Installing OS/2 on a PS/2 Model 80: 5000 Subscriber Special

I’ve hit 5,000 subscribers, and what better way to celebrate than to install an old operating system on a lumbering battlestation? In a past video I said I’d install IBM’s OS/2 on the PS/2 Model 80 386, and now we’re doing it. How well does it run? Will I learn to love the Workplace Shell? I’m also giving a big channel update about ongoing projects and some of my thoughts about the vintage / retro / whatever scene. How well does OS/2 run on this massive 386? You’ll have to watch to find out.
Blog Post: www.userlandia.com/home/os2-o...
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= Chapters =
0:00 - Intro
0:29 - Setting Up OS/2 Warp
7:07 - Inside the OS/2 Warp Box
11:41 - 5K Subscriber Update: Thank You!
13:37 - 5K Update: Video Production
16:46 - 5K Update: The Retro Community
19:35 - 5K Update: Upcoming Projects
21:34 - 5K Update: Patreon
23:28 - Running OS/2 Warp on a 386
26:32 - The Workplace Shell Desktop
28:18 - Why Did OS/2 Fail?
32:32 - An Ode to OS/2
= Links =
* Another Boring Topic on OS/2 - • The Fall of OS/2
* RetroBytes on OS/2 - • The history of OS/2
* BlueSCSI - bluescsi.com
* WinWorld PC OS/2 Repository - winworldpc.com/product/os-2-3...
= Contact =
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[@AnonymousFreakYT]

Long time OS/2 user checking in. I don't remember *how* I learned about it, but somehow I got signed up for IBM's public beta of OS/2 2.0. Yes, the first IBM-only release, at the time that Windows 3.0 was the then-current version of Windows. I was in high school, and the only machines in the house that could run it were the primary family 486, which I wasn't allowed to mess with that much, or a PS/2 Model 30-286 my dad had gotten free from work as a "it's being retired" system that I spent my own money to buy a 386 upgrade and more RAM for. That brought it to the absolute bare minimum CPU, RAM, and hard drive space OS/2 supported. And even at the minimum, it was still far slower a machine than IBM expected, since that 386 was talking to the motherboard over a 286 bus. (At least the memory was on the CPU upgrade card that plugged into the 286 socket, so I wasn't limited to the 286's RAM support.) It was dog slow, but still better than using Windows 3.0. A couple years later, after graduating high school, I bought my own Pentium PC, and put OS/2 3.0 on it as my daily driver. I kept using OS/2 as my primary OS until Windows 98 came out - although I did always have a DOS/Windows partition for games that didn't run well on OS/2. And I kept beta-testing OSes, getting in on both the Windows 95 beta and the Windows NT 4.0 beta. Later I bought a beige Power Mac G3 used to run the Mac OS X Public Beta on. The next time it was time for a new laptop, I moved to a then-brand-new 12" PowerBook G4, and have been in Mac-land ever since. (Although my daily driver is a now-getting-old-in-Apple-years last-gen Intel MacBook Pro triple-booting macOS, Windows 10, and Linux. (Debian 12.))

[@Popclone]

Cool story bro!

[@MKnife]

I worked at the nordic IBM HelpWare Hotline and OS/2 Hotline in Copenhagen from June 1992 to December 1994, my first proper IT-job. So I was there just after the launch of OS/2 2.0 and the following versions, helping customers to install the thing. You are VERY correct in installing on a PS/2 was easymode, whereas installing on a random clone PC was often asking for trouble. Some had success (from floppies at least), but even slightly non-standard CD-Roms were hit-and-miss. And the joy of IBM supplying OS/2 2.1 (I think) for free on a CD in all of the nordics with a PC-magazine, and not telling us in support beforehand was something I'll remember forever. Chaos ensued.

[@userlandia]

I'm curious what the temperatures/policies were on dealing with customers in the various regions of the world. Here in the US IBM support was very corporate-focused, and I've read a lot of stories that IBM's customer support line was not happy that they were being flooded with home/iondividual user support requests. Some sources claim retailers had a nearly 50% return rate on OS/2 2.x because of installer troubles or having issues getting software like games to run.

[@JoebDragon]

Disk size to big can mess up OS/2 install. Without the updated install disks.

[@MKnife]

@@userlandia We mostly provided support for personal users, 1 year of free HelpWare when you bought an IBM pc, and a toll number (or whatever it's called, paying by the minute) for OS/2 support. We might have had the occasional corporate/SMB customer call us about OS/2 as well, but they were often network related things which we weren't allowed to support. Customers had to pay IBM much more for that. My memory is a bit hazy on the details, this was 32 years ago. There was no remote access, so we had to emulate whatever the customer did on our own systems and figure out what their issue was. We also had no email (apart from internal cc-mail) and internet access was rudimentary, through the internal IBM network using Web Explorer. I think it was early 1993 when I first encountered the web in a browser while working there. One more note; we also had to support the software supplied with the various PS/1, PS/2 and Aptiva computers. During christmas a bunch of games were often bundled, but didn't of course work without heavy autoexec.bat and config.sys editing, dictated over the phone to an (often slightly tipsy or plain drunk) end customer with kids screaming in the background for their games to work. Joy of joys! OS/2 did however run many dos games of the time surprisingly well; Doom, Alone in the Dark, Sam and Max, Monkey Island and whatnot. Good old times (mostly).

