I ran OS/2 between 1995-1998 but never really played with the Virtual DOS mode much, since I quickly moved towards using native OS/2 apps. Plus in general, the default "MDOS" supplied with OS/2 was perfectly adequate. I knew OS/2 could boot DOS from floppy inside a window but I'd completely forgotten it could boot DOS the same way from diskette images, and the other features shown in this video. It was obviously a lot more advanced than the DOS Prompt in any version of Windows NT!

The A20 problem was solvable as NTVDM emulates the A20 Gate and uses page table manipulation to perform the wrap around. Microsoft probably fixed this in NT because they knew about the problem in OS/2. I'm surprised IBM never fixed it but doing this has a pretty large performance overhead so maybe they didn't think it was worth it. In pretty much every other way NTVDM is more limited than MVDM as NTVDM can only use the version of Dos that comes with Windows.

@THEPHINTAGECOLLECTOR

3 ай бұрын

The MVDM seems to do a similar thing, according to the technical manual, they called it ALIAS pages. komh.github.io/os2books/gg243731/ The catch as described in the video is not, that the wrap-around wouldn't work, but that the guest OS (or the HIMEM.SYS that came with in) couldn't perform direct access to control the A20 gate, to make the wrap-around work in the first place. Swapping it by OS/2s HIMEM.SYS would surely make it work, as this one would be interfacing to the OS/2 kernel in a well-behaved way, i.e. not by taking control by itself, but intercepting the requests and have the OS/2 kernel deal with it.

Thanks for trying CP/M, that very interesting to see.

@THEPHINTAGECOLLECTOR

3 ай бұрын

You‘re welcome! Was a nice experiment.

The greatest feature derived from this capability was that you could start windows with dedicated win.ini per session by some batch magic, so that you could set a dedicated application as shell for windows. This way this windows application could use all available windows resources.

Wow. I didn't even know (or remember) about vmdisk! OS/2's MVDM is truly a work of art. In 1995, it was so common to have a Command Prompt running DOS, I kinda took it for granted. Shame it was never open sourced. Thank you for the video! 👍

@THEPHINTAGECOLLECTOR

3 ай бұрын

You're welcome. The VDMs of Win9x and NT were never as sophisticated as the OS/2 MVDM, although the NTVDM isn't too bad actually. It goes a similar approach like the one of OS/2, starting a very custom tailored DOS 5 into the VDM. The Win9x VDM basically spawns only a sub-process into COMMAND.COM of the underlaying DOS. Totally different approach.

Thanks for making this video! Back in the day, I could never get excited about MS-DOS programs. I played with Windows 2.0/386 on a work 386sx clone, and found the preemptive multitasking of DOS boxes to be nice. And I never disputed that OS/2 could be a better DOS than DOS. However, I never understood why folks would be excited about DOS programs on these advanced OS’s. I wanted full GUI apps running in preemptive multitasking on my PC. I couldn’t really care about a “better DOS than DOS” - especially as I was only using DOS for games at that time… Of course, both OS/2 and WindowsNT became great GUI operating systems for their own native apps….

@CyroTheSpider

3 ай бұрын

I think it was all about companies. Once companies and non-tech people start using something, they are very reluctant to update their workflows. So a lot of companies stayed in the past and wanted to keep compatibility with their DOS programs.

I was a big fan of OS/2; I'm old enough to say that I started with the ver 1.2 of OS/2. My favorite was Warp and of course the DOS VDM was probably the most advanced prowess at that time (I can also include the WPS, which is still the best GUI out there, IMHO). Your video is awesome, I never thought that the DOS VDM can be exploited that far...! :)

Amazing channel! Looking forward to the followup video.

If Earnest Hemingway had used OS/2, he would have written a novella called "The Old Man and the C:\ Prompt".

@THEPHINTAGECOLLECTOR

2 ай бұрын

^^

I’m really looking to your new video today! 😊

@THEPHINTAGECOLLECTOR

2 ай бұрын

Hope you won't be disappointed ;-)

I had OS/2 as the primary OS on my 486sx25 back in the 90s and I enjoyed it a good deal. I used Lotus Smartsuite on it for documents and the built in MDOS was decent enough for most of the games I wanted to play. I did like that I could use set XMS and EMS for games directly without having to mess around with different configurations. Also I had the Pro Audio Spectrum soundcard and it was a lot nicer under OS/2 than DOS and Windows because its drivers took enough memory to occasionally make things complicated, whereas it was natively supported in MMPM/2 under 2.1.

