A Powerful New Operating System
After years of living in an operating system wasteland, owners of IBM-compatible personal computers can look forward to one heck of a year in 1992.
Last week, IBM released an all-new OS/2 2.0 operating system, the first to take full advantage of the vast power in computers with Intel 386 and 486 microprocessors.
Dealers aren’t likely to have it for another couple of weeks, but it’s a fine piece of work.
IBM said it was designed to run DOS programs better than DOS and Windows programs better than Windows.
My initial testing finds that it runs DOS programs better than Windows runs DOS programs. It runs Windows 3.0 programs, but there are some limitations. (A revision by summer will let OS/2 run Windows 3.1.)
It will be the new OS/2 programs, written to take advantage of version 2.0’s features, that will deliver the full power that IBM-compatible computers are capable of.
Technically, OS/2 2.0 is a 32-bit operating system. It enables 386- and 486-based computers to process data 32 bits at a time, which is what those microprocessors were designed to do.
OS/2 2.0 gives programs access to up to 512 megabytes of computer memory. That kind of power will enable incredible advances in desktop graphics manipulation, multimedia programs and real-time analysis of streams of data.
The new OS/2 provides true multitasking. Programs written to take advantage of that feature can be fully operational while other programs are running simultaneously.
Even standard DOS programs such as WordPerfect or Lotus 1-2-3 can run simultaneously. But the Flight Simulator airplane flies mighty slow when running along with other applications, symbolizing the need for a fast computer to make multitasking practical.
More extensive reviews will follow in a few weeks after there’s been time to wring out OS/2 2.0 more thoroughly.
Meanwhile, Microsoft shipped Windows 3.1 this week. It’s more of a stalking horse for a trio of Microsoft products coming at the end of the year than it is a direct competitor for OS/2 2.0.
The most important of those new products will be Windows NT (for new technology), a full 32-bit operating system that will offer important features missing in the new OS/2, according to David Thacher, Microsoft’s group product manager for Windows NT.
Where OS/2 2.0 has a high-performance file system capable of long 254-character file names, Windows NT will have yet a more advanced file system, with multiple long file names for a single file, self-repairing of damaged files and the ability to address much greater memory than OS/2 2.0, Thacher said.
OS/2 2.0 can address memory and storage using 32 bits, compared to 16 bits for DOS and Windows 3.1. But Windows NT will use 64-bit addressing instead of OS/2’s 32 bits, giving it access to 4 gigabytes of random access memory, eight times more than OS/2 2.0.
The coming Windows NT also has full government-specified security levels built in and it can utilize multiple multiprocessors. OS/2 2.0 lacks the security features and is limited to a single processor. Of course IBM can modify OS/2 next year to match those features.
Also planned is a 32-bit version of Windows for 386 and above microprocessors that will be positioned between Windows 3.1 and Windows NT.
A 32-bit version of MS-DOS is also in the wings, Thacher said. When the first OS/2 was jointly introduced three years ago by IBM and Microsoft, the plan was for OS/2 programs to become the most powerful, with Windows programs to offer ease of use but limited power.
But Microsoft, since its split with IBM last year, has charged ahead with a different plan in which the limitations of Windows are to be eliminated. Thus it plans to let Windows NT run very few OS/2 programs. That means that OS/2 won’t have high-end computing as its exclusive domain.
For the time being at least, OS/2 2.0 has the advantage in that it is here now. If powerful OS/2 2.0 programs are quickly introduced that perform needed tasks not now possible on Windows or DOS, there will be customers ready to buy them. But there will be others who will wait and see whether Windows NT does it better.
