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IBM OS/2 Warp Client v4.52 CP2 R.I.P. Active torrent. Although tracker says it is not.
R.I.P. But it was an excellent OS! Fast, stable running on AMD 386DX with 128 MB RAM. The only one that I bought! 
OS/2 is a computer operating system, initially created by Microsoft and IBM, then later developed by IBM exclusively. The name stands for
"Operating System/2," because it was introduced as the preferred operating system for IBM's "Personal System/2 (PS/2)" line of
second-generation Personal Computers. OS/2 is no longer marketed by IBM, and IBM standard support for OS/2 was discontinued on
December 31, 2006. Currently, Serenity Systems sells OS/2 under the brand name eComStation.
OS/2 was intended as a protected mode successor of MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows. Notably, basic system calls were modeled after
MS-DOS calls; their names even started with "Dos" and it was possible to create "Family Mode" applications: text mode applications that
could work on both systems. Because of this heritage, OS/2 is like Windows in many ways, but it also shares similarities with Unix and
Xenix.
OS/2 is also remembered for being the first major operating system to have its own advocacy group. Team OS/2 was a grassroots, ad-hoc
organization of volunteers, who promoted and supported the operating system and applications designed for it.
Development history
Enthusiastic beginnings
The development of OS/2 began when IBM and Microsoft signed the Joint Development Agreement in August 1985. It took two years for
the first product to be delivered.
OS/2 1.0 was announced in April 1987 and released in December as a text mode-only OS. However, it featured a rich API for controlling
the video display (VIO) and handling keyboard and mouse events in a sort of protected-mode BIOS. In addition, a subset of the video and
keyboard APIs were also available to family mode programs running under MS-DOS. A task-switcher named Program Selector was available
through the Ctrl-Esc hotkey combination, allowing the user to select among multitasked text-mode sessions (or screen groups; each could
run multiple programs).
Communications and database-oriented extensions were delivered in 1988, as part of OS/2 1.0 Extended Edition: SNA, X.25/APPC/LU 6.2,
LAN Manager, Query Manager, SQL.
The promised GUI, Presentation Manager, was introduced with OS/2 1.1 in November 1988. With proportional fonts, it was a precursor of
the later Windows 3.0 look.
The Extended Edition of 1.1 introduced distributed database support.
Version 1.2 introduced Installable Filesystems and notably the HPFS filesystem. HPFS provided a number of improvements over the older
FAT filesystem, including long filenames and a form of alternate data streams called Extended Attributes. In addition, extended attributes
were also added to the FAT filesystem.
The Extended Edition of 1.2 introduced TCP/IP and Ethernet support.
OS/2 and Windows-related books of the late 1980s acknowledged the existence of both systems and promoted OS/2 as the system for
the future.
Breakup
The collaboration between IBM and Microsoft unravelled in 1990, between the releases of Windows 3.0 and OS/2 1.3. Initially, at least
publicly, Microsoft continued to insist the future belonged to OS/2. Steve Ballmer of Microsoft even took to calling OS/2 "Windows
Plus."However, during this time, Windows 3.0 became a tremendous success, selling millions of copies in its first year. Much of its success
was due to the fact that Windows 3.0 (along with MS-DOS) was bundled with most new computers. OS/2, on the other hand, was only
available as an expensive stand-alone software package. In addition, OS/2 lacked device drivers for many common devices such as
printers, particularly non-IBM hardware. Windows, on the other hand, supported a much larger variety of hardware. The increasing
popularity of Windows prompted Microsoft to shift its development focus from cooperating on OS/2 with IBM to building a franchise based
on Windows. Several technical and practical reasons contributed to this breakup:
Differences in culture and vision: Microsoft favored the open hardware system approach that contributed to its success on the PC; IBM
sought to use OS/2 to drive sales of its own hardware, including systems that could not support the features Microsoft wanted. Microsoft
programmers also became frustrated with IBM's bureaucracy and its use of lines of code to measure programmer productivity. IBM
developers complained about the terseness and lack of comments in Microsoft's code, while Microsoft developers complained that IBM's
code was bloated.
Differences in API: OS/2 was announced when Windows 1.0 was near completion, and the Windows API already defined. However, IBM
requested that this API be significantly changed for OS/2. Therefore, issues surrounding application compatibility appeared immediately.
OS/2 designers hoped for source code conversion tools, allowing complete migration of Windows application source code to OS/2 at some
point. However, OS/2 1.x did not gain enough momentum to allow vendors to avoid developing for both OS/2 and Windows in parallel.
