A Dilbert Classic Take On Mac Vs. PC's :)

[Kevin Gallagher]

  This is NOT intended to incite further acrimonious  debate but just for it's humorous value.

[RSL]

 

[Eric Myrvaagnes]

Could be from a news item on the Washington Post!   

[MattBurt]

I thought political and religious posts were strictly forbidden!   

[Farmer]

OS/2!  I hadn't thought about that OS for decades.  Not sure I'm glad it was mentioned :-)

[drmike]

I thought OS/2 was pretty good for its time. More robust than other offerings I thought?

[Kevin Gallagher]

OS/2!  I hadn't thought about that OS for decades.  Not sure I'm glad it was mentioned :-)

 Hi Phil, that caught me as well!! It was like going back 20 years or so in just a second's thought.

[Kevin Gallagher]

 Hi again guys. It looks like the PC/MAC/LINUX war thing will be going on in that comic for a bit. Here's a link to the website that carries it and MANY other great ones. I believe you can browse and follow for free but I chose to pay the 20 bucks and have an email sent each AM with the latest versions of the ones I follow. Hope you enjoy..

https://www.gocomics.com

[Telecaster]

The OS/2 vs. *UNIX online flame wars (pre-WWW) were my first experience with otherwise seemingly rational and reasonable people going utterly bonkers over minutiae. I soon learned it wasn't an aberration.

-Dave-

*And to some extent, OS/2 vs. Windows.

[Farmer]

OS/2 was solid.  The main issue was lack of market penetration and many users were absolute zealots (which Dave references in the newgroups flame wars that existed at the time).  It just didn't grow and change, and hence died away, but it was certainly robust in my limited experience with it.

[drmike]

Didn't Microsoft somewhat stab IBM in the back over this and run off with much of the tech to enhance Windows and wrench world dominance from IBM - roughly speaking?

[Kevin Gallagher]

 I found an interesting write up on OS/2 on Wikipedia

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OS/2

[Telecaster]

My take at the time was that OS/2 was crippled mainly by IBM's desire to keep it proprietary. That is, it was designed to run only on IBM hardware. This obviously clashed with Microsoft's operating system philosophy.

-Dave-

[drmike]

At the time I thought that IBM were rather naive in firstly trusting MS and secondly in their belief that they were the stronger company and held the whip hand. They were fun times - anyone for Quarterdeck and Desqview was it?

[Alan Goldhammer]

I thought OS/2 was pretty good for its time. More robust than other offerings I thought?

Yes it was but IBM wouldn't think outside the box and still tried to keep mainframes relevant.  One wonders what would have happened had IBM been really serious about the PC.

[MattBurt]

I was building PCs as my after school job back when OS/2 and then a little later, OS/2 Warp came around.
I thought OS/2 was cool and it had the best multitasking on a PC at the time. Native software was limited and most applications were DOS based running in an emulation mode.
I remember setting up the new PS/2 platform machines which was supposed to be the answer to DOS and early Windows while killing of the Mac for good. The thing that struck me was the amazing quality of the VGA adapters and monitors being absolutely mind-blowing! They also didn't have that 640k DOS limit requiring all sorts of trickery to use more than that much ram.

[RSL]

Yes it was but IBM wouldn't think outside the box and still tried to keep mainframes relevant.  One wonders what would have happened had IBM been really serious about the PC.

I doubt they'd have been able to get serious about it, Alan. By then they had corporate hardening of the arteries. The same kind of thing that eventually killed Kodak.

[JNB_Rare]

Personal computers: Ti99-4A. I learned enough BASIC to know that I would never become a programmer. Then Osborne 1 (CP/M). Came with WordStar, Supercalc and dBase II (there was no dBase I)! In 1981 the company gave me an IBM PC (actually, an IBM 3270PC). Before Windows 3.1 I did use DESQview for a while. MAC wasn't allowed in my workplace... until it was (but only in the design department).

The IBM/Microsoft OS/2–Windows fallout had other repercussions. WordPerfect bet the development team on OS/2, then was too late (and flawed, early on) to catch the Windows party. Just as WordStar had been too late and too flawed to catch WordPerfect. Some kingpins in the industry just choked and faded away (Novell!) while others made it past the mistakes (Microsoft's early Internet forays, for example).

It was ever thus, and not just with computers. Canon changed its mount (FD to EF) to howls from professionals. Nikon played catch-up with digital. Some venerable brands faded or merged. Who would have thought... Sony!?,Panasonic!?