A Better Windows Than Windows: An OS/2 Warp 3 Retrospective!

Let's install OS/2 Warp 3 from 1995 on the World's Fastest 386 and see what it can do! In this video, we'll explore some DOS/Win3.X multitasking, OS/2, and the history behind IBM's forgotten operating system!

00:00 Introduction
00:35 Background on OS/2
09:43 OS/2 Bare Metal Install
18:28 Gaming on OS/2?
22:19 Concluding Thoughts

● World's Fastest 386 Specifications:
Alaris Cougar II Motherboard (Rev. B?)
75MHz IBM 486BL3 "Blue Lightning"
Cyrix Fasmath CX-83D87-40GP
32MB Fast Page Mode 72-pin SIMM RAM (2x16MB sticks)
32GB Compact Flash Card
Trident TGUI9440-1 VLB Video Card w/ 1MB FPM RAM
Kingston NE2000-compatible Plug n' Play Ethernet Card
VLB Adaptec I/O Controller (integrated on-board)
Creative SoundBlaster Pro 2.0 (CT1600)
Generic Baby AT Case

● Awesome channels to check out:

● RetroTechBytes links:

#Retro​ #Computers #DOS #Vintage #IBM

[rogfromthegarage]

I worked at IBM in Boca Raton in the early 90s. The entire campus was working on OS 2 Warp. I worked in the Win-OS2 area, where we debugged Windows apps that wouldn't run in Win-OS2. We had full source code to Windows 3.11 Windows for Workgroups. We ran Windows code as-is except for the memory calls. Much like installing a virus, whenever a Windows DLL is loaded, it checked to see if there was a file with the same name as the DLL but with the extension .scr. .scr (script) files essentially patched the DLL in-memory instance to change calls to Windows memory functions (malloc, halloc, etc) to instead call the OS2 memory functions. But the really fun part was going around to the various test labs. They had entire rooms where people did nothing but play games trying to get the games to break. That's where I saw my first movie playing on a CDRom drive. It was really cool being part of such a big project. However I have to say that it was really a race because we knew Windows 95 was coming out soon. Microsoft was already creating a buzz about Windows 95 and when it finally did come out that was the nail in the coffin for OS2.

[stephanweinberger]

OS/2 was awesome! Super stable and with great performance, even when emulating Windows and DOS environments.

For example I used to play the original WindCommander games for DOS _in_ _a_ _window_ (something that was not possible in Windows) without performance issues on my 486DX2/66.

[harryseldon]

I used OS/2 Warp for several years as a programmer. I really miss those days, programming today doesn't even resemble what we did back then. OS/2 Warp was a breath of fresh air compared to anything else.

[hDansRandomCrud]

I wrote my first video game for OS/2, back when it was a 16 bit OS.
I had "Microsoft OS/2" that I'd picked up to run on my 286 (with a whopping 3mb of RAM).
Tetris was the big game at the time, and it didn't work very well in the "DOS Penalty Box" (as we called it).
So I wrote my own - TetrOS/2. It was a character mode app at first, but when I got OS/2 2.0, I made a Presentation Manager version that in retrospect looked a lot like Minesweeper did later.
Since I was a student at the time and very few people I knew were using OS/2, I only wound up sharing these games with a few friends.
Even without the PM though, being able to screen swap between my editor, a command line (Zortek C forever!) and a terminal program to connect with the school's Unix machines was a dream for a late 80's CompSci student.

Alas, I never wound up running Warp.

[Taras-Nabad]

I used OS/2 for many years. Loved it. It was way ahead of its time. Much better than Windows. Used to crash a lot. Then NT 4 came out and that was the end of OS/2.

[rabidbigdog]

OS/2 on a 286 was an absolutely remarkable technical achievement, but it was a massive mistake. Watch Dave Cutler's oral history interview with CHM where he discusses Windows NT being worked on for i860, PowerPC and MIPs R4x00 series FIRST and having to add back the i386 as an after-thought. Windows NT was in progress because Microsoft thought Intel weren't keeping up with RISC processors.

[FordSeniorMaster]

Thank you for your kind and FAIR assessment of the GREAT OS/2!
Well done! 👍🏻

[James_Knott]

Back in the 90s, I ran OS/2, starting from 2.0, on a 386 DX system. I also provided third level OS/2 support at IBM Canada, in the late 90s. I was also on the team that built standard desktops for IBM Canada employees. I used OS/2 as my main OS until a bit over 20 years ago, when I switched to Linux. However, I still have Warp 4 in a Virtualbox VM on my ThinkPad E520.

