OS/2

unreleased-preview-of-microsoft’s-os/2-2.0-is-a-glimpse-down-a-road-not-taken

Unreleased preview of Microsoft’s OS/2 2.0 is a glimpse down a road not taken

ibm, microsoft, MS-DOS, OS/2, Tech / /

OS/2 the future —

Microsoft’s involvement in IBM’s OS/2 project ended before v2.0 was released.

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This big, weathered box contains an oddball piece of PC history: one of the last builds of IBM's OS/2 that Microsoft worked on before pivoting all of its attention to Windows.

Enlarge / This big, weathered box contains an oddball piece of PC history: one of the last builds of IBM’s OS/2 that Microsoft worked on before pivoting all of its attention to Windows.

In the annals of PC history, IBM’s OS/2 represents a road not taken. Developed in the waning days of IBM’s partnership with Microsoft—the same partnership that had given us a decade or so of MS-DOS and PC-DOS—OS/2 was meant to improve on areas where DOS was falling short on modern systems. Better memory management, multitasking capabilities, and a usable GUI were all among the features introduced in version 1.x.

But Microsoft was frustrated with some of IBM’s goals and demands, and the company continued to develop an operating system called Windows on its own. Where IBM wanted OS/2 to be used mainly to boost IBM-made PCs and designed it around the limitations of Intel’s 80286 CPU, Windows was being created with the booming market for PC-compatible clones in mind. Windows 1.x and 2.x failed to make much of a dent, but 1990’s Windows 3.0 was a hit, and it came preinstalled on many consumer PCs; Microsoft and IBM broke off their partnership shortly afterward, making OS/2 version 1.2 the last one publicly released and sold with Microsoft’s involvement.

But Microsoft had done a lot of work on version 2.0 of OS/2 at the same time as it was developing Windows. It was far enough along that preview screenshots appeared in PC Magazine, and early builds were shipped to developers who could pay for them, but it was never formally released to the public.

But software archaeologist Neozeed recently published a stable internal preview of Microsoft’s OS/2 2.0 to the Internet Archive, along with working virtual machine disk images for VMware and 86Box. The preview, bought by Brian Ledbetter on eBay for $650 plus $15.26 in shipping, dates to July 1990 and would have cost developers who wanted it a whopping $2,600. A lot to pay for a version of an operating system that would never see the light of day!

The Microsoft-developed build of OS/2 2.0 bears only a passing resemblance to the 32-bit version of OS/2 2.0 that IBM finally shipped on its own in April 1992. Neozeed has published a more thorough exploration of Microsoft’s version, digging around in its guts and getting some early Windows software running (the ability to run DOS and Windows apps was simultaneously a selling point of OS/2 and a reason for developers not to create OS/2-specific apps, one of the things that helped to doom OS/2 in the end). It’s a fascinating detail from a turning point in the history of the PC as we know it today, but as a usable desktop operating system, it leaves something to be desired.

All 26 disks of the OS/2 2.0 preview, plus hefty documentation manuals. There are some things about the '90s I don't miss.

Enlarge / All 26 disks of the OS/2 2.0 preview, plus hefty documentation manuals. There are some things about the ’90s I don’t miss.

This unreleased Microsoft-developed OS/2 build isn’t the first piece of Microsoft-related software history that has been excavated in the last few months. In January, an Internet Archive user discovered and uploaded an early build of 86-DOS, the software that Microsoft bought and turned into MS-DOS/PC-DOS for the original IBM PC 5150. Funnily enough, these unreleased previews serve as bookends for IBM and Microsoft’s often-contentious partnership.

As part of the “divorce settlement” between Microsoft and IBM, IBM would take over the development and maintenance of OS/2 1.x and 2.x while Microsoft continued to work on a more advanced far-future version 3.0 of OS/2. This operating system was never released as OS/2, but it would eventually become Windows NT, Microsoft’s more stable business-centric version of Windows. Windows NT merged with the consumer versions of Windows in the early 2000s with Windows 2000 and Windows XP, and those versions gradually evolved into Windows as we know it today.

It has been 18 years since IBM formally discontinued its last release of OS/2, but as so often happens in computing, the software has found a way to live on. ArcaOS is a semi-modernized, intermittently updated branch of OS/2 updated to run on modern hardware while still supporting the ability to run MS-DOS and 16-bit Windows apps.

