Re: [fpc-other] [fpc-devel] OS/2 and DLLs
Ralf Quint wrote:
On 12/18/2014 2:09 PM, Mark Morgan Lloyd wrote:
I presume that the early enthusiasm had largely dissipated by the time
IBM started pushing it as a 32-bit OS, with a new binary format etc.
OS/2 is 32bit (for the most part) since v2.0, released in 1992 and it
became actually really popular after that with OS/2 3.x and 4.x
("Warp"), so I doubt that this is a valid conclusion.
I'm about to be quite negative about OS/2, but I'd be the last to say
that nobody should use it or support tools for it.
By the time the 32-bit variant came out OS/2 was already dead. The
initial flurry of interest- and I was selling development tools at the
time- wasn't matched despite the technical improvements: comparatively
few end-users wanted it, it had limited penetration into the
small-developer industry, and people writing tools and- in particular-
libraries were far more interested in supporting Windows and co-existing
with Desqview than chasing something with highly uncertain prospects.
IBM didn't know what the hell to do with it. They tried to target end
users by getting them to upgrade their Win-16 systems to OS/2, but this
effort was plagued by bad testing, poor installation software, and
hardware with subtle bugs which meant that many computers quite simply
weren't up to it. They hardly helped themselves by doing utterly
lackwitted things like setting the startup noise to full volume: that
used to cause me extreme embarrassment when installing it in open-plan
offices.
Networking was in there, but in some cases was so broken that it wasn't
even possible to log into IBM's upgrade service to see if the fixes were
still available. Network configuration was also well beyond what a
non-specialist was capable of, and support software would fail with
meaningless (to the typical user) messages about containers etc.
It's reputed that one of the IBMers responsible had previously attempted
to steer Borland towards corporate customers rather than sticking to its
traditional base of small-to-medium scale developers, and that she
learnt her craft at CA who had followed the same path. I have no
first-hand knowledge which confirms or denies that.
The bottom line is that from the early 90s onwards, the only thing that
kept OS/2 going was corporate "seats", i.e. the number of office systems
which used OS/2 as a specialist frontend to IBM mainframes. Full
recognition of the necessity for a 32-bit OS was at least five years
away, in the same way that the industry didn't start adopting 64-bit
hardware for at least ten years after DEC introduced it.
I probably kept on using OS/2 longer than most, because (a) I was
postprocessing NE-format files into a format for an embedded bare-metal
'386, and (b) it allowed sufficient access to e.g. the floppy controller
that I could test stuff on a development machine that would have been
impossible with NT. But it was painful, particularly after it became
obvious that at least some versions had timing loops that precluded them
from being run on newer hardware. And that's why I've got a PC-310 under
my desk.
The bottom line? If somebody wants to use OS/2 it's his choice, and if
somebody wants to keep a development tool going for it I believe the
community is enriched by his effort. Now would somebody please take the
copies of Communications Manager and Database Manager that IBM told us
we needed off our hands.
--
Mark Morgan Lloyd
markMLl .AT. telemetry.co .DOT. uk
[Opinions above are the author's, not those of his employers or colleagues]
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Re: [fpc-other] [fpc-devel] OS/2 and DLLs
On 12/18/2014 2:09 PM, Mark Morgan Lloyd wrote:
I presume that the early enthusiasm had largely dissipated by the time
IBM started pushing it as a 32-bit OS, with a new binary format etc.
OS/2 is 32bit (for the most part) since v2.0, released in 1992 and it
became actually really popular after that with OS/2 3.x and 4.x
("Warp"), so I doubt that this is a valid conclusion.
It's rather that IBM started to position it for it's own specialized
markets rather then "fight" against Microsoft Windows as a mainstream
desktop OS, not to mention trying to compete with OS/2 LAN Server
against the surging Windows Server products (specifically after Windows
2000 Server was released). That made it a less lucrative and attractive
market for people in the mainstream market. I can remember to have seen
OS/2 based bank terminals here in the US just a year or so ago.
A lot of that had to do with the mindset of IBM as a whole, still to
this day far too focused on "the big iron" (and now cloud) stuff and
never have taken the PC market that serious. That's also why they first
offloaded the ThinkPad stuff to the actual manufacturer Lenovo years
ago, followed by the PC and now recently, the x86 based server parts...
