I used OS/2 and loved it

As Time Magazine notes, today marks the 25th anniversary of the introduction of IBM's OS/2 operating system. For all of you junior geeks, here's a bit of blockquoted text to put this in context:

OS/2 promised multitasking, not just task switching. It knew how to handle memory…It did a heck of a lot of cool things…I don’t think it’s easy for young whippersnappers to grasp how big a deal the PS/2 and OS/2 were at the time. We were certain, absolutely certain, that nothing would be the same again. The closest I can come to it was the reaction after the first iPhone was released: the sense that It’s all different now.

I'll even toss in a commercial from way back in the day:

I used OS/2 2.1 and 3.0, aka OS/2 Warp. I also (briefly) used OS/2 4.0 aka Warp 4. Not only did I use them, I was really snotty and elitist about using them. Why? Because I built my own computers back then. Computer trade shows weren't about showing off the newest phone, game console or online experience site. They were places where vendors had tables full of parts: motherboards, CPUs, memory chips, power supplies, cases, etc. If you knew what you were doing (which I did), you could build your boxen from scratch. The investment in time let you spend half the money for twice the computer. Having built an optimized rig, it was up to the software to squeeze as much performance out of it as possible.

You kids today may not realize it, but computers used to do only one thing at a time. To go from one task to another, you had to exit a program then start the other one. Eventually, Microsoft developed a way to engage in task-switching, where one program was merely suspended when you switched over. OS/2, however, let everything continue to run. No lag time, no stuttering, no program crashes during the hot-key activity. It was glorious.

Unlike the "16-bit emulation of a 32-bit OS bolted onto an 8-bit architecture" Windows, OS/2 was 32-bit from the ground up. It took full advantage of the 386 and 486 chips of the day. Even with the OS software overhead, OS/2 was so much faster than MS-DOS or Windows 3.1 that there was just no contest. It was a hands-down winner for every productivity app. OS/2 ran most native DOS and Windows apps seamlessly along with native OS/2 apps. It also supported dual-boot, to let a pure DOS environment handle pesky programs, usually games. Once you got to know the system, it was a thing of beauty and power.

I loved using it, but I was in a distinct minority. Most people disliked or hated it. Why?

Another of our Guinea Pigs, already an OS/2 fan, neatly summed up the software when he told us that it “thinks the way I think. [But] it’s not an end-user operating system; it’s a nerd operating system.”

OS/2 may have stubbornly refused to become a breakout hit, but it would be grossly misleading to suggest that nobody liked it. Actually, the people who did appreciate OS/2 loved it with an intensity that was unknown in the Windows world.

The article goes on to talk about Team OS/2, people who would extoll the virtues of OS/2 and demonstrate it for people. I was one such devotee.

But I was doomed.

Every DOS and Windows app had to maintain compatibility with DOS and Windows. Microsoft changed their APIs on a regular basis, ensuring that the software patches changed the software to maintain compatibility with Microsoft, but broke them for OS/2. When the revised patch for OS/2 came out, it was too late... a new API patch had been issued. OS/2 could never catch up and would always be using old, incompatible software. There were a lot of dirty tricks pulled behind the scenes that crippled my beloved OS/2:

That was only the tip of Microsoft’s anti-OS/2 iceberg. During United States vs. Microsoft, the Department of Justice’s antitrust suit against the software behemoth, an IBM executive testified that Microsoft prohibited software companies from using Microsoft programming tools to build OS/2 apps, making OS/2 development difficult and costly.

Worse, Microsoft’s contracts with hardware makers charged each company a fee for every computer sold, whether or not it included Windows. That meant that a PC manufacturer that wanted to sell OS/2 machines would have to pay both IBM and Microsoft for the privilege — a double toll that Windows didn’t carry. Microsoft was only forced to end this practice after OS/2 had been neutralized.

Sad.

Eventually, in order to maintain functionality, I had to give up OS/2 in favor of Windows. I also (eventually) had to give up WordPerfect in favor of MS-Word, and give up QuattroPro in favor of MS-Excel.

The hegemony is inescapable, but free men still dream of a time when rebellion meant a better life.

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