IBM to OS/2: "so long, and thanks for all the fish"

What a long, strange trip it's been. After years of slipping sales (ahem), IBM is finally killing off OS/2 Warp (and the server version). Hard to believe isn't it? Why just the other day I was checking my gmail in Netscape 4.61. I found an obit for OS/2 by Dvorak from '02, but I see IBM is officially giving up the ghost on December 23, 2005. Christmas is cancelled!

You know the story of OS/2, right? IBM and Microsoft worked on it together for a while before MS sorta dissed 'em and went to work on NT. The 1.0 release was in 1987 and was command line. Warp 4 was released in 1996 which makes it Methusula in the GUI OS universe. But there was a time when, according to Wikipedia, Steve Balmer called OS/2 "Windows Plus."

OS/2 was such an odd little OS. There were some interesting time-savers, like no OK buttons on some control panels. There's an Undo, but changes are saved when the window is closed. Another quirk that really agitated me: right-click for dragging items. Muscle memory works people, know it, live it.

One of the cool things about the OS were the ways to customize. It came with an icon editor, and the background of folders could be changed to a picture, much like OS X does. You could also change that stupid right-click drag thing.

There was also some real power under the hood. If you've ever used IBM's ViaVoice your using the grandchild of an app that began as a tool in OS/2. You could dictate or give commands. Most all of this started with Warp 4, as it was 32-bit and pretty speedy.

About the only place you're likely to see OS/2 these days would be your local ATM. Hey, I said it was customizable, didn't I? My bank still has those wacky IBM boxes on their desks too. BTW, they came out with a browser update for OS/2 today as well. Check that one out, won't you?

Tags: news, osupdates