IBM's involvement was much more successful in redefining Windows' visual appearance after the 1.0 release, giving it what is today
perceived as the "Windows 3.1 look."
OS/2 targeted the 80286 Processor: IBM insisted on supporting the Intel 80286 processor, with its 16-bit segmented memory mode, due
to commitments made to customers who had purchased many 80286-based PS/2's because of IBM's promises surrounding OS/2. Until
release 2.0 in April 1992, OS/2 ran in 16-bit protected mode and therefore could not benefit from the Intel 80386's much simpler 32-bit
flat memory model and virtual 8086 mode features. This was especially painful in providing support for DOS applications. While, in 1988,
Windows/386 2.1 could run several preemptively multitasked DOS applications, including expanded memory (EMS) emulation, OS/2 1.3,
released in 1991, was still limited to one 640KB "DOS box."
Given these issues, Microsoft started to work in parallel on a version of Windows which was more future-oriented and more portable. The
hiring of Dave Cutler, former VMS architect, in 1988 created an immediate competition with the OS/2 team, as Cutler did not think much
of the OS/2 technology and wanted to build on his work at Digital rather than creating a "DOS plus." His "NT OS/2," was a completely new
architecture.
IBM grew concerned about the delays in development of OS/2 2.0 and the diversion of IBM funds earmarked for OS/2 development
towards Windows[citation needed]. Initially, the companies agreed that IBM would take over maintenance of OS/2 1.0 and development of
OS/2 2.0, while Microsoft would continue development of OS/2 3.0. In the end, Microsoft decided to recast NT OS/2 3.0 as Windows NT,
leaving all future OS/2 development to IBM. From a business perspective, it was logical to concentrate on a consumer line of operating
systems based on DOS and Windows, and to prepare a new high-end system in such a way as to keep good compatibility with existing
Windows applications. While waiting for this new high-end system to develop, Microsoft would still receive licensing money from Xenix and
OS/2 sales. Windows NT's OS/2 heritage can be seen in its initial support for the HPFS filesystem, text mode OS/2 1.x applications, and
OS/2 LAN Manager network support. Some early NT materials even included OS/2 copyright notices embedded in the software.
One example of NT OS/2 1.x support is in the WIN2K resource kit. OS/2 support also includes Presentation Manager support with the
addition of the Windows NT Add-On Subsystem for Presentation Manager.
32-bit era
OS/2 2.0, released in April 1992, was touted by IBM as "a better DOS than DOS and a better Windows than Windows." For the first time,
OS/2 was able to run more than one DOS application at a time. This was so effective that it allowed OS/2 to actually run a modified copy
of Windows 3.0, itself a DOS extender, including Windows 3.0 applications. Also new in version 2.0 was the Workplace Shell, a true
object-oriented environment.
OS/2 2.0 was, unlike its predecessor, a hybrid 16-bit/32-bit operating system although performance did not notably degrade on the
Pentium Pro, an Intel CPU renowned for poor 16 bit performance at the time.[20] The graphics subsystem (Gre) and multimedia (MMPM/2)
were updated in a servicepack (and bundled into OS/2 2.1), Warp 3 brought about a fully 32 bit Windowing system, whilst Warp 4
introduced the object oriented 32 bit GRADD display driver model.
DOS compatibility
Because of the limitations of the Intel 80286 processor, OS/2 1.x could run only one DOS program at a time, and did this in a way that
allowed the DOS program to have total control over the computer. A problem in DOS mode could crash the entire computer. In contrast,
OS/2 2.0 could benefit from the virtual 8086 mode of the Intel 80386 processor in order to create a much safer virtual machine in which to
run DOS programs. This included an extensive set of configuration options to optimize the performance and capabilities given to each DOS
program. Any real mode operating system (such as Xenix) could be also made to run using OS/2's virtual machine capabilities, subject to
certain direct hardware access limitations.
Like most 32-bit environments, OS/2 could however not run protected-mode DOS programs using the older VCPI interface, unlike the
Standard mode of Windows 3.0 and 3.1; it only supported programs written according to DPMI.
Unlike Windows NT, OS/2 also always gave DOS programs the possibility of masking real hardware interrupts, so any DOS program could
deadlock (crash) the machine this way. OS/2 could however use a hardware watchdog on selected machines (notably IBM) to break out
of such a deadlock. Later, release 3.0 leveraged the enhancements of newer Intel 486 processors—the Virtual Interrupt Flag—to solve
this problem.
