[Am-info] O/S 2 support - slightly off topic (my apologies)

[ethical@1of1.net]

In a message dated 2002 March 15 (Friday), timestamp 12:51 AM, 
   on the topic [Am-info] O/S 2 support - slightly off topic (my
apologies),
   "Jeff Wasel" <jeff@wasel.com> wrote:


"|I just built a box to run a copy of O/2 Warp v.3. 

Minor not:  it's OS/2. 

"|My question to all you O/S folks is: what other applications are
"|available and from what sources?

A couple gazillion at http://hobbes.nmsu.edu and
http://archiv.leo.org/pub/comp/os/os2/

"|Also, to what level is IBM supporting O/S 2? 

About the same level of support that female black widow spiders and
praying mantises give to their mates.  IBM discovered that it was much
much more profitable to sell service contracts with large
organizations than to sell software packages to individual purchasers. 
If the anecdotal evidence is correct, a switch by a large company from
OS/2 to Windows NT/2000/XP just about quadruples the company's support
requirements.  IBM discovered that Windows works for their support
services divisions the way automobile accidents work for hospitals,
and therefore decided enthusiastically to support the widest possible
deployment of Windows.


OS/2 version 3 which you have is officially unsupported.  OS/2 version
4 is still supported, but only if you are a multinational bank or
insurance company.  However, there is a newer OS, strongly based on
the server version of OS/2 called eComStation, that is still fully
supported.  www.ecomstation.com.  

Fortunately, unlike the products of company that is the focus of this
maillist, no new version of OS/2 has ever intentionally broken
programs written to work on earlier versions.  On the contrary, heroic
efforts have been made to make each new version very highly backward
compatible.  Almost every program that ran on OS/2 version 1.3 will
run on eComStation, and something like 90 percent of programs that ran
on Windows 3.1 and something like 99 percent of the programs that ran
on DOS will run on the newest versions of eComStation, as well as on
the version 3 that you have. 


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