OS/2

operating system from IBM

OS/2 is an operating system that was originally made by a joint agreement between the Microsoft and IBM companies. The name stands for "Operating System/2". It was intended to replace MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows. OS/2 was maintained by IBM until 2006.

OS/2
OS/2 Logo
DeveloperIBM
Microsoft (1.0–1.3)
Written inC, C++ and assembly language
Working stateHistorical, now developed as ArcaOS
Source modelClosed source
Initial releaseDecember 1987; 36 years ago (1987-12)
Latest release4.52 / December 2001; 22 years ago (2001-12)
Marketing targetProfessionals, servers
Available inChinese, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian
Platformsx86, PowerPC
Kernel typeHybrid kernel
Influenced byMS-DOS, IBM PC DOS
Default
user interface
Workplace Shell Graphical user interface
LicenseProprietary
Succeeded byFirst by eComStation, then ArcaOS
Official websiteOS/2 Warp (Archived)

IBM discontinued its support for OS/2 on 31 December 2006. Since then, it has been updated, maintained and marketed under the name eComStation. In 2015 it was announced that a new OEM distribution of OS/2 would be released that was to be called ArcaOS.

References

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OS/2 had true multi-tasking. As a demonstration, ten 1 million line files were each put on display to screen in ten separate windows. On Windows 3.1, only one at a time had display activity. On OS/2, all ten displays moved uninterrupted simultaneously. IBM LAN Manager also had better measurable performance, being based on an OS/2 server. This was in the early 1990's.[1]

  1. I was an OS/2 specialist and IBM LAN Manager Network Administrator with LA DWP, working there from 1990 to 2015.