Windows 3.x compatibility
Compatibility with Windows 3.0 (and later Windows 3.1) was achieved by adapting Windows user-mode code components to run inside a
virtual DOS machine. Originally, a nearly complete version of Windows code was included with OS/2 itself: Windows 3.0 in OS/2 2.0, and
Windows 3.1 in OS/2 2.1; however, IBM later developed versions of OS/2 that would use whatever Windows version the user had installed
previously, patching it on the fly, and sparing the cost of an additional Windows license. It could either run full-screen, using its own set
of video drivers, or "seamlessly," where Windows programs would appear directly on the OS/2 desktop. The process containing Windows
was given fairly extensive access to hardware, especially video, and the result was that switching between a full-screen WinOS/2 session
and the Workplace Shell could occasionally cause issues.
Because OS/2 only ran the user-mode system components of Windows, it was not compatible with Windows device drivers (VxDs) and
applications needing them.
Multiple Windows applications ran in a single Windows process, just as they would under native Windows. To achieve true isolation
between Windows 3.x programs, OS/2 could run multiple copies of Windows in parallel. This approach required considerable system
resources, especially memory. It was possible to use DDE between OS/2 and Windows applications, and OLE between Windows
applications only.
A feature in OS/2 called Win OS/2 allows the user to run Windows 3.x apps along the side of OS/2 Apps with out the need of fullscreen
mode, OS/2 Warp 3 and Warp 4 with blue spines had Win OS/2 while the Red spine had no Win OS/2.
Native features
OS/2 2.0 provided a 32-bit API for native programs, though the OS itself was a mixture of 16-bit and 32-bit code. It also included a new
GUI environment called the Workplace Shell. This was a fully object-oriented GUI that was a significant departure from the previous GUI.
Rather than merely providing an environment for program windows (such as the Program Manager), the Workplace Shell provided an
environment in which a user could manage programs, files and devices by manipulating objects on the screen.
A significant factor in the spread and acceptance of OS/2 2.0 and later releases was Team OS/2, a grass-roots advocacy group formed in
1992.
The "Warp" years
The OS/2 Warp 3 startup screen.OS/2 version 3.0, released in 1994, was labelled as "OS/2 Warp" to highlight the new performance
benefits, and generally to freshen the product image. "Warp" had originally been the internal IBM name for the release: IBM claimed that it
had used Star Trek terms as internal names for past OS/2 releases, and that this one seemed appropriate for external use as well.
At the launch of OS/2 Warp in 1994, Patrick Stewart was to be the Master of Ceremonies; however Kate Mulgrew of the then-upcoming
series Star Trek: Voyager was substituted at the last minute.
OS/2 Warp offered a host of benefits over OS/2 2.1, notably broader hardware support, greater multimedia capabilities,
Internet-compatible networking, and it included a basic office application suite known as IBM Works. It was released in two versions: the
less-expensive "Red Spine" and the more-expensive "Blue Spine" (named for the color of their boxes). "Red Spine" was designed to support
Microsoft Windows applications by finding and using Windows already installed on the computer's hard drive. "Blue Spine" included
Windows support in its own installation, and so could support Windows applications without a Windows installation. As most computers
were sold with Microsoft Windows pre-installed, "Red Spine" was the far more popular product. OS/2 Warp Connect, which had full
network support built-in, followed in mid-1995, again in "Red Spine" and "Blue Spine" versions.
Mozilla 1.7.13 for OS/2 Warp 4In 1996, Warp 4 added Java and speech recognition software. IBM also released server editions of Warp 3
and Warp 4 which bundled IBM's LAN Server product directly into the operating system installation. The UK-distributed free demo CD-ROM
of OS/2 Warp essentially contained the entire OS and was easily, even accidentally, cracked, meaning that even people who liked it didn't
have to buy it. This was seen as a backdoor tactic to increase the number of OS/2 users, in the belief that this would increase sales and
demand for third-party applications, and thus strengthen OS/2's desktop numbers.[citation needed] This suggestion was bolstered by the
fact that this demo version had replaced another which was not so easily cracked, but which had been released with trial versions of
various applications.[citation needed] In 2000 the July edition of Australian Personal Computer magazine bundled software CD-ROMs,
included a full version of Warp 4 that required no activation and was essentially a free release.
Warp 4 was the last widely distributed version of OS/2, and IBM soon announced the end of marketing the operating system to individual
users.
Burn .ISO files and have fun!
Enjoy!
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