“Welcome to the very first issue of OS2eCS eZine! It has been awhile since the OS/2 community has had an online magazine or newsletter published. The last OS2eZine was published in December 2004 and the last VOICE Newsletter was August 2005! So we here at the OS2eCS Organization decided it was time to get the ball rolling again!” In this first issue articles on WarpVision, eSchemes, and more.
It’s great to see communities like this band together – a fine example of what a tight-bound community can produce is found while looking at the storied history of the Amiga. Hopefully eComstation will be updated quick and steadily, as OS/2 has some very interesting design concepts and is used worldwide in security based atmospheres.
As for the actual zine – looks to be quite interesting, with a lot of information for people who are either new to OS/2 or are veterans. Worth checking out.
I used OS/2 between 1993 and 1998. Saw the writing on the wall. Turn out the lights, the party’s over.
“I used OS/2 between 1993 and 1998. Saw the writing on the wall. Turn out the lights, the party’s over.”
Good for you, I am so pleased that you felt the need to grace us with your creative input. Now will you please excuse the rest of us who wish to discuss, promote, and enjoy the variety and depth of the Operating System landscape?
Congrats to the editors and contributors of this online magazine which will be a welcome source of information to those of use who enjoy OS/2 and eCS, and who will continue to do so in the future.
Are eight-year-old observations meaningful?
eComStation 1.2 is no more similar to OS/2 Warp 4 than Windows XP is to Windows NT 4. Both OSes have years of fixes from their makers, updated filesysems, enhanced GUIs, updated kernels, and a much larger selection of drivers than they did back in 1998.
Thanks for your divine input troll!
Its great to see OS/2eZine live and kicking – I’ve been missing it :o)
…is either dead or Cox dns doesn’t know it…?
It’s working………. glad to see OS/2 alive **coughing** but alive!
Now we just need more open source files.
Glad to hear one of the truly great OSes is still alive even if it’s only at the grass roots level. If there is one OS worthy and capable of a phoenix-like rebirth OS2 is it, still more robust than anything the other players are selling today.
So what is the “killer app” that OS2 offers over linux / windows / mac ?
Is it just the interface? cause that can probably be ported to any other modern system (modern as in, supports the latest hardware, etc.)
Is there an OS2-specific application that makes it all worth while, like Final Cut Pro for Mac?
Not sure – I guess I will find out.
Perhaps some folks are like me, and just interested to try different things. I *just* purchased a copy of eCS 1.2 two days ago, after about two years of ‘wondering how it is’. I finally bit the bullet. I don’t care if it is ‘on the way out’, according to some.
Whatever. It works fine on my test box, and with open source stuff like Firefox, Thunderbird, and OO.org, I think it will serve me for some time. I will look forward to the release of eCS 2.
It is a nice system to run alongside OS X, Windows, Linux, BSD (all of which I run as well).
You might find tools like Embellish and Photo>Graphics to be useful additions for graphics work under OS/2, and I know Pixel32 is being ported as well.
For OS/2 software, Hobbes is your friend:
http://hobbes.nmsu.edu
So what is the “killer app” that OS2 offers over linux / windows / mac ?
Well in the old days, I don’t know how it stands currently, it used to be: every windows app without being windows
that sounds like ReactOS’ goal.
cool.
Its not just the GUI – even though it is beautifull and friendly, the soft tones of colour. In my case it is the feeling of the system and the Graphical shell (Presentation Manager), the open class extension of the PMShell, called WorkPlaceShell (WPS) – which not easily can be just ported to any other modern platform.
The layout of the applications also is appealing, Object Orientation and tabs are just greeat.
When the 32-bit version of OS/2 was first released (IBM’s OS/2 2.0 back in 1992), it offered the first 32-bit multitasking environment on the PC, it had one of the first drag-and drop desktops on the PC, and it could juggle both DOS and Windows 3.1 apps smoothly in virtual machines.
Given that its main competition was Windows 3.1 at the time (no drag-and drop, no good multitasking) and NT 3.1 (bigger, slower, poor GUI, poor DOS support), it had quite a lot to offer folks who were stuck in the Windows 3.x world.
