Browse Japanese OS/2 users' sites.
When IBM and Microsoft realized that DOS was out of date and needed to be improved, they began developing the next generation system: OS/2. Microsoft later decided to do Windows instead, but IBM continued with OS/2. Windows sold well thanks to Microsoft's forceful marketing, even though OS/2 beat it hands down on the technical side. OS/2 achieved true 32-bit operation with an object-oriented graphical user interface long before Windows, and is still far more stable (at one stage over 75% of all bank transactions world-wide ran on OS/2) and better at multitasking. In addition to native OS/2 software you can run almost any DOS, Windows, REXX or Java software -- including versions of DOS and Windows no longer supported by Microsoft -- and a wide variety of UNIX software has also been ported.
Since IBM stopped developing / selling OS/2, much of the development has been done by volunteer programmers in the Open Source spirit, rather like Linux. Even the latest version of OS/2 will run quite happily on a first-generation Pentium (e.g. 75 MHz, 32MB of RAM), so if you have 'upgraded' to something sexier including "free" (?!) pre-installed Windows, why not install OS/2 on your old machine and experience how operating systems should really be written?
To find out more I'd recommend a trip to OS/2 Warp.Be and OS/2 World.
I actually used Japanese OS/2, as it gave me English DOS, English Windows, English OS/2, Japanese DOS, Japanese Windows and Japanese OS/2 programmes ... all running at the same time, efficiently and safely. With Windows I sometimes had to reboot 25+ times in one morning. (Unfortunately, 'market pressures' have made me conform and use Win2K for my work, as that's what all my clients use.) In case you're interested, here again are a few links (most in Japanese):
| Japanese OS/2 Warp @ IBM |
Browse Japanese OS/2 users' sites.
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| Nifty OS/2 Forum | |
| Japanese on English OS/2 | |
| Japanese, Chinese and Korean on English OS/2 |