Rest in Peace, Mr. Ritchie

[krw]

I can't help it if you're net illiterate, as well.

[Bob Martin]

I was thinking of main-frames ...

[J. Clarke]

An aside, but FWIW, the '286 had a full set of protection mechanisms-- what it lacked was the ability to virtualize itself and run code written for a machine with protections disabled in a protected virtual machine. Unix System V ran fine on the 80286 with all the protections in place, but there wasn't a way to run a DOS box under Unix other than by switching the CPU to unprotected mode and back. And there was a bug in the hardware that caused problems with that switch--Novell, AT&T, and others managed to work around the bug, but somehow Digital Research never did and lost a lot of momentum as a result.

[jclarke782542]

m II, I believe that United Technologies, which counts among its subsidiaries Pratt & Whitney and Sikorski, counts as a "decent sized business" and they had company-provide Apple IIs before IBM shipped their first PC.

[jclarke782542]

I bought several copies at the Electronics Boutique store in the local mall. It was not at all difficult to obtain.

So what? Anybody who wanted something else just had to buy it and install it, same as today.

Electronics Boutique was a retailer. And they were not the only one that had OS/2 on the shelf.

If you think that IBM needed Microsoft to develop an OS for them you're clueless. IBM was shipping 32-bit preemptively multitasking protected virtual operating systems when Bill Gates was still in high school.

Microsoft bailed on OS/2 because Windows was making much more money for them, pure and simple.

And if IBM was selling a million copies a month then it must have been more available than you claim.

[jclarke782542]

=20

You could buy PC-DOS or MS-DOS. PC-DOS came in a gray binder that said "IB= M" on the cover, MS-DOS came in a green binder that said "Microsoft" on the= cover. The only functional difference was that the one that said "Microso= ft" on the cover included a BASIC interpreter that would run on a machine w= ithout ROM-BASIC while the one in the IBM version required ROM-BASIC.

IBM never bundled the green binders with their own machines, but you could = buy the grey binder version without a machine.

[Jack]

It was not at all difficult to obtain.

same as today.

OS/2 on the shelf.

Egghead also said they sold OS/2 but they never had it on the shelf. I never heard of Electronics Boutique, but I believe you.

Nothing I said should give you that idea. IBM contracted with Gates for the DT/PC OS. They could have written it themselves with no problem. Why they contracted with Gates is pure speculation, but NEVER did I say it was because IBM couldn't do it themselves. My GUESS is IBM didn't think the PC market would do anything, and if it did, they didn't want another anti-trust suit, so they contracted with a dipshit they thought they could control.

IBM wanted Gates to develop OS/2 so they could use it as the OS for ATM machines, which had to be stable, unlike DOS/WIN. When Gates couldn't deliver after years of trying, IBM did it themselves in less than a year, after Gates said it was impossible to do what IBM wanted.

Now, I think between MS, IBM and INTEL, they have a cartel and it will take an act of god to get them to do more than rip everyone off.

systems when > Bill Gates was still in high school.

Doesn't change the fact they contracted with Gates to provide an OS for their PC. Gates didn't even HAVE one at the time. IBM could have gone to Patterson themselves and bought the OS instead of Gates. I don't know why they didn't, but the most likely story I heard was Gates mother was in with some IBM big cheese.

pure and simple.

MS never could get OS/2 to work. IBM took the project off of MS when they failed to deliver. IBM dropped OS/2 when it started to threaten MS corner on the DT/PC OS market. Why they did this is speculative, my feeling is the anti-trust thing, combined with the cozy cartel IBM/MS/INTEL has going for them.

All I know is you could not buy a PC at any retail outlet (other than possibly IBM, not sure about that) with OS/2 installed. None of the retail stores around here sold OS/2, I know that because I had to get my copies directly from IBM. The sales numbers were being reported by OS/2 user groups, I don't know where they got their numbers but I was following them closely because I was keenly interested. IBM did little to no retail marketing of OS/2, and most of the noise about it came from delighted users, and the OS/2 user group. The user group got some, but very little support from IBM. It was obvious to me that IBM was not interested in competing with the company to which they bestowed the DT/PC OS market. IMO, had they wanted to, they could have crushed Gates and MS like a grape.

[krw]

It was not at all difficult to obtain.

it, same as today.

OS/2 on the shelf.

EB was a chain similar to GameStop (a store in every mall). So similar that GameStop bought the competition.

Actually, the couldn't. It would have cost *far* too much.