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after-32-years,-one-of-the-’net’s-oldest-software-archives-is-shutting-down

After 32 years, one of the ’Net’s oldest software archives is shutting down

ancient servers, FTP, Hobbes, ibm, Internet Archive, internet history, Jason Scott, New Mexico State University, obsolete tech, Operating System, Operating Systems, OS/2, retrotech, Tech / /

Ancient server dept. —

Hobbes OS/2 Archive: “As of April 15th, 2024, this site will no longer exist.”

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Box art for IBM OS/2 Warp version 3, an OS released in 1995 that competed with Windows.

Enlarge / Box art for IBM OS/2 Warp version 3, an OS released in 1995 that competed with Windows.

IBM

In a move that marks the end of an era, New Mexico State University (NMSU) recently announced the impending closure of its Hobbes OS/2 Archive on April 15, 2024. For over three decades, the archive has been a key resource for users of the IBM OS/2 operating system and its successors, which once competed fiercely with Microsoft Windows.

In a statement made to The Register, a representative of NMSU wrote, “We have made the difficult decision to no longer host these files on hobbes.nmsu.edu. Although I am unable to go into specifics, we had to evaluate our priorities and had to make the difficult decision to discontinue the service.”

Hobbes is hosted by the Department of Information & Communication Technologies at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces, New Mexico. In the official announcement, the site reads, “After many years of service, hobbes.nmsu.edu will be decommissioned and will no longer be available. As of April 15th, 2024, this site will no longer exist.”

OS/2 version 1.2, released in late 1989.

OS/2 version 1.2, released in late 1989.

os2museum.com

We reached out to New Mexico State University to inquire about the history of the Hobbes archive but did not receive a response. The earliest record we’ve found of the Hobbes archive online is this 1992 Walnut Creek CD-ROM collection that gathered up the contents of the archive for offline distribution. At around 32 years old, minimum, that makes Hobbes one of the oldest software archives on the Internet, akin to the University of Michigan’s archives and ibiblio at UNC.

Archivists such as Jason Scott of the Internet Archive have stepped up to say that the files hosted on Hobbes are safe and already mirrored elsewhere. “Nobody should worry about Hobbes, I’ve got Hobbes handled,” wrote Scott on Mastodon in early January. OS/2 World.com also published a statement about making a mirror. But it’s still notable whenever such an old and important piece of Internet history bites the dust.

Like many archives, Hobbes started as an FTP site. “The primary distribution of files on the Internet were via FTP servers,” Scott tells Ars Technica. “And as FTP servers went down, they would also be mirrored as subdirectories in other FTP servers. Companies like CDROM.COM / Walnut Creek became ways to just get a CD-ROM of the items, but they would often make the data available at http://ftp.cdrom.com to download.”

The Hobbes site is a priceless digital time capsule. You can still find the Top 50 Downloads page, which includes sound and image editors, and OS/2 builds of the Thunderbird email client. The archive contains thousands of OS/2 games, applications, utilities, software development tools, documentation, and server software dating back to the launch of OS/2 in 1987. There’s a certain charm in running across OS/2 wallpapers from 1990, and even the archive’s Update Policy is a historical gem—last updated on March 12, 1999.

The legacy of OS/2

The final major IBM release of OS/2, Warp version 4.0, as seen running in an emulator.

Enlarge / The final major IBM release of OS/2, Warp version 4.0, as seen running in an emulator.

OS/2 began as a joint venture between IBM and Microsoft, undertaken as a planned replacement for IBM PC DOS (also called “MS-DOS” in the form sold by Microsoft for PC clones). Despite advanced capabilities like 32-bit processing and multitasking, OS/2 later competed with and struggled to gain traction against Windows. The partnership between IBM and Microsoft dissolved after the success of Windows 3.0, leading to divergent paths in OS strategies for the two companies.

Through iterations like the Warp series, OS/2 established a key presence in niche markets that required high stability, such as ATMs and the New York subway system. Today, its legacy continues in specialized applications and in newer versions (like eComStation) maintained by third-party vendors—despite being overshadowed in the broader market by Linux and Windows.

A footprint like that is worth preserving, and a loss of one of OS/2’s primary archives, even if mirrored elsewhere, is a cultural blow. Apparently, Hobbes has reportedly almost disappeared before but received a stay of execution. In the comments section for an article on The Register, someone named “TrevorH” wrote, “This is not the first time that Hobbes has announced it’s going away. Last time it was rescued after a lot of complaints and a number of students or faculty came forward to continue to maintain it.”

As the final shutdown approaches in April, the legacy of Hobbes is a reminder of the importance of preserving the digital heritage of software for future generations—so that decades from now, historians can look back and see how things got to where they are today.

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