[@trumanbeal5668]

I worked at building 203 in RTP, NC.. Were you part of Northern Lights? I was a Co-op with IBM at school in 1996, working in OPSYS back then

[@MKnife]

@@trumanbeal5668 The HelpWare and OS/2 Hotline support center for the nordics (DK, FIN, SWE, NOR) started in late spring of 1992 in Copenhagen, Denmark and moved to Scotland some years later (at which time I had already moved on to other ventures).

[@NathanAllworth]

I grew up with computers. As a teenager I loved watching Tech TV. Channels like yours, Mac84, Macintosh Library, RetroBytes, Adrian’s Digital Basement, The Serial Port, and LGR aren’t just a successor but an improvement. Keep it up!

[@userlandia]

You know, I don't think we're necessarily _better_, but things are definitely different. I watched a lot of TechTV too (and Computer Chronicles before it). The main advantage is that you're not limited by a single channel on TV (or whatever the CC crew could cover that week). This makes for a great diversity of topics, hosts, and styles. I do miss something about the old days, but in general I agree that today we're eating pretty good at the old computers table.

[@revision386]

Right Here Right Now - Fatboy Slim Anyone Remember that song from TTV commercials?

[@JamesHalfHorse]

The youtube computer channels more than fill a large hole left by Tech TV and others like Computer Chronicles. It still pains me to think of Gary Kildall. Maybe one day I will find something others might find interesting and get the will to turn a camera on along with my soldering iron. But until then glad I found another good channel.

[@csudsuindustries]

I personally ran OS/2 Warp for years. Once I got my AMD 486 DX2/80 it was installed and with every hardware upgrade. Lucky enough the college I went to had a OS/2 lab and every quarter the lab was re-installed on Gateway P5-133 systems all with floppies. Then all were attached to the Netware network. Good times

[@fadate7292]

OS adoption stands on two main pillars: drivers for everything and native software. Miss one and the OS won't last long.

[@JamiesHackShack]

Enjoyed it as always. Congrats on surpassing 5K subs. I'm sure it will continue to climb because your content quality is excellent!

[@userlandia]

Thanks so much for enjoying things and sticking around!

[@daghtus]

I was one of the hopefully few fools who installed OS/2 3.0 using floppy disks on my PS/2 55SX (386SX16). Patience and prayer (for data integrity) were key.

[@userlandia]

But were you bad enough to install the fixpaks from floppies?

[@keiths-teeth]

Kind words about LGR's Channel. Hope your channel also get good coverage and your viewers give you the feedback you need to continue publishing that particular great content

[@cookiepotatohybrid1940]

You deserve WAY more subscribers in my personal opinion. I've seen alot of vintage tech youtubers and I can confidently say that your production quality is absolutely stellar! I wish nothing but the best

[@siliconinsect]

I'm watching this on a 42" Pioneer plasma from 2006 with nearly 40k hours driven by an HP Spectre laptop found in the trash -- old tech running Win11!

[@marksmith9566]

We had one OS/2 fan and he even found a use case for it. We were testing WORM drives for the Navy that did get installed. One problem was the combination of Windows maximum hard disk partition and limits to the maximum number of drive letters that could be assigned. OS 2 let ten drive letters be assigned to WORM partitions with a total of 15 for all drives. And this was a standard clone! I later found that by assigning the computer as a server, it MAY have let you use all 26 letters, but never maxed that configuration out. This was either OS/2 2 or OS/2 3. My case for worst setup was Windows 3.0 on a 3 1/2 iinch rewritable optical drive on a Zenith 286. Paint dries faster than that loaded!

[@siliconinsect]

This was cool to actually see it. I grew up circa Y2K with a mom who liked used book sales and they were flooded with OS/2 stuff. For whatever reason I never bit on a zombie x86 OS and played with Amiga and early Linux instead. Great vid and congrats on 5k!

[@userlandia]

Oh, I did try early Linux too... that's an adventure that put me off "desktop linux" for a decade.

[@lmoore3rd]

We had OS/2 2.1 in my high school. I tried 0S/2 Warp 3.0 in the mid 90's on a 386 DX 25 with 4 MB RAM at home. I really liked it but no readily available native software choices. At least it made neat laser sounds when opening and closing windows. Windows 95 came out and that killed it for me.

[@GavinAnderegg]

Yay! I was 1/5000th of the reason for this getting made! Thanks for making fun videos!