Ralf
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Re: [fpc-other] [fpc-devel] OS/2 and DLLs
On Thu, December 18, 2014 23:09, Mark Morgan Lloyd wrote: > Noting somebody's earlier comment about the lack of DLL support being > due to a linker limitation, I think this is unfortunate since when OS/2 > came out the fact that the binary formats were well-documented and > supported by at least two linkers (MS and TopSpeed) was a significant > advantage. > > I presume that the early enthusiasm had largely dissipated by the time > IBM started pushing it as a 32-bit OS, with a new binary format etc. In fact, the documentation is still available and there are several linkers available as well (although Watcom WLINK is probably the only one actively supported and free one). Moreover, the object file format was not really changed by IBM much as far as I know (it's basically the same Intel OMF format which was already used for DOS, although obviously extended as necessary). The executable format was changed indeed, but it was still closer to format already used by 16-bit MS Windows and various DOS extenders than the PE format used for Win32. Note that the IBM linker has been shipped with every copy of OS/2, so this wasn't the real problem. However, it's a different linker than what is supported in FPC and it needs a different object and library format from the one supported by the OS/2 port of the GNU assembler; among other reasons, I would attribute this to the fact that the original porter wanted to target DOS and OS/2 using the same compiled binaries and he could probably do it easier if keeping the format already supported by the GNU world by that time. Also, it would have been easier if the OS/2 port was contributed back to the original project and kept maintained over time, or if the original GNU C/as/ld/gdb porter (who did tremendous job, BTW) was available for help with backporting his changes to the current source tree. Anyway - we have to live with what is available now. Tomas ___ fpc-other maillist - fpc-other@lists.freepascal.org http://lists.freepascal.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fpc-other
Re: [fpc-other] [fpc-devel] OS/2 and DLLs
Tomas Hajny wrote: Switching to fpc-other as a more appropriate space: I believe that although my time available for FPC is quite limited, my activities related to OS/2 target in FPC in the last few years show more than clearly that I want to continue support of this target regardless of the number of users lower compared to some other targets as long as my work helps at least someone. In this context, I'd like to thank everybody who expressed his interest in this target. Note that I don't aim to convince people that they should stop using their preferred platform and switch to OS/2, and I won't participate in any kind of advocacy discussion about why OS/2 should continue to be used, etc. Noting somebody's earlier comment about the lack of DLL support being due to a linker limitation, I think this is unfortunate since when OS/2 came out the fact that the binary formats were well-documented and supported by at least two linkers (MS and TopSpeed) was a significant advantage. I presume that the early enthusiasm had largely dissipated by the time IBM started pushing it as a 32-bit OS, with a new binary format etc. -- Mark Morgan Lloyd markMLl .AT. telemetry.co .DOT. uk [Opinions above are the author's, not those of his employers or colleagues] ___ fpc-other maillist - fpc-other@lists.freepascal.org http://lists.freepascal.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fpc-other
Re: [fpc-other] [fpc-devel] OS/2 and DLLs
2014-12-17 21:38 GMT+01:00 rpzrpz...@gmail.com : > > > Ralf, Such passion for obsolescence... > > What is the use case other than a hobby and pride for OS/2 support? > > Hopefully, FPC core maintainers are not distracted by the legacy support. > > FPC maintainers don't hesitate to stop supporting lagacy OS-es, if necessary: http://wiki.freepascal.org/User_Changes_Trunk#Windows_9x_series Vincent ___ fpc-other maillist - fpc-other@lists.freepascal.org http://lists.freepascal.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fpc-other
Re: [fpc-other] [fpc-devel] OS/2 and DLLs
On Thu, December 18, 2014 21:54, Tomas Hajny wrote: > On Thu, December 18, 2014 19:49, Ralf Quint wrote: >> On 12/17/2014 2:56 PM, mark diener wrote: >>> Ralf, I am not goint to tell you to do anything, but gently suggest >>> that you chill out. >> Well, how about you live what you are preaching? > > I'd like to ask everybody to stop responding to this part of the thread > and restrict him/herself to on topic messages on this list. Switching to fpc-other as a more appropriate space: I believe that although my time available for FPC is quite limited, my activities related to OS/2 target in FPC in the last few years show more than clearly that I want to continue support of this target regardless of the number of users lower compared to some other targets as long as my work helps at least someone. In this context, I'd like to thank everybody who expressed his interest in this target. Note that I don't aim to convince people that they should stop using their preferred platform and switch to OS/2, and I won't participate in any kind of advocacy discussion about why OS/2 should continue to be used, etc. Thanks again Tomas ___ fpc-other maillist - fpc-other@lists.freepascal.org http://lists.freepascal.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fpc-other
