OS/2 2.0, Spring ’91 Edition

[johnlemon647]

OS/2 Museum found OS/2 2.0, Spring ’91 Edition That would make this one of the earliest IBM OS/2 2.0 betas, older than build level 6.149/6.605 from Summer 1991.
http://www.os2museum.com/wp/os-2-2-0-spring-91-edition/

[Tootles]

But unfortunately, no disk images.

[louisw3]

It's on vetus ware.

http://vetusware.com/download/IBM%20OS2 ... /?id=14671


Add it to the archive!!!

[Tootles]

It's on vetus ware.

http://vetusware.com/download/IBM%20OS2 ... /?id=14671


Add it to the archive!!!

Gotcha- thanks. Now I've just got to try and remember my login details, I've not logged in there in about ten years. I'm actually surprised that site's still there after all this time.

I'm actually curious about this, and what it means. It's Microsoft's OS/2 2.0. Microsoft OS/2 2.0. From just before they pulled out of it, and a few months before the Windows NT October '91 build. Does this mean it's a likely candidate for NT-OS/2?

[louisw3]

I downloaded it to my phone. I'm in the wildness at the moment so I can't test or upload it yet.

This isn't anything to do with OS/2 NT. Basically Microsoft had already given up in 1990? So for COMDEX the NT kernel drivers network core had already progressed. They had to dump the core "cruiser" API and "widen" Windows into Win32.

Basically this could have been the release of OS/2 2.0.

On the other hand I've been looking for a 2.00 with the 1.2 PM for the last 28 years....

[Tootles]

But I thought OS/2 2.0 was a ground-up rewrite?

[louisw3]

But I thought OS/2 2.0 was a ground-up rewrite?

It's basically been in parallel the entire time. Those 1.0 football/pigskin betas have the 386 VMM already in there as far back as 1987.

OS/2 never really was a full 32bit OS, hence the 16bit drivers, file systems etc. Things were only updated for the l4 PowerPC port which was abandoned shortly after being almost usable.

2.00 LA/GA features a completely different shell, and 2.1 changed many of the graphical drivers and subsystem to 32bit

[louisw3]

For some reason the versions of Bochs out there seem to run at 100% of possible speed so installing this as a stock OS isn't possible.

I need to dig out my PCem roms

[louisw3]

86Box will install it fine.. I used the AMI 486 Clone and set the CPU to a Pentium OverDrive 83, IDE hard disk and even installed on a blank HD and was able to format HPFS.

The best mouse I could get working was to use the Microsoft Bus Mouse (InPort)

[johnlemon647]

Thank for images Louisw3. Do this build work on Virtualbox. This is IBM OS/2 6.123-25 MEGA Download Link https://mega.nz/#!IDJUGYhQ!Vdu-BOem7Fl5 ... lhEGZDYvjs

[TheCollector1988]

Logitech bus mouse works too.

[DiskingRound]

Been waiting for such a release for so long, jeez christ... Thanks alot!
I also found this, but it's incomplete: http://vetusware.com/download/IBM%20OS2 ... /?id=14581

[louisw3]

6.167 is the Limited edition

6.177 was also the base for Citrix Multiuser 2

6.307 is the GA.

Even incomplete it's still something in this dark era of the IBM Microsoft split.

[Overdoze]

6.167 is the Limited edition
6.177 was also the base for Citrix Multiuser 2

Not really. Michal Necasek of OS/2 Museum said this when he reviewed 6.177:

Note: The OS/2 Museum previously in some instances incorrectly identified the OS/2 2.0 pre-release level 6.167 (Oct ’91) as OS/2 2.0 LA. The 2.0 LA level was 6.177 (Dec ’91).

[louisw3]

When I crashed the kernel it said 6.167...

Pretty sure it's the same LA in the archives

[louisw3]

Also for those who care the MS OS/2 2.00 SDK is in the archives too, I just forget what it's labeled as.