Watching these OS/2 videos I am somewhat sad I never had an opportunity to try it out. I remember reading about Win95 vs OS/2 battle while I had weak 386SX which didn't have processing power or disk space to support either and later when having better Pentium machine Win95 was pretty much the only OS I could get my hands on other than DOS itself and by this time it was almost Win98 times and no one cared for OS/2 anymore. Still in the 90's the only other OS O got my hand on was various Linux distros as these were distributed in computer magazines for free and by this time there was this 100% certainty which literally everyone had that Linux will be forever and ever something that will be used and despite its difficulity it is worth learning it. All seeing xeyes which look at this comment agree that there was zero reason anyone should have any doubt Linux will prevail and will be the only alternative to Windows. OS/2 on the other hand even in the 95's magazines was seen as something that really doesn't stand a chance. I guess if all people say so it will happen - at least in cases such as these.

@THEPHINTAGECOLLECTOR

3 ай бұрын

The fight between OS/2 and Windows was a long lasting battle, but as you say, at the time Win98 was coming, it was pretty much over. Had IBM extended the Win-OS/2 runtime to include Win95 with WARP 4.0, then maybe, perhaps... But there was no way in competing against Microsoft, as all the new software didn't run on the then already dated Win(3.1)-OS/2 that came with OS/2.

@e8root

3 ай бұрын

@@THEPHINTAGECOLLECTOR Win95 compatibility would not help OS/2 in the long run just like Win3x compatibility only hurt OS/2. What IBM needed to do is make better office program than Microsoft Office and undersell Microsoft. Instead they cut cost on development and then tried to squeeze as much cash out of OS/2 they though possible. M$ no matter what one can say about them they had Bill Gates and he was pretty capable strategist who being on pretty much lost position still managed to check mate IBM. IBM which tripped over their own corporate #weAreIBM feet.

@Novous

3 ай бұрын

My dad had os2. It was pretty useless since almost no software used it outside business stuff. You could run SimCity and Links and I justed listed over 15 percent of all the games ever written that supported it. It sure looked cool though

Nice video again. Steven has finished his IBM 5170. It has harddisk issues. Now its working good again. Greetings from Steven from the Netherlands

@THEPHINTAGECOLLECTOR

2 ай бұрын

@jasmijndekkers Hey Steven, what was the issue then with the harddisk? Just had fixed-up a 5160, has also a HD inside. It works, but sounds very unhealthy, like the bearings propably going to die soon.

@jasmijndekkers

2 ай бұрын

The BIOS had a invalid ROM so i must program a new BIOS for it@@THEPHINTAGECOLLECTOR

The advantage of OS2 Dos was the ability to tailor each session to suit the software being run and that saving that configuration for eachpiece of software meant you could have either EMM memory or HMM as needed for each program, Wheras under real dos you had to have tailored individual autoexec bat files for each program or simply boot either HMM or EMM autoexec bats then run your software and nothing else. However OS2 would allow all that plus OS2 command line or Workplace shell instances at any time

good old dos days

Oh yes, a trip down memory lane can be a rocky road to nowhere. I still have a retail box of OS/2 v2.1 somewhere. My hardware was a bit piss weak at the time and as I recall the OS/2 boot was a lengthy one and I suspect it was already swapping halfway through. By the time my hardware improved, NT4 on dual SCSI drives made a bit more sense. Must clean up behind the desk some day, I think there is still some coax and BNC's hidden in the dust.

@THEPHINTAGECOLLECTOR

2 ай бұрын

Coax and BNCs 🙂 I have that in mind for an upcoming video.

@bsd107

2 ай бұрын

I ran the OS/2 Warp beta on my Compaq 486DX2/50 while I was waiting for NT 3.5 to come out. It was the first OS I had which could utilize my bus-mastering DMA Adaptec SCSI card. Even with a single SCSI hard drive (IBM 1GB Spitfire) it was amazing how well the OS could use that hard drive while keeping other CPU activities going. Big improvement over the motherboard (non-DMA) IDE controller

I ran OS/2 Warp 4 Connect for a few years until I got into Linux

@belstar1128

3 ай бұрын

never the mainstream way 👍

18:54 BASICA (IBM Advanced BASIC) fails because it's trying to load BASIC from ROM, but this only existed on the early IBM PCs (up until the 5170, I think), and the ROM code might not run under OS/2 anyway. Microsoft's GWBASIC should work fine, though it might be tricky to track down a version compatible with DOS 1.0.

@THEPHINTAGECOLLECTOR

3 ай бұрын

Good spotting, that was the issue. I should definitely had payed attention here. Thanks for pointing it out.

OS2 3 had shortly a install but corrupted, never had another go ! Up to, hardware seemed a bigh issue getting it to run, specialy removable and cd rom drives. Old era Win 3.x or OS2 in a virtualbox maybe someday !

