On Mon, Oct 1, 2018 at 3:29 AM Thomas Mueller <mueller6...@twc.com> wrote: > Excerptfrom dmccunney: > > > > MS isn't the only vendor of a DOS-compatible OS. DR-DOS and ROM-DOS > > > are still sold online. (Do OS/2 variants also count? Maybe.) > > > Which OS/2 variants? The one I'm aware of is eComStation, > > https://www.ecomstation.com/. The outfit that makes it got the rights > > from IBM, and essentially services accounts that still have > > substantial OS/2 deployments, and it's cheaper and easier to try to > > continue to use OS/2 than migrate to a different architecture. > > (Stardock, who does stuff like the Window Blinds and Object Desktop > > enhancements for Windows, developed under OS/s, and tried to get the > > rights from Microsoft but were unsuccessful. Not sure what they might > > have done if they were able to get the rights, but support for 32 bit > > apps would have been a major improvement for the OS. Not supporting > > 32 bit Windows apps effectively killed it.) > > There is a new commercial OS/2 variant now, ArcaOS from arcanoae.com .
I missed that one. Thanks! > 32-bit, no 64-bit, no GPT, no refund it it doesn't work. 64-bit can be lived without. 32 bit is nice. The question is what 32 bit apps? The problem that did in OS/2 was lack of support for 32 bit *Windows* apps. The native OS/2 apps ecosystem wasn't broad/deep enough, and it needed to be able to run Win apps to compete with Windows. > Website says they use network drivers from FreeBSD, bit in that case, surely > one is better off using FreeBSD rather than ArcaOS. OS/2 > successors/descendants have fallen far behind. Whether you are better running FreeBSD depends on what you want to do. If you are running a server, it might be worth doing. If you want to run it in a desktop installation, you face the question of what apps are available that run under it. People get computers to do work. Work is done by applications, and your question is what applications can do it. With increasing portability of apps, we are at a point where what the underlying OS is may not *matter*. > There is also an osFree at osfree.org or github.com/osfree-project/osfree/ . > Progress is glacially slow, maybe they'll have something (relevant? probably > not) by year 4000. <snort> That sounds like what I'd expect. Their most recent news items are about moving their repository to git. Actual *development* seems scanty. > Peripherally on-topic for this list since it relates to descendants of DOS, > but we don't want to clutter this list by pursuing this side-topic too deeply. I'd agree, because OS/2 was supposed to be the successor to DOS. Had it been available when the Intel 80286 was released, we might all be running it now. It wasn't, and the AT class machines were simply bigger faster DOS platforms that could not take advantage of the new capabilities of the CPU.. > Tom ______ Dennis _______________________________________________ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