It has the CL386 compiler that is close in step to the NT pre-releases of 1991, just older. Actually I never dumped the October version to see what the object files are, I think it may be OMF, since everything needed to be converted for the linker.

[Overdoze]

When I crashed the kernel it said 6.167...

Pretty sure it's the same LA in the archives

6.167 is mislabeled as LA in many places online. Read this post by Michal which has several pieces of evidence that LA is actually 6.177.

News articles from that time also agree LA was shipped in December 1991.

[louisw3]

Unless someone hex edited it......

[DiskingRound]

When I crashed the kernel it said 6.167...

Pretty sure it's the same LA in the archives

6.167 is mislabeled as LA in many places online. Read this post by Michal which has several pieces of evidence that LA is actually 6.177.

News articles from that time also agree LA was shipped in December 1991.

Look at the description of the link to a copy of 6.177 I posted:

Code: Select all

	This is a sadly incomplete copy of the OS/2 2.0 6.177 beta. "System" disk 1 of 14 is missing. and disk 3 is faulty. Perhaps it will help if someone else has a different incomplete copy. ------ The 6.177 Pre-release, also known as the "Limited Availability" release, was created as an end-of-year release to fulfill promises for a 1991 OS/2 2.0 "release". Notice that the labels do not indicate it is a pre-release. IBM actually provided a level of official support for this release. Archive includes nineteen 3.5" 1.44mb floppy disk images.

[johnlemon647]

Can this beta build work on Virtualbox.

[Overdoze]

Unless someone hex edited it......

Looking at 6.167 and saying "this is 6.167" doesn't make it LA. Do you have any actual evidence for this or are you just going to continue this cirklejerk?

[louisw3]

No need to get all mean.

[louisw3]

When I crashed the kernel it said 6.167...

Pretty sure it's the same LA in the archives

6.167 is mislabeled as LA in many places online. Read this post by Michal which has several pieces of evidence that LA is actually 6.177.

News articles from that time also agree LA was shipped in December 1991.

Look at the description of the link to a copy of 6.177 I posted:

Code: Select all

	This is a sadly incomplete copy of the OS/2 2.0 6.177 beta. "System" disk 1 of 14 is missing. and disk 3 is faulty. Perhaps it will help if someone else has a different incomplete copy. ------ The 6.177 Pre-release, also known as the "Limited Availability" release, was created as an end-of-year release to fulfill promises for a 1991 OS/2 2.0 "release". Notice that the labels do not indicate it is a pre-release. IBM actually provided a level of official support for this release. Archive includes nineteen 3.5" 1.44mb floppy disk images.

I guess that makes some sense then why Citrix went ahead and shipped their stuff based on 1.177 and why unlike Multiuser 1.0, 2.0 is all IBM branded components.

[BF10]

Can this beta build work on Virtualbox.

I'm not 100% sure, but it might work as long you use a drive less than 500MB and use more than 4MB of RAM (you can do more than 16MB too but OS/2 will mostly ignore it as it cannot use that much. 8-12MB is good enough). If it gets past the FDISK, then it will work fine.

Also since the IDE instruction for FDISK got removed in PCem, it will not work there. You must use 86Box or VARCem.

[os2fan2]

6.167 has been doing the rounds for a while, i'm pretty sure i have a complete disk for #3. One of the differences between 6.167 and 6.177 is that lighthou.bmp (in the bitmap.vga package) has the USA flag on the pole in the beta, but this disappears in the final. The windows environment in this one is the Winos2 3.0 version, with just the basic or modified files. Winhelp is 3.0, (with button-bar), while clock and control both started in Windows 6.1, progman did not.

6.123 is a strange mix of 1.3 and 2.0. The shell is the 1.3, with the version updated to 2.0. I have not fully compared them. But ecomstation does not want to run it. Must seek a different version. 6.123 has a version of DOS in it, basically it emulates 3.30.

Basica is the IBM basic 3.30 taught to say 3.31 in the load screen.