I will be surprised if anyone knows OS/2 apart from passing newsline or comment (not counting isiolia who seems to know everything PC related). OS/2 is a hodgepodge of old OS's that was made by IBM and Microsoft in the late 80s and shoved under the table when Windows 3 hit the market and trumped in marketing and ease of use. But OS/2 has never died. Most of you have used it in some way over the last thirty years and never knew it. OS/2 hung on to the sink ship for the first half of the 90s. They started grabbing developers of all kinds to produce exclusive software for it, Stardock being the biggest. For those who hated Microsoft, OS/2 was a safe haven. Even shockjock Howard Stern went on a tirade about why OS/2 was better than Windows 95:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PErQUubZCs
With the mid 90s in full swing and Microsoft dominating the home market with 95, OS/2 was certain to die, despite being a better DOS than DOS (it could run multiple DOS programs in windows - which was unheard of in the early 90s). However OS/2 Warp was released and the financial world grabbed it did not let go. For the next ten years many Banks, ATMs, Ticketing systems, and Network Operations Systems for Radio stations started using this "unhackable OS." To this day many ATM's the world over still use OS/2:
This became a major issue in the mid 2000s when OS/2 compatible hardware was becoming scarce. Enter the Russian Banking System who hired little known developer Serguei Beloussov to make a virtualization offering. OS/2 fully used the processor, unlike DOS/Win3, so for many years virtualization was not possible. Well in 2005 Serguei team cracked it and released Parallels for Windows and Linux 2.0. Yes the software that lets you run Windows on your Macbook was created so a Russian Bank did not have to update its software.
Nowadays OS/2 runs random hardware worldwide, but has mostly been replaced with Linux forks custom made for the hardware. It still has an oddly devoted following and they still develop software for it.
But why is this important? Well since IBM was desperate to grab market share after Win3 came out, they made some interesting plays for developers. Most notably was Stardock. Stardock released a bunch of random games for the OS like Entrepreneur (Business Sim) and Avarice ("FMV" murder mystery), but their first and most important title was Galactic Civilizations.
The OS/2 game library is full of weird and quirky titles, especially now since there have been 20 years of people putting out games unchecked. There are a couple of really standout titles, like the original Galactic Civilization and Trials of Battle (first person hover tank deathmatch), but on the whole the game developers went to Windows. Not surprising when you consider most of the best games were made by Stardock who were fresh out of college (still in college when Gal Civ was released).
But why is any of this important? Well last year it was announced that a new version of OS/2 was coming:
http://www.techrepublic.com/article/os2 ... ar-old-os/