[@userlandia]

Every 1/5000th counts!

[@MichaelAStanhope]

I ran OS/2 Warp 3 on a PS/2 Model 80 for years because it was the only OS at the time that had true pre-emptive multitasking that would run on a 386DX/25. I did have 16mb of RAM in it and a SCSI HDD since I used it as a BBS machine for years. It was always solid and never really crashed. I had to install mine with actual floppy disks the first time, the 2nd time after I repalced the first failed HDD I had a 6x NEC Multispin SCSI CD-ROM which made life much easier.

[@alexie40stencsi5]

You know Dan..I'm dedicated since the 80...I died along with them..idee 90..was some years. 😢😢😢😢😢😢😢thanks for reminder me how nice 90 gets.. was..😢😢😢😢 Indeed..this make me cry..knowing I'll never be young again😢😢😢😢

[@psyolent.]

have great memories of OS2 - first came across it running on a PS2 Model 95 - was blown away when I saw WIN/OS2 - can still remember seeing it for the first time like it was yesterday. Later days I went on to support PS2 Model 55 and the occasionally PS2 Model 80. I supported a site which had Model 95 servers running OS2 2.11 and the end users had PS2 Model 55 running OS2 1.3. OS2 was an amazing OS and its a shame it wasn't marketed and died shortly after. And yes you're right many ATMs ran OS2 for a very long time!

[@henson2k]

I'm amazed how pleasant boxed software of the past feels. Remember Windows XP boxes, what a treasure!

[@brandonupchurch7628]

This reminds me, maybe someday NCommander will get OS/2 installed on his model 30 286.

[@userlandia]

Woof. Even OS/2 1.3 with maxed out RAM (like with a 2-16MB PS/2 expansion adapter) would be a rough time. But it'd be a good watch.

[@user-yp2xo2xb4l]

Got vivid memories of those OS/2 installation progress bars, can't unseen them one of a kind styling

[@orestes1984]

You mean I can install O 2 on my PlayStation 2?

[@BWGPEI]

Brother, you bring back memories. It's been a long time since I ran OS/2, but do remember liking it a lot. I consider it a pity that OS/2 never really went mainstream.

[@userlandia]

Glad you could relive some good memories!

[@robjones3818]

Wow, didn't realize until now you only had 5000 subs! Your content is fantastic, one of my fave retrocomputing creators. You deserve a lot more. Keep it up and I'm sure you'll grow more!

[@ShadowRune]

Just discovered your channel, you have a pleasing voice to listen to and your knowledgeable about the topics that you speak about. Looking forward to your next video

[@JeanLuc1964]

I still have a running copy of OS/2 Warp 4 (and its successor eCOMStation) as a virtual machine running on an Apple Mac. In Germany, OS/2 had a short commercial success in 1994/95 because two big German computer discounters decided to bundle their computers with OS/2 instead of Windows 3.11 - and let the customers use their already existing Windows 3.11 licenses instead. At that time, my main computer ran OS/2 Warp 3, there was an Office package called StarOffice (from a German company) and I even started developing under OS/2 with the Borland C++ Development Environment. Compared to the Program Manager in Windows 3.11, the OS/2 Launchpad was a great step forward. But with Windows 95 that successful year also ended in Germany. 20 years later, I discovered the OS/2 Warp 4 CD-ROM and tried to install it in a virtual machine - and it worked! This OS/2 machine is now the only computer to run old 16bit Windows 3.11 programs, since Microsoft removed the 16bit support from Windows 10.

[@myrandom603]

Congrats on hitting 5k - excellent production and narration on your videos!

[@RetroTechChris]

Congrats on 5000 subs! Love the high-quality content you have here on the channel, Dan! Keep rocking it!

[@aaron71]

Excellent video! Perfect tower for this :)

[@joeconti2396]

You were an SA Goon? Man. Those were wild times. I gave up my ten bux back in 2004.

[@eznix]

I discovered OS/2 in 1994 at my university's computer store and used it as my main OS until Windows 2000 proved to be the first version of Windows that actually worked well enough for daily use. I did experiment with BeOS, Linux, and QNX 6 (QNX enjoyed a brief period of open source existence in the late 90's). At one point in the late 90's I was quad-booting OS/2, Win98, BeOS, and Linux. I gave Windows NT 3.51 and 4.0 a try as well, but the NTFS filesystem would self-corrupt to easily and they proved to be of very limited use to me.

[@greendblink182]

Can't wait for the documentary!

[@Madness832]

In 1994, I went to Egghead Software, in Downtown Boston, and bought the red-spine CD edition. It was run on a 486 clone w/ a 2x CD-ROM, a 420MB HDD and 20MB RAM. And it connected to the Internet w/ a 14.4k modem.

[@redashrajal]

congratulations on the 5k subs. I just subscribed due to Me liking this "old" content. Thanks for the video.

