Subj : Re: Best or Favorite OS for a BBS?
To   : xbit
From : poindexter FORTRAN
Date : Fri Nov 07 2025 07:57 am

-=> xbit wrote to poindexter FORTRAN <=-

 xb> So awesome. Sounds like a fun retro project... I have a working 486 w/
 xb> win95. Perhaps i could switch the HDD an os/2 one :) that said, it also
 xb> sounds like a lot of work as it would be a new world for me and not
 xb> sure support is what it once was. https://x-bit.org/info/retro486/ ===

Despite the challenge of keeping old hardware running, OS/2 would
probably prefer older hardware. OS/2 has been updated, there's a version
called eCOmstation and later Arca Noae (sp?) that support modern CPUs,
USB and more.

OS/2 was all about the CONFIG.SYS file, getting the drivers loading
right was a bit of a pain if I recall. Once it loads up, you get a
window environment called Presentation Manager that predated
context-based menus with right-click options that changed depending on
the context, and object context - drop a document onto the printer icon
to print, for example.

Its DOS support was amazing. You could create a DOS environment and not
need to load any DOS drivers, instead using the system drivers, and get
a lot of available memory - or create DOS virtual machine using
whatever version of DOS you want to use. Unlike a hypervisor, you could
share the file system with OS/2.

The beauty of the system was moving to OS/2 binaries - I ran Maximus,
Squish, Qedit, BlueWave and TimEdit all for OS/2, and the difference in
system drain compared to running in DOS was minimal.

Later versions could run older Windows binaries, but that was always
fiddly, and was an indication that IBM had given up trying to compete
with Windows. Sure, you could run Lotus Organizer, 1-2-3 and Word
Perfect for OS/2, but not a lot of home users did.


 
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