Will subtitles come?

@THEPHINTAGECOLLECTOR

2 ай бұрын

Thanks for the hint. They were there, but not published. I just updated to video to enable the subs, they should become available shortly.

Good memory lane tour for me. I started with OS/2 back in 1992 when it could finally run Windows 3.1 programs. That year I tried the real MS DOS 6.22 and Windows 3.1. I rejected the configuration to deploy turnkey solutions on as it was not stable. However OS/2 2.1 could stably run the same Windows 3.1 programs that the real MS DOS / Windows crashed on. I was sold! And the rest.... is history. 😎 Now I have been operating on the OS/3 operating system since December of 2007. Never heard of "OS/3" you say? Well let me introduce you.... "Linux!" 🤓🥳 Currently Xubuntu is my tool of choice.

@vascomanteigas9433

3 ай бұрын

Linux lacks a OS/2 subsystem emulator, even some old atempts was made. (2ine was One of them). A old try was a kind of Wine-OS2 which use Wine to a base to that emulator.

@pianoman4Jesus

3 ай бұрын

@@vascomanteigas9433 VirtualBox works for me. It makes OS/3 run OS/2, Windows 3.1 (WinOS2) and DOS. Four operating systems all at one time. Plus it allows me to run a wide variety of native Windows versions, Linux versions.... even beta test the next Xubuntu LTS on the prior Xubuntu LTS. 😎

@THEPHINTAGECOLLECTOR

3 ай бұрын

The lack of protected mode support, and the fact, that DOS actually is a clone of CP/M, which was built for another time, was observerable everywhere in terms of stability or scaling limitations. OS/2 had a huge benefit there, but that ultimately didn't help to win. Linux is a fair choice, and has matured very well over the past two decades. There was a time years ago when I actually used a Linux workstation to play Quake III Arena. It was quiet OK if it hadn't been for the proprietary NVIDIA graphics drivers to always brake on every system update ... It was funny times back then :-)

@THEPHINTAGECOLLECTOR

3 ай бұрын

@@vascomanteigas9433I always had dreamed about an OS, that could just seamlessly run everything: DOS, Windows, Mac, UNIX, .... Not by means of emulation software like VMware, VirtualBox and sorts, but natively, via a subsystem that is just there and works seamslessly, without bothering. Windows NT had a nice approach here, going with the Win32, WoW16, NTVDM, OS/2 and POSIX subsystems. OS/2 went great lengths with the MVDM and the WIN-OS/2 implementations. Linux (and UNIX-like systems) have a nice approach as well, using WINE. MacOS (OS X) likewise, i.e. using compatibility emulators like ROSETTA. FreeBSD has the LINUXulator. But there's is literally no OS out there today, that really just can run any other operating system's application out-of-the-box, without installing any emulators or virtualization software. Of course, it's no question that it's propably not needed, otherwise something like that would have materialized. And the existing solutions are largely good enough. But imagine that: You just pop in any executable, and the OS would just identify the proper runtime and execute it. How awesome would that be!?

@vascomanteigas9433

3 ай бұрын

@@THEPHINTAGECOLLECTOR Linux actually had Waydroid for Android applications, and Darling for Mac OS X programs. The first are Isabel, and the later are too basic to run comercial programs.

I once installed windows 95 osr1 on dosbox (no vhd,running it from a local folder) using its version changing tool but it was running very buggy and it was error after error. I think it would be possible to install Win95 osr1 using dos 6.22 and setver command.

Is a OS/2 pure DOS subset bootdisk possible? (only OS/2 DOS kernel nothing else)

@THEPHINTAGECOLLECTOR

2 ай бұрын

You mean to boot into the MVDM or to boot directly on native hardware?

@nicolasaugeard

2 ай бұрын

@@THEPHINTAGECOLLECTORdirectly on native hardware with only command shell

@THEPHINTAGECOLLECTOR

2 ай бұрын

@@nicolasaugeard Technically, OS/2‘s MDOS is based on MS-/PC-DOS 5. I didn‘t disect this, but taking the example of Windows NT‘s DOS VDM, which also runs a DOS 5 subset, Microsoft created two specific files, NTIO.SYS and NTDOS.SYS. These were similar to IO.SYS and MSDOS.SYS, but essentially stripped from some low level routines, which were passed to the NT kernel instead. As such, that DOS is not directly bootable, as it lacks the I/O routines. I imagine that for OS/2 MDOS a very similar approach was taken, I stand corrected. If my assumption is correct, then it wouldn‘t be directly bootable either. But it could be an interesting experiment to dissect the MDOS for a better understanding.