[@BollingHolt]

HA! Still watching and I just chuckled at Shade Tree Mechanic. My dad and I used to watch that in the 90s all time time. I can still here the little guitar/piano theme song in my head.

[@userlandia]

There's episodes uploaded on KZbin. And that theme song's been living rent free in my head too. There's a bit of kayfabe to STM, like how you know Sam and Dave have assistants helping out on the builds and that things are sometimes written around sponsorships. But it felt the most straightforward of the DIY car shows.

[@BollingHolt]

@@userlandia I believe you are spot on with your assessment.

[@hyoenmadan]

31:32 Actually, OS/2 for PPC wasn't just an IBM "experiment with microkernels" but a desperate attempt to put in use all the technology they did during their alliance with Apple and Motorola. OS/2 for PPC is the nephew of Taligent Project. TaligentOS was supposed to be AIM's Windows NT, an OS with "Multiple Personalities" based in a Microkernel and hardware platform agnostic (HAL). It would run MacOS, OS/2 and AIX applications, had an improved DOS/Windows VDM support not different from a full fledged Virtualization Program as we know today), and the appearance would be similar to what Apple did on Copland, with OpenDoc and all the SOM things. OS/2 Warp has the Object Model from Taligent, and OS/2 PPC has the multiple personality Core, but after Apple departed, it ended running only OS/2 personality (just as happened with Windows NT only running the Windows personality, despite still having capabilities to run subsystems, as shown in WSL v1 and the Android Subsystem experiment "Andromeda Project"). In absence of Apple HFS, OS/2 would attempt to use JFS together with the IBM LVM ported from AIX. Some of the stuff developed for Taligent and OS/2 PPC made back into OS/2 Warp 4 and the Merlin/Aurora Partner Service Releases, but the Core and Microkernel stuff never did... Reason why OS/2 v4, unlike Windows NT, is still so tied to the x86/BIOS platform, unable to run in an UEFI environment (Arca has tried to lately to make it work in UEFI, but so far no more news have come from them). In this except is like Windows 95/98 platform, an evolutionary end with its core made in hand crafted x86 ASM.

[@userlandia]

Yup, I'm well aware of the folly of Taligent, although I didn't use the word "experiment." ;) Going on a ten-minute tangent about how Workplace OS was the real killing blow to x86/desktop OS/2 was outside my scope. If it weren't for today's misadventures Taligent might still rank as the number one multi-company boondoggle that wasted everybody's time and money. But that's hindsight for you.

[@hyoenmadan]

@@userlandia Would be nice if someday you would talk a bit of WorkplaceOS, Taligent's Alliance and its only known "product", the historical footnote called OS/2 for PPC. Unfortunately Taligent never produced an actual build, alpha, beta or not to install, and hardware to run OS/2 PPC is exotic and almost impossible to come on as well, so it may not happen :-(.

[@cappaculla]

Great video...

[@datashed]

The Aptiva message was because OS/2 Warp v3 didn't ship with drivers for the mWave sound card and modem installed in Aptiva systems of the era. I had one, and called to get directions on downloading the drivers from the IBM Personal Systems Products BBS. But, the drivers were of far lower quality than those in the preloaded Windows 95, so I switched to a Sound Blaster 16 and an external Cardinal MVP288XF modem.

[@userlandia]

Thanks for the insight!

[@jamesdecross1035]

Interesting comments about making videos. I'd like to give it a try. I find the idea difficult. Good to hear how you overcome it.

[@userlandia]

It's still a struggle, tbh. If I could record myself talking to the camera and cut in some things here and there (a la technology connections) it would make things easier... in some ways and not others. Other people are able to get away with still images, or mostly stock footage, or even just static shots. Writing and recording audio is easy, relatively speaking. Even editing video is "easy," for a given value; it just takes time. Assuming I have all the footage and resources. But filming, THAT is the hard part. Needing to film requires having the hardware, staging everything, organizing shots... It's just an order of magnitude more work. That Apple IIGS thing would've been out already if I didn't have to film it. I feel like my workflow is very janky, that everything I do could be done better. It takes me at least a week to film and edit the video together (if I'm lucky). Then there's the inevitable missed shots, the things I didn't think of, etc. This video was supposed to be just me talking over the installation process, but, well... All that said, the best thing you can do is just start and iterate. Making mistakes is the best way to learn. As Jobs said, great artists ship.

[@the_kombinator]

Hah my principal in grade 8 had this on his SX 486 (IBM, obviously) on his desk. He made the mistake of leaving me in there with it - I was not sure how to use OS/2, but I did recognize the DOS prompt option. From there, all his files were deleted, and after a reboot to the DOS prompt (OS/2 failed to load IIRC), a format was done. I had to wait another 20 minutes for him to come back and I just sat there, sweating bullets. He tried to restart it, and I'm sure he was greeted with INT 18H ROM NOT FOUND or something similar. He was pretty pissed - he looked at me and asked if I knew anything about this, I played dumb. He restarted several times, hit some keys, then the bell rang for the end of lunch - he looked at me and said to just go back to class, he has bigger problems than dealing with me. I loved that guy, he got me started in my IT career ;)

[@userlandia]

As good a motivation as any other.

