had better answers to clustering than anything Linux can offer, even if you bolt on vast, incomprehensible complexity. Inferno had better answers to cross-platform binaries than WebAssembly or anything in any interpreted, JITted scripting language.
But you can't get there from here.
I like your point about DEC and MICA. I've only recently been digging into the history of the decline and fall of DEC and finding out about this. Tragic, really.
NT wasn't just MICA, though. There was an injection of OS/2 3, AKA OS/2 NT, in there too. And some Windows influence too.
I liked NT, before the marketing folks got their claws too deeply into it. I liked Win 95, too. What it did, with the technology and the software, hardware and drivers of the time, was nothing short of amazing, really.
I bought OS/2 2.0 for cash. Never done that with any other OS in my life. I got "Windows Chicago" as a free beta via PC Pro. It banes me to admit it, but for all practical uses, W95 was better in every measurable or demonstrable way than OS/2 2.x.
It was prettier, had a much better UI, faster, much more compatible, and in real life about as stable. It was no contest.
no subject
Whoops -- wrong account.
Well, I've written about OS/2 too much here before.
ISTM, still, that if IBM had listened to MS, made it 386-specific and able to multitask DOS apps from v1.0, which MS already had demonstrated that it had the tech to do, it probably would have been a rousing success.
Whether that would have been better for the industry is an entirely different question. :-)
That, IMHO, was the core error that doomed IBM.
Inasmuch as there is simply no way they could ever spend themselves out of the resultant mess, no matter how many people they threw at it -- 100% agree.
The point about incremental progress is a strong one. OTOH, with that sort of safe, cautious progress, it's very very hard to ever make big steps. And ISTM that contemporary computing is caught in several difficult blind alleys, to do with large-scale distributed systems built from poorly-chosen tech, and that will require giant leaps to escape.
As in, Plan 9 had better answers to clustering than anything Linux can offer, even if you bolt on vast, incomprehensible complexity. Inferno had better answers to cross-platform binaries than WebAssembly or anything in any interpreted, JITted scripting language.
But you can't get there from here.
I like your point about DEC and MICA. I've only recently been digging into the history of the decline and fall of DEC and finding out about this. Tragic, really.
NT wasn't just MICA, though. There was an injection of OS/2 3, AKA OS/2 NT, in there too. And some Windows influence too.
I liked NT, before the marketing folks got their claws too deeply into it. I liked Win 95, too. What it did, with the technology and the software, hardware and drivers of the time, was nothing short of amazing, really.
I bought OS/2 2.0 for cash. Never done that with any other OS in my life. I got "Windows Chicago" as a free beta via PC Pro. It banes me to admit it, but for all practical uses, W95 was better in every measurable or demonstrable way than OS/2 2.x.
It was prettier, had a much better UI, faster, much more compatible, and in real life about as stable. It was no contest.