Nyan-Nyan! =^_^=

I'm 99% sure you can also "shut down" NTVDM using the same (un?)docummented DOS CALL

@THEPHINTAGECOLLECTOR

3 ай бұрын

It‘s well worth a try

os2warp is essential better than windows. the way they handled kernel was way better,i ran it for quite some time when it came out. hell that the last os i ever bought. interesting

What is phintage is it like plumage?

@THEPHINTAGECOLLECTOR

3 ай бұрын

It‘s all there, right there, in the channel‘s description.

@donwald3436

3 ай бұрын

@@THEPHINTAGECOLLECTOR It's old okay so it's...... feathers that fell off?

OS/2 was not only a better DOS than DOS, but it was a better Windows than Windows. I disagree with your contention that Microsoft somehow 'beat out' IBM in the Windows market. At the time, OS/2 had been gaining more and more market share when IBM suddenly pulled the plug for no apparent reason. I suspect there was some back room wheeling and dealing done to tank OS/2 in the PC market. (IIRC, OS/2 would later become a major player in the ATM software market.)

@THEPHINTAGECOLLECTOR

2 ай бұрын

Hmm ... why you disagree? Don't get me wrong here, but aren't you ambivalent with these statement of yours? A) I disagree with your contention that Microsoft somehow 'beat out' IBM in the Windows market. B) I suspect there was some back room wheeling and dealing done to tank OS/2 in the PC market The fact that OS/2 lost against Windows (or in other words, IBM lost against Microsoft on behalf of their Desktop Operating Systems) is just a fact. I only said: Although it (OS/2) ultimately lost against Windows, .... That statement of mine doesn't imply technical inferiority or superiority of either product, it just emphases on the fact, that this situation ("OS/2 loosing...") happened, without going into the reason why. And I had no intention to cover this aspect, there's plenty of online sources, including videos, that do that already. But anyway, why did IBM, or OS/2 loose? There certainly had been multiple reasons. There's a very insightful, although opionionated, post by Gordon Letwin, one of the original creative heads behind OS/2, at gunkies.org/wiki/Gordon_Letwin_OS/2_usenet_post Apart from that, there's no big secret that IBM and Microsoft din't seem to have good terms at the time Windows 95 came along. They only settled 1 month short before the release for Windows 95. If you read up www.computerworld.com/article/2784083/ibm-exec-details-microsoft-tactics.html, there's clear indications that Microsoft played their position using price tactics, somewhat forcing IBM to make Windows 95 their default desktop OS. Reads to me a lot like weakening IBM's position, and giving in on retreating OS/2 from the consumer market. Obviously, IBM was supposed to pay 75$ per Windows 95 license, whereas they only paid like 9$ for Windows 3.1 before that. That definitely would have hurt. Maybe the deal, my own speculation, was something like "You get Windows 95 ultra-cheap again, if you retreat in the next 5 or so years"... And only days later, Lous Gerstner announced, IBM would not pursue the desktop market anymore? www.nytimes.com/1995/08/01/business/ibm-chief-concedes-os-2-has-lost-desktop-war.html Coincidence? Who knows ...? Despite that IBM was bringing Warp 4.0 along one year after Windows 95, why would it still stick on the Windows 3.1-based Win-OS/2. Why would they not incorporate Windows 95? Oh, and they closed the development subsidiary in Florida just the year after. I'm certain, if IBM had wanted to, they easily could have integrated Win95-OS/2 the same way they did before with Win3.1-OS/2. Speculative from my side again, but Microsoft propably disallowed them to integrate Windows 95 to not jeopardize their (Microsoft's) Windows market share. Where there backroom dealings? We don't know, but looking at it from a distance, there maybe were. I personally don't think either, that IBM retreated for fun, they were force-motivated to do so. IBM might have had bad marketing for OS/2 in the destop / end-user market, and they propably did also a few other mistakes. There's plenty of analysis, as to why OS/2 ultimately failed. So if you ask me, "Microsoft *did* somehow 'beat out' IBM in the Windows Market", because that's what ultimately happened. I agree, that indication point to the direction, that Microsoft pulled wires behind the scenes. Either way, I don't care about it too much. I have a hundred machines in my basement. They run Linux, the run BSD, they run MS-DOS, they OS/2, they run Windows, or whatever else operating system. I simply love them for what they are. They politics, well, *that's* a different story ...

@Wichitan

2 ай бұрын

@@THEPHINTAGECOLLECTOR Umm...OK...