[@Taras-Nabad]

Running OS/2 on a real PS/2 is very cool.

[@LatitudeSky]

My old job had a black box government agency-owned PC our network. The hardware was ultra secure, very hands off except for when we would get update CDs via courier. We had to put in the disc and wait to load more. Occasionally it would reboot doing this and display the OS/2 boot screen for just a moment.

[@franzbernasek4058]

I love IBM OS/2 Warp 3 and 4

[@bertnijhof5413]

Somewhere between 1993 and 1995 I dual booted Windows for Workgroups 3.11 and OS/2 Warp 3 on a 486DX66 with 8 MB RAM and a 200 MB HDD. To be honest I almost always used WfW 3.11. I still have that 486, but no desk space for it, so recently I downloaded the OS/2 Warp 4.52 vdi file for Virtualbox and added OS/2 Warp 4.52 to my ~60 Virtual Machines. I just detect OS/2 has a nice chess program, so I have some fun this week :)

[@annihilatorg]

My OS2 install story goes: In 2002 I found a boxed copy of os2 2.1. I tried to install it on a 486 laptop. I got a CRC error right around disk 18, hosing the install. Good times. I did eventually get another set of disks and installed it, but that wasn't fun. Thank god for flash-based drive emulation these days.

[@Stinktierchen]

I remember back in the mid 90s I tried to install OS/2 on my computer. Somehow I never succeeded :D

[@gstcomputing65]

Big shout out to the official ArcaOS site on Facebook who posted a link to your video.

[@BollingHolt]

Congrats on your subscribers! I'll be happy when I finally hit 1k! LOL

[@oscarcharliezulu]

I remember doing this myself - v2.0. What a shit ton of floppies.

[@mkonji8522]

I used OS/2 Warp 3 for a little since I had come from the Unix world as a programmer, and there, Microsoft was the butt of jokes so I ended up trying OS/2. I couldn't really afford a good RISC Sun Sparc so I decided to build myself a x86 box and needed an OS for it, hence OS/2 warp 3. Nonetheless I ended up with a having stability issues with OS/2 warp 3 on my workstation at the time (95/96 or so) and a friend at my university gave me some Slackware 3.1 discs. Needless to say I've been a slacker since then. Love the video though and really been enjoying your content.

[@colinwatt9387]

I had friends that developed apps for OS/2. Previously, they were Jaguar developers...

[@osiris1802]

I used to write applications and system programs in C and C++ for OS/2 Warp back in the early to mid 1990s. Personally I liked it a lot. So sad it never got the proper support from other manufacturers and software developer.

[@klaassiersma4892]

I tried OS2 warp a bit in those days, my brother had it running on his 486dx. He was a pc guy from DOS onward. I was more of a Mac guy, I started with a second hand Mac se 30 and a 5400 a bit later on, ( loved the se30). I could not imagine ever learning dos and seen my brother bash his keyboard a bit too often running windows 3.1, so it was macs for me. OS 2 warp on the other hand looked and worked a lot like system 7 on a Mac, and I kind of liked it to be honest. It goes to show marketing is everything, I think it could have been the os for the masses instead of win 95 which I did not like ether.

[@mattgarlets3939]

I remember installing warp 3 on my 386sx 25mhz! It took me a couple of days to get it to install correctly

[@userlandia]

This install took about three hours on a Saturday afternoon. It would've taken less if I didn't install all the networking components. Updating to Fixpak 40 (once I figured out how to do it) took another three hours.

[@denniseldridge2936]

By rights I should avoid this video like the plague, having spent a whole night in a freezing cold server room in short sleeves installing and reinstalling OS/2 Server Manager (forgot the correct name) 1.3 over and over again from floppies (what's that they say about insanity?). I had no clue what I was doing though, which didn't help lol. I think the idea was to integrate the OS/2 server with their AS/400 system somehow, but I never did figure out the magic incantations necessary to do so.

[@userlandia]

Connecting an OS/2 system to an AS/400 required at least three IBM wizards to conduct the incantations simultaneously. You were being set up to fail, unfortunately.

[@MKnife]

You probably meant OS/2 1.3 Extended Edition (kind of an OS/2 server) with the Communication Manager component, which enabled networking with SNA and IBM's mainframe computers. There was also a Database Manager addon, and an IBM Lan Server package, sort of a precursor to Microsoft Lan Manager.

[@denniseldridge2936]

@@MKnife Indeed it was, it's been a few thousand years since I did it lol. It was actually around the early 90s if I remember correctly.