[larrieelieff]

Great video! Thanks so much for your time. It is wonderful to see your generation interested in OS history. I am an ex IBMer certified in multiple operating systems including Warp 3 and 4. One commenter hit the nail on the head. The lack of drivers for non-IBM PC's was the death knell of OS/2. Their arrogance in not licensing other manufacturers to produce 'Micro Channel' technology is what brought about the 'ISA' interface bypassing IBM's technology all together. ISA then lead to EISA, VESA and then PCI.
Just a bit of info on OS/2. The US military, government, financial institutions as well as all Canadian banks ran OS/2. It would run an ATM without a reboot for sometimes years, as well as run without re-imaging until the HDD would fail. It had a true 32bit kernel. Windows 95 on the other hand ran two 16bit kernels back to back but it bundled drivers for almost any PC. It was marketed with much more skill than OS/2, but in my opinion set the PC world back 20 years from where we should be now.
Windows NT4(also and MCSE in that) was Microsoft's version of OS/2 but had the worst HAL (hardware abstraction layer) making it an absolute bear to configure for hardware. It took over the banking environment in Canadian banking around 1999. At that time the hardware techs at IBM were issued re-imaging software for all the ATM's as NT would constantly be failing. It wasn't until Windows 2000(MCSE again) did MS hit a home run and the financial institutions would finally enjoy a more stable IT environment.
Keep up the great work.
LGE
Chatsworth, Ontario

[corcaightowner]

It ran windows programs much faster than windows could. Same for DOS programs. Everything was responsive and stable. It answered all my needs at work. So much so that I installed at home, too.

[FreihEitner]

Just a bit of color for folks who weren't around or not using computers in 1994 when OS/2 Warp came out -- running DOS and Windows on top of OS/2 -- this was decades before hardware virtualization was built into CPUs, thus it was not possible to truly run both OSes on the bare metal with full access to all system resources, OS/2 did an amazing job running DOS/Windows as an application in a set-aside bit of system memory and sharing its own resources with whatever was running inside that DOS box. For the time it was amazing.

[DocMacLovin]

Great video. I was an OS/2 dev back in the days and loved OS/2. Everything you present is correct. Ah .... memories.

[peterchapman]

you are also missing some of the fundamental things - like IBM Mainframe connectivity, also REXX programming language. The desktop was generated on the fly - so helped with performance.

[SUCRA]

This was a great round up of OS/2's functions. It was incredibly fun watching this, I couldn't take my eyes off of it. I've always been curious about this OS. If I ever get a big box of this one I'll probably try and install it in one of the retro systems. Thanks for another great video, Will.

[toddfraser]

The marketing of OS/2 Warp in my opinion was what really hurt it next to Windows 95 marketing. IBM didn't even show off their product, they just told everyone how cool it is. Microsoft pushing Windows 95 showed off their product, and people got excited about it. For the home user why are you going to spend more on an OS you don't even know.

[jikissgamer]

This is really cool because I've never used OS/2 before. I started on Windows 3.1 back on a 386 and used Windows ever since. I've always seen screenshots of OS/2 before but never knew its history or how it worked. Really enjoyed this!

[spladam]

I remember the day we got our hands on a copy of OS/2 Warp, installed in on my friends machine and it blew me away, it felt cutting edge.

[OzzFan]

OS/2 was a very interesting OS. It's biggest problems were lack of drivers for most third party devices and the lack of a killer must-have application. One interesting thing to note was the use of a dock in Warp 3 before Apple ever used a dock. Unfortunately IBM chose to follow Microsoft's lead and ditched the dock in favor a Start menu-like interface in Warp 4. Coincidentally, I'm tying to get an IBM PS/2 286 back into working condition so I can play around with OS/2 v1.3, but the ESDI hard drives in this line of computers seem to be incredibly fault-prone and difficult to find a working drive. Anyway, good video showing off the multitasking capabilities of OS/2.

[lsdowdle]

Microsoft had completely cancelled Windows and was 100% all-in with their co-development of OS/2. What happened? As documented in the book "Barbarians Led by Bill Gates" that came out in 1998, .. a Microsoft Intern got permission to work on the Windows source code on their own time... and they got it working in real-mode with protected memory on the 386. When Bill found out and validated it, the company decided to revive Windows and started exiting the OS/2 collab.

[ericinla]

LOVED OS/2 Warp - Was able to run 5 complete separate Warp sessions on a computer as a Bulletin Board (BBS). That had 4 modems to answer 4 calls at once and a 5th for my use on the terminal. It worked great and very fast. This was way back in 1994