These days, its benefits aren’t so clear — folks like me who have stuck with it over the years will obviously benefit from its continued existence and development, but for most other people it’s simply Another Alternative, not really a Killer OS.
Its UI might qualify as a killer feature for some, but many people don’t care very much about the UI if it’s “good enough” as witnessed by the failure of many of the best WPS features to be picked up by the KDE and GNOME folks. They don’t seem to understand or care about object templates, workgroup folders, or useful visual cues when doing various desktop operations. 🙁
eCS does tend to be lighter and faster than Windows or Linux+KDE/GNOME, it has some nice freeware shells (4DOS and 4OS2) and native REXX scripting which provides an interesting command line environment which is quite different in its approach from Linux/UNIX, and it has fairly good legacy software support for folks who’ve been collecting PC software for a while.
It’s also relatively immune from things like spyware and viruses, but I think that’s mostly due to the lack of attention being paid to it by black hat types than any inherent security features.
It’s not a poke at OS2, I know next to nothing about it and don’t have a spare computer to test it out on myself.
http://ezine.os2ecs.org and not the one posted
…tried it out. Not bad! What impressed me most, I guess, is that it ran without a problem. When I had Warp 3 and Warp 4 in the 90’s I could never get it to install and run right the first time.
Even so, it has a dated appearance (which isn’t everything in an OS, but I’ve become used to a nicer look with Mac OS X, KDE, etc).
But I was able to get right onto the net and browse. I read that it supports VPN, which is cool. Didn’t get much more of a chance to play. Maybe another time. But it is also costly to purchase!! Linux and BSDs (and even BeOS) are free.
why do people want to band together to support software that has no clear future? why not support something better and newer? its not like an OS is a religion
Why do some people question what other people like to do in their spare time, if it does not harm anyone?
I’m sure that you do some things that I have no use for, but that is none of my business.
And, I’m sure a lot of the people here contribute to and support other things anyway…
Most software has an unclear future – it only “lives” for a short time.
Why does a few (if that many) people religiously continue to preach to the users, that their software of choice is dead and has been long it ever was released some 18 years ago ?
Edited 2005-12-31 06:34
You need to understand that OS/2 has been around for a *long* time. Individuals and more importantly in this case companies and government bodies have a huge investment in vertically-integrated systems and processes.
It is therefore not a case of being able to pull out one platform and replace it with a drop in replacement in the form of Windows, Linux, whatever. Pulling out one strand of the vertically integrated process can bring the whole thing down.
So for these scenarios, you can’t just ditch OS/2 for something more “sexy”, not without a huge investment. When you put that proposal in front of the board and they ask what are the consequences of running with the existing system for another 12 months, often the consequence is nil. The system continues to run. IBM still support big customers, for the desktop there is eCS. This is true of all OS’s which are embedded in business, not just OS/2. There are still DOS systems in use, ancient unix installations, System/36 midrange systems (at least I came across one a couple of years ago!), etc.
Finally, as an individual, my answer to your question is: because I chose to.
Why is it that these things always seem to come out when the software or hardware is about dead and gone?
Wouldn’t it have been more useful several years ago?
Several years ago we had OS/2 eZine, OS/2 Voice, OS/2 Electronic Developers Manual (recently relaunched as a wiki site), all going strong.
Sadly, OS/2 ezine fell by the wayside. For a while it looked as though Voice would cease too, but I’ve just checked and they have a January 2006 issue out.
So this new ezine is really a continuation of OS/2 ezine I guess, not something that is completely new to OS/2 and eCS users.
And of course there is OS2World too.
For further info:
http://www.edm2.com/index.php/Main_Page
http://www.os2ezine.com
http://www.os2voice.org
http://www.os2world.com
And the software is not dead and gone for goodness sake. eCS 2.0 is in beta, and should be out in Q1 or Q2 2006, I think.
Check it out at http://www.ecomstation.com
EDIT: Corrected some typos
Edited 2006-01-01 09:04