[@denniseldridge2936]

@@userlandia LOL, so I found out! And I got no help from the AS/400 wizards themselves, even though the company that sold and maintained TELCO's systems owned the IBM PC dealership. And yes, I know that that was technically a no-no that they owned a PC dealership lol.

[@blackghost7263]

Aptivas shipped with non-parity ram sticks which OS/2 wouldn't install on and was the real reason for that little note from IBM

[@paulwarner5395]

Thanx for the video. The only time I used OS2 was in the late 1990s on a voicemail system called SmoothOperator made by Compass in Florida later bought out by Octel and now long gone. I have a VM here at home with OS2 Warp on it. Good play thing but can't do much with it. A real pity that IBM hadn't been a bit smarter instead of thinking that people will always buy IBM and let Microsoft take it all.

[@jeffb6786]

My first exposure to OS/2 was on my boss's PS/2 Model 80, and it was version 2.1. I only used it a few times, and I was using WFW 3.11 on my own 486/66 at the time. Goofed around with a red spine Warp 3 years later (Still have the original box and software) on an AMD K6/2-350 and it was fun to use a different OS, but due to lack of software, it got boring pretty quickly. My latest attempt was Warp 4.52 on an IBM PC 340, and strangely enough it has driver issues. I tried same install CD's on a generic PII and everything worked great. SMH. It's also pretty snappy on a PII -350 with 32 Meg RAM. All these years later it seems a little cumbersome to use, but it's fun to throwback to the past from time to time. I gave up on the PC 340 and just put Win 95 on it and it seems happy enough. Some things never change.

[@pigpenpete]

Only interaction I had with OS/2 was as the fileserver for a Windows 3.1 network at school, but I'd never have known it if I weren't told about it. I never saw it in the metal. That and a brief go on a virtual machine but I didn't have a clue what to do after that 🤷

[@northof-62]

My friendly neighbour came running with all his OS/2 floppies upon learning that I had built my own PC back in 95. He was against MS already back then. So I ended up with a 486 with the OS/2 Boot Manager filled to the brim with DOS, Win3, Win95 and Warp 3. Later I found a heavily discounted Warp 3 with the Works suite at our local newsagent of all places. And even later I managed to get a copy of Warp 4. By then Linux had arrived. I still have all my hw & software from back then. Good times. (But I hated doing the Fixpaks)

[@userlandia]

Your neighbor reminds me that the common thread I've found in so much OS/2 history (reading contemporary and retrospective writing) is that so many of its users weren't necessarily pro OS/2, but anti-MS. Yeah, a lot of Apple users were anti-MS in the 90s (and still are today) but you could point to something in the Macintosh that made it special. OS/2 4 finally got there, I think, in terms of the system's thesis but by then it was too late. For all its flaws the classic Mac OS was popular not so much because it was anti-MS but because it had real unique selling points compared to DOS or Windows. That's not to say there weren't people who loved OS/2 for its own sake, but IBM was telling on itself when they used their "Better DOS than DOS, better Windows than Windows" slogan.

[@northof-62]

@@userlandia Indeed. I still miss the object oriented desktop. None of the present OSes have the capability of adjusting the colours and fonts of individual file manager windows for example. Now it's either all dark, bright or whatever theme we choose, except for some apps.

[@the_kombinator]

I have OS/2 warp on floppies - I think I will dual install it on my PS/1000 Blue Lightning.

[@pianoman4Jesus]

At @9:28 IBM Corporation, Boca Raton, FL.... R.I.P. At @10:08 Just yesterday I blew collected dust off a hobby project of mine to port a program I developed to VisPro Rexx on OS/2.... VX-Rexx's competitor. (And I have both products.) At @26:57 IBM also was focused on turning the legacy System/36 and System/38 into the AS/400 platform also in the 1990's, which also had very object based concepts in its design. At @27:09 Stardock's Object Desktop absolutely rocks. My OS/2 systems still utilize it. At @33:02 "back in the day" was the year 1992 for me. That year Microsoft released Windows 3.1. I evaluated it for my consulting business which I started in the mid 1980's. I rejected it. Not stable enough for my clients. That same year, I was suggested to give OS/2 2.1 a try. It could run, without crashing, the same Windows 3.1 program that would crash on the real Microsoft Windows. I was sold! Hook, line, sinker, boat, motor! In the mid 2000's, again dealing with running Windows as a desktop OS.... I was really missing the promises IBM made (to me) back starting in 1992. November of 2007 I pitch "Linux on the desktop" to a potential client I am in a hiring competition for. Shortly after, I have opportunity to prototype my proposal. I was testing Ubuntu 7.04 at the time. Within a very short time, I am having success with Linux on the desktop for the first time, and through a virtualization product, I even port over my OS/2 eComStation 1.2R machine image and run it in a VM environment on top of Linux. For me, Linux is OS/3! 😎

[@caseyjones1999]

Does anyone else notice he sounds just like "does not compute" ?

