Re: IBM loses its Unix license - Jun. 16, 2003

"The Mac folks did for a while, but now they, like just
about everyone else, are pretty much running Unix, which is basically a
35-year-old OS (with Linux sort of a mini-me clone <grin>).  Not exactly
cutting edge."

You said this with a straight face? ;)  How old is the AS/400 technology?
There is a lot of technology out there that is cutting edge I wouldn't touch
with a 10 foot pole.  there is a BIG difference between "old and outdated"
and "proven stability".

Adam Lang
Systems Engineer
Rutgers Casualty Insurance
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Joe Pluta" <joepluta@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "Midrange Systems Technical Discussion" <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, June 17, 2003 11:22 PM
Subject: RE: IBM loses its Unix license - Jun. 16, 2003


> > From: Tom Liotta
> >
> > In short, it does seem that MS wrote large parts of OS/2 at least
> > up to Version 2 and retained various rights to some of the
> > critical code; but I'm not clear on how much of OS/2 became part
> > of WinNT's core.
>
> This isn't how I remember it.  I worked with the first release of OS/2,
> which didn't even have a GUI.  The OS/2 kernel was written from the ground
> up to be a true multi-tasking operating system, not just a windowing
> environment on top of DOS.  In fact, if you remember, the marketing phrase
> was "a better DOS than DOS, a better Windows than Windows" (probably the
> best marketing I've ever seen IBM do, and sadly pretty much all they ever
> really did for OS/2).  At that time, Windows 3.11 was the de facto
standard,
> and as a multi-tasking OS it plain sucked.  No memory protection, no
> inter-process communications, and only the most limited of multi-tasking
> constructs.
>
> OS/2, on the other hand, was written from the ground up to be a completely
> protected multi-tasking, event driven operating system.  I'm making
> assumptions here, but it was my understanding that IBM did the kernel work
> and MS did the GUI.  And since MS basically stole the GUI from Apple in
the
> first place and thus didn't really understand how to write their own, it
was
> natural that making it truly multi-tasking was a nearly impossible task.
So
> OS/2's first release was character only.  Ah, fond memories <grin>.
>
> And once NT was shipped, you could for quite some time go through the code
> and actually find OS/2 copyright strings.  It took them a couple years to
> get that out, and I wouldn't be surprised if old OS/2 code still lingers
> deep in the bowels.
>
> Anyway, as far as those of us in the trenches could tell, MS couldn't
write
> an operating system if their lives depended on it.  That's why to this day
> they simply keep bandaiding what they have, and proudly label it "built on
> NT technology".  Which we always insisted stood for "Not Tested", but
that's
> us bitter old OS/2 folks.
>
> The only company that has consistently built operating systems from the
> ground up is IBM.  The Mac folks did for a while, but now they, like just
> about everyone else, are pretty much running Unix, which is basically a
> 35-year-old OS (with Linux sort of a mini-me clone <grin>).  Not exactly
> cutting edge.
>
> Anyway, I'm sure people can take issue with many of these statements.  I
> will simply present them as how I remember the past, back when bread was a
> nickel and we didn't have these infernal horseless carriages to worry
about.
>
> Joe