@THEPHINTAGECOLLECTOR

2 ай бұрын

@@Wichitandisagree to agree, or agree to disagree, or agreeing to agree? Or disagreeing to disagree? :)

@Wichitan

2 ай бұрын

@@THEPHINTAGECOLLECTOR You've obviously agreed to be sophomoric, so just go with that...

@kusanag0

27 күн бұрын

IBM was bleeding money in 1995 : really bad marketing (Warp was supposed to be used as Warp Speed, but the IBM's lawyers we're sleeping on the switch and Paramount said NO), developping a PowerPC version of OS/2 that no one would use, etc... So, they brought Lou Gerstner as a CEO (a first for IBM, he was from outside the company) and he looked at it... Windows 95 was selling like pancakes (1 million copies in 4 days !) and OS/2 was barely passing 3 millions. And in 1996, Windows NT 4.0 arrived, putting the last nail in the OS/2 coffin, so Gerstner took the decision that was obvious : IBM lost the war and it was time to retreat. :(

Was a it a better Dos the Dos? Maybe. Was it a worse GUI that Windows or Apple. 100% yes! It was horrible. It was not being sold on it's Dos skills, it was being sold on it's GUI. And it's GUI was I think the best way to describe is as the very, VERY worst of OSS at the time. Sorry I do have to mention that you do no sound old enough to have been around at the time. Which makes me think you reviewing this system with the rose tinted spectacles of someone who has actually just used it for, at best, a few hours. Not someone who has used it as their daily driver. That is a really important details. And if you have used it recently, there is no way you have only used it as a daily driver. You have not used it as a daily driver, because it's just simply not up to that task in the modern world. I did use it at the time, I even recommended it as the daily driver for my families business. For IIRC 3/4 weeks. Before having to re-train them into an OS that actually worked, didn't crash all the time and had a GUI that didn't behave like it was coded by a 10 year old, that somehow came from one the the worlds largest companies. There is a very good reason OS/2 didn't last long. It was cheap/nasty shit from IBM.

@THEPHINTAGECOLLECTOR

3 ай бұрын

@mattmcc72 Then I'm certainly way older than I sound, or you seem to think I am. Suffice to say my track record began 35 years ago on a C64 and an IBM AT, and it was definitely more than just "playing Solitaire". Not that it matters in any way.

@mattmcc72

3 ай бұрын

@@THEPHINTAGECOLLECTOR 35 years! So I'm correct, you actually are too young to know to honestly know this stuff! You are too young to actually know know this software in the real world. So this video is what? A random rant by someone who decades later hates MS DOS? Please. OS/2 had few advantages, all of the problems are none of the software support. CPM was better supported! And yeah, when OS/2 actually came out (a year before that self defined first experience of yours.) I had over a decade of PC experience and was a full time software developer. I was not late to this party, unlike yourself.

@THEPHINTAGECOLLECTOR

3 ай бұрын

@mattmcc72 I I personally can't do anything about whatever bad experience you may have had with OS/2. To put that back in perspective with your dissentiment about the video: - You seem to be disagreeing with my statement, the OS/2 MVDM was IMO a powerful piece of technology. - You seem to have expected this to be a bashing of OS/2, which it wasn't, on the contrast of your own experience. - You seem to impose I'm a DOS hater for .... what was your argument here again, I beg your pardon? And to summarize all that, you transpose your anger and disagreement onto the sole fact, that I'm too young, too inexperienced, or whatever else in your opinion disqualifies myself to make an appropriate statement. Now, rather than adding real facts yourself, you're just blaming around about my age, or your so claimed long lasting experience. Too sad, as with your self-proclaimed 10 more years of experience, I wonder why you don't use it to the best then? Teach, educate, be a mentor, make videos, write a book, let the people benefit from your broad wisdom. But instead, you've chosen to become ... a troll. Now forgive me, I have to pass on, as I have to immediately try out in the office what our 20-something-year-old think, when I'm blasting over them like "Hey, I have somewhat-years more experience than you. You know nothing, Jon Snow!" They surely are going to love me for doing that ...

@kusanag0

27 күн бұрын

Sorry, but the Workplace Shell was way better than Windows, it was a real OO desktop. Maybe not as beautiful but fonctionally, it was better no question about it. Just an example, a shorcut in Windows 95, when you delete the original, the shortcut searches for something, doesn't know what to do. In OS/2, it's called a shadow. When you delete the original, the shadow is also deleted, it's an object of the original. Even Windows 11 today is not capable of doing something like this.

@mattmcc72

26 күн бұрын

@@kusanag0 Wow, so it came with EXTRA wasted CPU resources, back when we had 486's!!! Usefull I guess. I really can't imagine what that 100% "Meh" functionality wasn't picked up by anyone else! F'in fan-girls.