Rare Apple I computer sells for $216,000 in London

[Walter Bushell]

I also well recall my surprise after doing so the second time the machine
crashed. Not the first time, as I'd managed to crash OS/2 on a few rare
occasions. But when Windows crashed on me the second time, in the same day,
it really gave me pause. I adjusted, of course, as everyone did. But after
having OS/2 run for months without shutting down, it was a real annoyance to
have Windows crashing a couple of times a week. Sometimes more often. And
learning to shut down when I was done for the day, so Windows wouldn't crash
due to running out of resources.

And generations of computer users got trained to expect the OS to crash
all the time and have to run malware protection all the time.

 

[Rod Speed]

Bill Leary wrote

Me either. I ran OS/2 and my recollection is that it ran DOS programs
better than Windows did

Nope, particularly apps that dealt with the hardware directly. Comms
apps in spades, and they universally banged on the hardware directly.

There are still quite a few of them around, mostly used for
more obscure stuff like PLCs and hardware controllers etc.

Games in spades.

and ran the majority of the Windows programs just as well as Windows itself did, and a few much better than Windows
did.

Thats wrong too, particularly the stuff that didnt things the way they were supposed to be done.

When I installed OS/2 I set it up for dual boot, as I was expecting that there would be some DOS or Windows programs
I'd have problems with. In practice I rarely booted to Windows. In those cases I think it was only to run a couple
of games that wouldn't run correctly in OS/2.

You clearly werent using the PC for controlling any obscure hardware.

The lack of support for games alone killed the OS/2 market
in the days before consoles dominated the games market.

You still see the same problem with games and linux today.

And hardware that isnt bog standard in spades.

Even just with a PVR, there is much less support in linux and none in OS/2 at all.

Things changed over time, of course. When the newer versions of Windows came along and OS/2 could't keep up with them
I eventually had to give up on it and switched to Windows.

And those who need to use anything at all unusual hardware
wise never bothered with OS/2 and games in spades.

I also well recall my surprise after doing so the second time the
machine crashed. Not the first time, as I'd managed to crash OS/2 on
a few rare occasions. But when Windows crashed on me the second
time, in the same day, it really gave me pause. I adjusted, of
course, as everyone did. But after having OS/2 run for months
without shutting down, it was a real annoyance to have Windows
crashing a couple of times a week. Sometimes more often. And
learning to shut down when I was done for the day, so Windows
wouldn't crash due to running out of resources.

Yes, it was technically much more bullet proof, but it never could do a
damned thing about the fact that no one much bothered with supporting
OS/2 with native apps and with hardware and games in spades.

Even very basic stuff like support for USB devices was pathetic.

 

[Charlie Gibbs]

And generations of computer users got trained to expect the OS to
crash all the time and have to run malware protection all the time.

And that, to me, is Microsoft's greatest crime against humanity.

 

[Rod Speed]

Bill Leary wrote

I was running the DOS version of ProComm under OS/2. There was some,
admittedly obscure, setting that had to be changed in the program profile to permit direct hardware access. Once that
was done it worked fine.

But it didnt run better than it did on Win or DOS.

In fact, doing some comm software testing, I ran ProComm
in it's host mode to out one comm port to a modem, and my test
software through another comm port to another modem and dialed up my own machine. I used my OS/2 system mostly as a
development platform for DOS programs and a few Windows apps as well.

But it didnt run better than it did on Win or DOS.

Mostly legacy machine control or financial applications these days.

Nope, quite a few apps used to program hardware.

Perhaps. I didn't play a lot of games.

But the market did. Thats what matters as far as it flying was concerned.

Your experience was rather radically different than mine

I didnt even say what my experience was and you just ignored the point
I made that they didnt run better under OS/2 than under DOS or Win.

and, apparently, others.

Not one of whom used OS/2 for programming devices etc.

Modems, printers, scanners,

Nothing obscure about any of those.

machine tools, that sort of thing.

The few games I used ran fine, with a couple of exceptions. But I did hear this particular complaint quite a bit at
the time.

And it was what killed OS/2's prospects stone dead in the market.

 

[Rod Speed]

William Hamblen wrote

Rod Speed wrote

You didn't need to get rid of the keypunches, just the card readers.

The card readers werent the problem.

And the key punchers are useless without card readers anyway.

 

[Rod Speed]

I thought I recognized your "style." I should have looked you up earlier. I probably wouldn't have bothered to
respond at all.

You never ever could bullshit your way out of a wet paper bag.

Yes, it did.

Pigs arse it did.

Yes, it did.

Pigs arse it did.

As did my editors, compilers, linkers, and so on.

Thanks for that completely superfluous proof that you are lying.

The only thing that didn't work well was the debugger. But even at that it was better than Windows, because the
debugger wouldn't work at all under Windows.

That was a lot of the point of using OS/2 rather than Windows. Bit the really big point was that if a program being
tested went weird, and they often did, under Windows more often than not I had to hit RESET to recover.

Thats a lie too.

Under OS/2 I just closed the window with the errant program and moved on.

Another lie, particularly when debugging a new driver.

As for the rest of your comments, ...

I, and others, have commented from personal experience.

So did I.

I'll listen to people who have "been there and done that" but there's no point at all in a discussion with someone who
doesn't have, or won't share, their own experiences.

Game over.

Nope, everyone with a clue can see that your lies and pathetic excuse for bullshit stands out like dogs balls.

If the sun shone out of OS/2's arse, how come you arent running it now ?

 

[Joe Pfeiffer]

William Hamblen wrote


The card readers werent the problem.

And the key punchers are useless without card readers anyway.

There is some remote possility that that was the point.

 

[Roland Hutchinson]

And that, to me, is Microsoft's greatest crime against humanity.

Hey, if you didn't like the warranty (which amounted to "This diskette is
guaranteed to be a diskette; oh, and by the way you can't sue us for
anything else no matter what happens") you didn't have to play. Still
don't.

But, that said, I completely agree with you. We could have had our
flying cars and vacation homes on the Moon by now without all that lost
productivity.

--
Roland Hutchinson

He calls himself "the Garden State's leading violist da gamba,"
.... comparable to being ruler of an exceptionally small duchy.
--Newark (NJ) Star Ledger ( http://tinyurl.com/RolandIsNJ )

 

[Rod Speed]

Joe Pfeiffer wrote

There is some remote possility that that was the point.

Nope, the punches are useless without the readers.

 

[terryc]

Pigs arse it did.

We have a winner.
Congratulations Bill.

 

[Rod Speed]

terryc wrote

Rod Speed wrote

We have a winner.

Just another of your pathetic little drug crazed fantasys.

No surprise that you're completely unemployable.

 

[Rod Speed]

jmfbahciv wrote

Roland Hutchinson wrote

But removes hard-copy data and code backup which is human-readable.

You can always print that crap out if you are that much of a dinosaur.

This kid confirmed my hypothesis about his attitude with today's posts. PHB in the making.

I'm older than you, thanks.

 

[Rod Speed]

I was right;

Nope, you never ever are.

he didn't understand.

Nothing to understand with that mindless silly shit.

 

[Rod Speed]

jmfbahciv wrote

Rod Speed wrote

Child,

I'm older than you, fuckwit.

if you remove the chips on your shoulders, you might
learn something from those who do know better.

Any two year old could leave that for dead.

Get one to help you before posting again, if anyone is actually stupid enough to let you anywhere near one.

 

[Rod Speed]

jmfbahciv wrote

Rod Speed wrote

And that was the problem. Apps should be asking the
monitor to do the hardware tweaks, not doiing it themselves.

Yes, but with that sort of app, if they dont do it that way, there is **** all you can do about that.

You dont normally even have a choice of app to do the programming of unusual hardware.

That's the source of most of the bugs and non-features in MS' software.

Yes, but when you need to run that software, the last thing you need is an OS that wont let it run.

Thats why OS/2 never did get used much by those that need to do that sort of thing.

Quite a bit of it would only run on DOS.

 

[T.T.]

In the punch-card era you always had something in your shirt pocket to write
on.
Apart from that, the whole concept was an abomination.

 

[Rod Speed]

jmfbahciv wrote

Rod Speed wrote

What do teletypes have to do with cards?

The same thing happened with paper tape.

This makes no sense. TTYs were not card gear.

Never said they were.

What costs?

You've clearly never bought one.

I don't remember the gear being very complex.

You've clearly never worked on one.

So? When you stopped providing the materials, those others had to get their own.

They only ever used cards very rarely for the most basic system maintenance.

You clearly dont have a fucking clue about how cards and paper tape were used.

 

[Rod Speed]

Bill Leary wrote just the peurile silly shit any 2 year old could leave for dead.

 

[terryc]

I was right; he didn't understand.

Your hope in the face of the mountain range of past examples was impressive.

 

[Rod Speed]

T.T. wrote

In the punch-card era you always had something in your shirt pocket to write on.

I still use the cards to write on even now.

Cut in half, they go in the wallet fine, now that T shirts dont have shirt pockets.

Apart from that, the whole concept was an abomination.

Specially when you dropped an entire box of cards which didnt have any numbering.

I used to run an IBM 360/50 in the evenings myself.

The printer automatically opened up when it ran out of paper.

One night, someone had a box of cards on the top of the printer.

You could hear the printer cover automatically opening up when it ran out of paper.

The poor bugger ran to the printer when he heard the cover opening.

Didnt get there in time. The box of cards had months of data on those cards.