Subj : Re: Commodore Computers
To   : Dr. What
From : Nightfox
Date : Mon May 02 2022 10:52:21

  Re: Re: Commodore Computers
  By: Dr. What to Nightfox on Sun May 01 2022 11:41 am

 DW> OS/2's first issue was hardware. You needed a much beefier system than
 DW> most people had. That meant a more expensive PC, or expensive upgrades. So
 DW> even if you run your MS-DOS app in OS/2 "penalty box" you still need those
 DW> expensive hardware upgrades.

It always seemed like you needed pretty good hardware to run Windows too.  By the mid 90s, it seemed like OS/2 and Windows had similar hardware requirements.

 DW> Next, IBM wanted big bucks for development tools at the start. If you are
 DW> a developer, you aren't going to pay money for developer tools unless you
 DW> can get some return on that investment.

 DW> Now we are in a chicken/egg issue. OS/2 doesn't sell well because there
 DW> aren't enough apps. But because it's not selling well, developers don't
 DW> want to pay to support it.

 DW> IHMO: If IBM would have given away the developer tools in exchange for a
 DW> committment of writing a (hopefully good) app for OS/2, they could have
 DW> broken that chicken/egg cycle.

That makes sense.  It would be a significant barrier if the development tools were expensive.

 DW> By the time OS/2 Warp came along, along with the Intel
 DW> 80386 (which was much better than the 80286 for this), OS/2 had too much
 DW> of a bad reputation - and Microsoft had too big a hold on the market.

OS/2 Warp came out years after the 386 was released.  If I remember, the 386 was released in 1985, and OS/2 Warp came out around 1994, if I recall.  And before OS/2 Warp came out, I remember seeing ads and articles about OS/2 2.1 32-bit.  But yes, by that time, Microsoft had too much of a hold on the market.

Nightfox
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