 The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group OS/2 - Background and Future Directions Major Keary |
 |
I am indebted to Virginia Green, an APCUG participant who reported the particular event in the newsletter produced by APCUG.
At COMDEX/Fall '92 IBM sponsored an event for APCUG participants at which IBM's Assistant General Manager Software Products, Lee Reiswig, spoke about the development of OS/2. It seems some of the difficulties experienced with the first release stemmed from the fact that too many programmers at too many sites were trying to develop a package that was too big and had unacceptably high levels of code error.
A decision was made to reduce drastically the number of programmers working on the project and to bring everyone onto one site. Their task was to produce a program of manageable size and with no more than fourteen errors per million lines of code.
The much improved version 2, tested at some 30,000 sites, been the result. Apart from the input from beta testers, IBM got to "know the competition", as Lee Reiswig put it.
Version 2.1 will be released shortly and will 1include support for Windows 3.1 applications, include 260 printers, and laptop and notebook hardware. As well as conventional disk format, it will be shipped on CD-ROM.
Future developments will cater for remote management of networks, multimedia, object technology, security, listen-and-speak features, and pen computing.
There is no doubt that OS/2 remains well up on IBM's list of priorities and development will continue to keep pace with new processors and other technical innovations.
One thing that did surprise me was the very large OS/2 user base in North America. Most people I spoke to have it on their computers and actively use it - unlike the toe-in-water-I'll-wait-till-it-gets-warmer approach of some local users.
Since returning from COMDEX I have also become aware of the wide application of OS/2 at commercial sites. IBM people have been active in writing specialised books on the operating system-those interested should keep an eye out for titles published by Van Nostrand Reinhold.
This item would not be complete without acknowledging a particular contribution by IBM. Thirty PCs with OS/2 were provided to equip a training laboratory for APCUG's workshops. There were also other machines for the use of those producing a daily news sheet covering APCUG events and which provided an opportunity for anyone interested to try out OS/2.
Reprinted from the Jan / Feb 1993 issue of PC Update, the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia
