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  OS/2 Has Reached It's Zenith Need Intro  On October 1994, IBM released the latest version of OS/2, Warp 3. IBM traditionally code-named internal OS/2 betas after Star Trek references . Version 3.0 was referred to as Warp internally. However, IBM liked the code-name so much that it became the final name of the official release. The name was also chosen to reinvigorate the OS/2 branding in a computing landscape that was rapidly being dominated by Microsoft Windows. Speaking of Star Trek references, OS/2 users constantly referred to Windows as the "Borg". In Star Trek lingo, an Borg is an cyborg that clones and mimics other alien species in order to assimilate them and turn them into mindless drones. It was a very fitting description considering what was happening in the PC ecosystem during that time. That will be covered later in this article. There was a lot of good going for the new release of OS/2. However, there were also massive i...

  OS/2 has grown a lot, but there was still plenty of room for improvement. On 1993, IBM introduced the latest version of OS/2, version 2.1. It as a massive update over the previous release (2.0). Win-OS/2 was updated to Windows 3.1 Compatibility. DOS Compatibility was improved on as well. The new release also supported a much greater array of SVGA adapters. The biggest new addition to the latest OS/2 release was the MMPM/2 (Multimedia Presentation Manager/2). This was the multimedia subsystem which included drivers for the most common audio adapters of there day. Not surprisingly, the SoundBlaster family of adapter are very well supported. Hearing sounds in this OS was really cool at first. However, once the novelty wore off, one realizes how bloody annoying those sounds are! The MMPM/2 came with the Ultimotion video codec, which was basically IBM's answer to the Cinepack codec used in Apple's QuickTime and the VFW(Video For Windows) codec used...

  The Arrival Of 32-Bit Power For The Masses The past couple of these PC articles have been very Windows-centric. This isn't a surprise as Windows 3.0 was a major release that made a very massive impact on the marketplace. Windows 3.1 sold 3 million copies in 6 weeks. 1992 was a very different time. Back then, it was possible to request a PC without an operating system. If one did want an OS, they could choose between OS/2, DOS, or the DOS+Windows combination. I've had not forgotten OS/2 in these articles. The 286 versions of OS/2 had already been covered in my articles about the IBM PS/2 family of computers. The messy IBM-Microsoft "divorce" had been covered in detail as well. To quickly recap: Microsoft didn't like the direction that IBM wanted to take OS/2. Microsoft envisioned OS/2 as being the "next-generation" OS, while IBM simply saw the OS as a tool to sell more hardware. OS/2 did terrible in the marketplace. The ...

  Big Blue's attempt at recapturing the PC market The IBM PS/2 Family of Computers. Image From Wikipedia. This is a continuation of the articles covering the history of PC's using emulators to illustrate the march of progress. This is part three in the series of articles covering the IBM PS/2 family of computers. IBM PS/2 Model 80 Introduced in April 1987, the PS/2 Model 80 was the highest end of the original PS/2 models. The Model 80 shipped with a Intel 386 processor. Intended as a high-end workstation, this system could run various operating systems, like OS/2, IBM AIX, and Xenix. AIX was IBM's variant of the UNIX operating system which ran on there proprietary workstations and servers. The version for the Model 80 was ported to the Intel platform and could run on this PC as well. Xenix was Microsoft's variant of the UNIX operating system. Around this time, Microsoft exited the UNIX market, and Xenix was transferred to ...