[@zzco]

8:52 Also RIP to Computer City and CompUSA.

[@siliconinsect]

RIP Fry's too. At least Micro Center is doing well.

[@wysoft]

I begged my parents to get me OS/2 Warp not long before Windows 95 came out, all because I had found OS/2 for Dummies at the local library which had an additional chapter on Warp. I thought it seemed like the coolest thing ever. Fortunately they said No, you are not overwriting our functioning computer with some "better" software we've never heard of, and not too long after I was able to pirate a copy of Windows 95 from a friend shortly after it was released. I never got to try OS/2 Warp until decades later, and only then running in PCem... and it was not very impressive. I can't believe how much UI inconsistency and general weirdness was going on in OS/2. It's clear that there were too many cooks in the kitchen, and IBM had basically thrown in the towel on later versions of OS/2 as a product when it was clear that it would never compete with Windows 9x.

[@userlandia]

Yes, there's a lot of inconsistency and weirdness, but it's like seeing a nice gem that needs some polish. That's what's more disappointing, I think-with some more refinement over time it could have gotten there. But MS had to basically nail the replacement for Win3.1, and they pretty much did. Even with Win9x's issues, it still executed where it counted. I'm not sure today's Microsoft could pull that off again.

[@MichaelAStanhope]

OS/2 was also the superior operating system at the time since it could run Windows, OS/2, and DOS applications. No other OS could do that. Plus it was basically a 32bit native OS which MS wouldn't come out with until NT.

[@althunder4269]

My IT Manager boss was an Ex-IBMer and forced the whole company to use OS/2 and I hated it. There were hardly any drivers for it and Office didn't work on it, we had to run Lotus (IBM owned Lotus). He also forced us to use Token Ring instead of Ethernet. We leased PCs with Windows and Ethernet built in and we had to disable that and install TR cards that cost almost $300 each and load OS/2 when we had already paid for the Windows licenses in the lease. He had a huge hate on for Microsoft and Gates and he brought that prejudice to the company. It was crazy.

[@userlandia]

My condolences on throwing away perfectly good ethernet for Token Ring. What's the saying about a fool and his money?

[@althunder4269]

@@userlandia I went to school and used DEC VAXes and when I got my first job out of college I was programming on an IBM System/36 which was like the stone age compared to the VAX.

[@MichaelAStanhope]

And those Tribble cards are a pain with the lack of over 1gb support (without mods which are easy these days). They are pretty slow too compared to the Spock card with its cache on it. I find the MCIDECF card works just as good, if not better, than a Spock adapter these days, and there are no limits on drive side on the physical hardware, just what the software can handle.

[@andrew1977au]

I've still got my os2 warp, boxed and still with its 1000 floppy discs 😅

[@JohnVance]

I had no idea their Pantone color was 286, that's hilarious

[@userlandia]

If you want a good time google IBM's brand design guidelines! Their current color palette is well thought out. But for these vintage items, I held a swatch up to the registration card and 286 was the closest match I could get. I figured they'd use the same color for the interior pages, but I don't have an uncoated book to truly confirm them.

[@danielktdoranie]

I used OS/2 Warp 4 Connect though out most of the 90s on various ThinkPads and PC clone towers before I moved to Linux and then Mac OS X and Linux. OS/2 Warp, unlike Windows 95 and 98 wasn’t susceptible to Back Orifice like Win 9x was… MS did not patch that until Windows XP (or if you used NT Workstation)

[@procta2343]

I managed to get my hands on a boxed copy of OS/2 2.1? Might be the same boxed version you have there, i tried it on a pentium 3 none IBM system, the msdos part of it went through no bother, and it started the installation. Then i started to run into random errors, i put it down to the hardware i was using. It might not of liked the hardware it was trying to install on. I also did get my hands on the OS/2 warp 4.0 server, it had not been opened at all. I ended up giving them away to a mate who is setting up a computer museum, along with some other spare parts. That's about as close, i got to OS/2, i was curious about it, with it been another computer OS, i was tempted to buy the boxed Lan Manager, when that came up. But that went before i got the chance, and i have not seen another boxed at all. I have got windows 286, to windows 2003 all boxed, just got my hands on MSDOS 5 boxed. I cannot get my hands on windows 1.0 or ME boxed. ( i can get the windows ME upgrade, but i am not interested)

[@TheMadisonHang]

Maybe a sub dept of the company

[@MichaelAStanhope]

and if you think OS/2 runs slow on this machine, try running Windows 95 on it. Its even worse, its honestly barely useable. There are tweaks you can do to the interface to speed it up. I always ran mine is greyscale to help with screen redraws since there is less info, plus I ran it on the onboard VGA card which was horrible for OS/2. At least you are running it on the XGA/2 card, thats the best option.