For the anticipated 25K units? No, the reason they didn't write it themselves is that it would have cost 100x too much. The PC was a "skunkworks" project, flying under the RADAR of the monster. The whole design team was only a few people.

ATMs were *one* application for OS/2. There were *many* others.

They "have" a cartel? IBM isn't even in that business anymore. BTW, Intel and MS hate each other.

systems when

I've never heard that story and I worked for the beast. Any citations?

pure and simple.

Baloney. IBM withdrew it when it was clear there was no money to be had. There was no money to be had because they didn't want to spend the $200M needed to market it. IBM was in tough shape in the early '90s, borrowing money to pay dividends.

There were retail outlets, both storefront and Internet, that sold PCs with OS/2 installed. Dell, HP, and Gateway didn't, if that's what you mean.

Wrong.

[m II]

That's one I have never heard of.

Geeezzzz I used a Radio Scrap CoCo II, running a multitasking, multi user O/S with 32K for a business.

m II, I believe that United Technologies, which counts among its subsidiaries Pratt & Whitney and Sikorski, counts as a "decent sized business" and they had company-provide Apple IIs before IBM shipped their first PC.

[Jack]

Perhaps you have no clue how much money IBM had/has. They had cocktail party's that cost more than Gates bought DOS for.

And the reason they contracted with Gates, who didn't have or own an OS instead of someone already established was because what the hell, PC's were skunkwork, right.

I know, I ran my BBS under it. IBM took over the design because they needed it for their ATM business.

Sure they do.

operating systems when

Millions worked for the beast, and didn't even know who the CEO was let alone who his friends were. Any how, this was fairly common knowledge during the OS wars in the BBS world. Since you worked for the beast, I assume you can explain why IBM contracted with a looser like Gates when they were developing and marketing and servicing complex multitasking systems and equipment when Gates was jerking off in the boys room. Why didn't IBM just go to Patterson and buy DOS off of him, or off Digital Research that already had a working system or anyone other than a college dropout that had no product to sell?

them, pure and simple.

Yep.

Baloney, $200 million was nothing compared to the potential returns, and IBM had the money if they wanted to go that way. They spent more money just on R&D than Microsoft grossed in those days. They could have trashed MS with ease, had they wanted too. They had the product (OS/2) they had the money, they had all they needed, but, they didn't want to go that way. My guess is anti-trust fears, but since you worked for the beast, I'm sure you know the real deal.

What I mean is no large retailers sold PC's with anything other than windows on it. The geek down the street selling 20 PC's a year didn't matter much, and they mostly sold DOS/WIN for a variety of reasons, all related to the MS monopoly when OS/2 Warp was out.

[krw]

I have a little clue. I worked for them for >32 years. You certainly don't understand IBM or business, for that matter.

The Boca PC folks couldn't do it and they certainly didn't have the cash to pay the OS developers to do it (they asked the question and were laughed out of town). So, yes, pretty much.

No, they needed it for *many* businesses and *many* customers. ATMs were a small one.

You got your words swapped; "They sure do!"

operating systems when

Of course you don't. More cred down the drain.

Any more fairy tales?

They didn't have the contacts. That was tough.

them, pure and simple.

I know IBM was under water at the time. They had *massive* layoffs in the early-mid '90s and were "two weeks from missing payroll". IBM, under Akers, had borrowed money to pay dividends for a decade. The cards almost crashed.

Your "guesses" are just that; pathetic guesses.

I detect goalposts in motion.

[Robert Bonomi]

For sheer simplicity, and elegance, the CDC 6600 was hard to beat.

Five(5!!) opcode mnemonics accounted for over _half_ the hardware instruction set. you didn't need a 'cheat sheet' (aka "green card", "yellow card", or whatever) to keep track of the instruction set. If you had any experience with any assembler language, you could learn assembler for the 6600 in a single afternoon. The *entire* language -- well enough to start writing real applications.

Now, the closer to the 'bare metal' you got, the 'stranger' the hardware got, but it _had_ it's endearing characteristics. *MUCH* to the annoyance of the pure computer-science types, and for any data set* up to the size of main memory, a carefully hand-coded one-key _bubble-sort_ would out-perform _any_ other sorting algorithm.

Oh yeah, 'self-modifying code' was an integral part of the architecture. At the _hardware_ level. You could _not_ do significant programming on the machine without using self-modifying code.

And to add to the fun "CPU HALT" was a legitimate _user_mode_ (i.e. 'unprotected') instruction. In fact, it was the 'preferred' way for a user program to exit. *great* fun.