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OS/2 turns 25

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Who, like me, once used OS/2? What, you don’t know OS/2? On April 2, 1987, IBM and Microsoft announced a then revolutionary, 32-bit server and desktop operating system that was going to change the world: OS/2.  Well that’s what they said anyway. In reality, Bill Gates quickly decided that he’d do better by going it on his own with some operating system called Windows. You may have heard of it.

Before Linux showed up in 1991, OS/2 was Windows’ main rival. It was a fun and remarkably stable and secure operating system that was a real challenger to Windows.

In its early days, OS/2 was great. Back in 1993, for example, when I was a contributing editor at Computer Shopper, we decided that OS/2 2.1 was the best operating system around over such competition as UnixWare, Windows NT, Solaris, and NeXTStep. So what happened?

On Google Plus, Esther Schindler, aka the OS/2 Goddess,, thinks “of OS/2 less as an operating system than as ‘A Technology in Three Acts.’”

OS/2 turns 25. More >

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