[@datashed]

Do you have stairs in your house?

[@userlandia]

Yes. I've been warned about them repeatedly.

[@TheLumpenMaoist]

tbf tho, windows 9x functionality on a 386 is hella impressive; Windows 95 barely runs on a 486 DX2, mofucka wouldnt run on a mid-80s 386 OS/2 is unfortunate, as it really did show us a lot of the user features that we have only really seen appear in Linux later down the line, OS/2 was so ahead of its time its unreal

[@EnigPartyhaus]

Only IBM could come up with an OS install process so obtuse with just floppies Also on the IIGS subject, I've been having thoughts lately about seeing how stable the system is with the 28mhz crystal replaced with a 57mhz one since it is the exact doubled frequency

[@blackghost7263]

MS made win95 OSR 2.0 floppy disk installer bundles...

[@TonyPombo]

I like that you installed OS/2 on a PS/2, but I wish you had installed a more contemporary version for the Model 80. Like OS/2 version 1.x or 2.x :(

[@userlandia]

I did consider earlier versions, but I went with Warp because it's what I owned for a boxed copy and because Warp 3 should be more performant than 2.1.

[@TonyPombo]

@@userlandia Fair enough. However OS/2 1.3 would have likely performed better on that old hardware. I appreciate your video regardless. Thank you!

[@userlandia]

OS/2 1.3 would've been the period appropriate choice, yes. But I found it interesting how many people in old OS/2 newsgroups were posting about running Warp on their Model 80s. Have to wonder how many of them had put Blue Lightnings or upgrade planars in there. Some specified, many didn't.

[@TonyPombo]

@@userlandia Interesting. Thanks for sharing!

[@jsvideos2261]

Hello!

[@UnbornApple]

Seeing all of the inserts in the box really brought me back. OS/2 software truly has some of the worst names. What the hell is a CA-REALIZER.

[@userlandia]

CA-Realizer wasn't just for OS/2! Computer Associates released that devkit for Windows 3.1 and Win95 as well. It was an alternative to Visual Basic. Devkits were getting some funky names back then.

[@AdrianPenalo]

And what you thought of OS/2 2.1?

[@userlandia]

I've used OS 2 v2 a grand total of once. I'd have to spend more time with it to make a better judgment.

[@TheMadisonHang]

What it got to do with ps2

[@Jazztoasty101]

thought it was lgr from the start of the video

[@bkbreyme]

OS'2 warp 3 looks very corporate... until you get to its weird technicolor "Settings" panel. Not only is it eye-searingly ugly, but it is hard to use, with no "Apply" or "OK" button. Everything takes effect immediately when selected in the drop down, but usually requires a restart for you to see the results.

[@userlandia]

And you have to drag the elements on to every single object, the set defaults is very clunky, and we're not even touching what some people would inflict on their systems with Object Desktop. OD really is a cool piece of software but it's another case where sometimes giving a user too much freedom isn't helpful. And for some reason IBM thought to use very large font sizes by default, which even on an XGA screen were excessive. Some tab notebooks don't even fit on a 640x480 display!

[@MotownBatman]

Blue Spine is the Ul;timate OS that didnt Make It LOL

[@tschak909]

oh man, wrong PS/2 to put this on, oooof.

[@zzco]

Already seen ABT's video on it!

[@irix4d701]

Installing OS/2 is a breeze compared to installing any release of IRIX. This coming from someone who has installed IRIX 4D1-3.x; IRIX 4.0.x; IRIX 5.3.x; IRIX 6.2; IRIX 6.4 and IRIX 6.5.x.

[@Popclone]

All I see in this weak video is 5K Patrion -give me money update -, this video is very vague. I was expecting you the viewers also whats with the OS Warp 5 or also called ArcaOS. This video smells like expired toilet paper.

[@the_kombinator]

Please don't be LGR - he doesn't really know or have experience with 90s PCs. Be better, as you already are content-wise.

[@kostis2849]

Your video and audio are of decent quality. But please consider changing your narrative style and prose, you come across as a brat.

[@CandyGramForMongo_]

I’m here for the tech. With due respect, I’m not here for you. Make a second channel for personal, “how I got here” videos.

[@stfuomgdude]

I miss the Retsupurae days. Wild that you had a hand in making LPs a thing. This is the kind of shit I really enjoy

[@porovaara]

here's an untapped market about what could have been: desQview/X. dos, windows and X11 recompiled binaries in one GUI... for a brief window it was the absolute best of all worlds and this was when OS/2 was out and linux was just invading the colleges.

[@userlandia]

I never used DesqView. I can see the appeal. It's interesting how OSes/environments diverged along "current" needs of the time versus preparing for the future. The tradeoffs made for both are always interesting.

[@iCQ_www.SPCL.tk_]

i love your own thing AND i love LGR