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Zak Killian Contributor Zak is a freelance contributor to Tom's Hardware with decades of PC benchmarking experience who has also written for HotHardware and The Tech Report. A modern-day Renaissance man, he may not be an expert on anything, but he knows just a little about nearly everything.
etoven I think someone might be going a little bit senile… possibly the author. Nobody ever had a production run of packaged software back then of just 11 units. Reply
Former_Bubblehead The author likely never layed eyes or hands on OS/2. And, we"re talking here about a hardware product that cost several thousand dollars at the time so was not likely to sell many copies. Perhaps a few hundred over its entire product lifetime if it was lucky. Reply
COLGeek Former_Bubblehead said: The author likely never layed eyes or hands on OS/2. And, we"re talking here about a hardware product that cost several thousand dollars at the time so was not likely to sell many copies. Perhaps a few hundred over its entire product lifetime if it was lucky. True. The hardware and OS/2 were two entirely different things as well. The history of OS/2 is one that most know nothing about. It was a solid OS that got lost to the annuls of time. Even in those days, this kind of unaffordable hardware (with all of its limitations) was not going to sell like hotcakes. Reply
Averagetoaster "even the relatively unpopular Xbox Series consoles" This is a real grasping at straws to try and make a point. Reply
Former_Bubblehead Averagetoaster said: "even the relatively unpopular Xbox Series consoles" This is a real grasping at straws to try and make a point. Typical so called TH "journalist" of the past several years. Never sticks around long enough to be held accountable or even answer any questions readers may have. Reply
great Unknown COLGeek said: True. The hardware and OS/2 were two entirely different things as well. The history of OS/2 is one that most know nothing about. It was a solid OS that got lost to the annuls of time. Even in those days, this kind of unaffordable hardware (with all of its limitations) was not going to sell like hotcakes. "annuls of time". I don't know if that was a typo, or deliberate, but it is a perfect pun, and I am hereby assimilating it. Reply
COLGeek great Unknown said: "annuls of time". I don't know if that was a typo, or deliberate, but it is a perfect pun, and I am hereby assimilating it. …it was, indeed. 😉 For those who may not get the reference, look at the history of MS and OS/2. Reply
abufrejoval What later generations never saw or knew is that this type of CPU upgrade or replacement was quite normal in the early days of small computers: indeed the CPU board (with plenty of support circuitry) was just another board you'd plug into your S-100 backplane, only to replace it with another a year down the road. An S-100 chassis held up to 22 devices, potentially several RAM boards and more boards for just about every function or interface. With the entire system easily costing as much as new full sized car, swapping the CPU board was much like swapping the engine: certainly not a trivial expense, but often the lesser evil than getting a new car. And "operating systems" were little more than a glorified boot loader, every application basically came with a floppy that contained its own copy of the base OS in the first few sectors. E.g I did add a Microsoft SoftCard (clone) to my Apple ] and a full 640k/32MB etc. of precious RAM was just way too costly at what they charged for RAM back then! I'm positive that an RTX 5090 including a 9950X3D with 128GB of RAM is still far less expensive than what I paid for an Intel Above EMS memory board with a measily 1.5megabyte of 16-bit 8 MHz RAM way back then in today's Euros. It was mostly shifting prices and the fact that the extension busses soon became the slowest component of the systems, which killed that trend. * * * OS/2's worst aspect was that it was tailor made for the 80286, which was basically a functional equivalent of PDP-11, a ground-laying machine in many ways, but a segmented 16-bit architecture which came out in 1970 and achieved 80286 type capabilities in 1976. It was very adequate and economic for the time, but it had none of the forward vision and abstractions which came with bigger address spaces, 32-bit or beyond. One of the first 32-bit designs with mass appeal was the DEC VAX, launched in 1977 and Intels 80386 essentially replicated that giant architectural jump in only three years (1982/1985) which was shortened to two on desktop products with the IBM PC-AT (1984) and the PC compatible Compaq DeskPro 386 (1986). That full generational jump in only two years was a shock, the PC software industry took many more years to absorb, but meanwhile OS/2 had the older 80286 design as a deeply baked in liability, that never delivered on the 80286 advantage before that CPU was already obsolete. For Microsoft to jump the queue and grab Dave Cutler and his VMS team from Digital to create WNT (Windows New Technology) as VMS (V++M++S++) clone. was certainly one of the best decisions M$ ever made: OS/2 with its reliance on Intel's slow microcoded segment and task management intrinsics never had the guts and backbone for WARP speed ahead, let alone any hope for portability: it would have been a long painful DRAG. From a pure user perspektive OS/2 may not have been as bad as some of the intemediary M$ sins until NT achieved similar and better maturity, its other birth defects (apart from the lack of popularity) may not have become that obvious before it died of its primary one. Reply
Zoolook13 etoven said: I think someone might be going a little bit senile… possibly the author. Nobody ever had a production run of packaged software back then of just 11 units. He didn't say anything about a production run, besides at that time lots of things sold in small number especially niche products. However even very large production runs can sell terribly and things like this happens https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_video_game_burial Reply
SomeoneElse23 I'm dating myself by stating I successfully ran a multi node BBS under OS/2. It ran circles around DesqView (I think that's what it was) for multitasking. That plus massive drive compression for message files allowed me to squeeze the most out of my 40MB HDD. (More than double, if I remember right.) I was most unhappy when OS/2 v4 came out and required a mouse! But my keyboarding skills still work to this day, as MS basically copied everything and never changed them. Reply
Key considerations
- Investor positioning can change fast
- Volatility remains possible near catalysts
- Macro rates and liquidity can dominate flows
Reference reading
- https://www.tomshardware.com/software/SPONSORED_LINK_URL
- https://www.tomshardware.com/software/the-worst-selling-microsoft-product-of-all-time-sold-just-11-times-and-eight-people-returned-it-why-youve-never-heard-of-os-2-for-the-mach-20#main
- https://www.tomshardware.com
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Informational only. No financial advice. Do your own research.