11 May
2013
11 May
'13
12:40 p.m.
It didn't happen, at least not at IBM or Microsoft during the Joint Development
Agreement era. It would have been physically impossible.
After IBM had OS/2 to itself, all sorts of strange things went on. So, I can't
completely discount a port after that point. I would be extraordinarily surprised if IBM
had targeted DEC hardware, though.
But up until "the divorce", I can unequivocally state that no such thing
happened.
- Rob Ferguson
(Microsoft 1986-1996 and other times)
12 May
12 May
10:43 p.m.
On May 11, 2013, at 9:40 AM, Robert Ferguson <rob at bitscience.ca> wrote:
It didn't happen, at least not at IBM or Microsoft
during the Joint Development Agreement era. It would have been physically impossible.
After IBM had OS/2 to itself, all sorts of strange things went on. So, I can't
completely discount a port after that point. I would be extraordinarily surprised if IBM
had targeted DEC hardware, though.
But up until "the divorce", I can unequivocally state that no such thing
happened.
As I said, the only "port" was to PPC but that contained 0 (zero) source from
the OS/2 kernel.
TTFN - Guy
13 May
13 May
7:45 a.m.
Am 13.05.2013 04:43, schrieb Guy Sotomayor:
On May 11, 2013, at 9:40 AM, Robert Ferguson <rob
at bitscience.ca> wrote:
Not having seen the PPC source, but the 86/286/386 monster of
OS/2-kernel source (3.x), I can only agree. I consider it almost
impossible, without a complete rewrite and then only - as in the PPC
implementation - with largely different APIs to port this thing to
anything else, including PDP-11. Given the 386 ring architecture, it
would be more likely to transfer a look-alike to a VAX, but not to a PDP
with MMU. But even then; the question is: what benefit would there be?
DEC systems were already a dying platform at the time of OS/2, and lack
of any compatibility to the original x86-based system would gain
nothing. Even the PPC was not a success, not only because of the obscure
CHRP architecture no other vendor used, but also because of the lack of
killer application or migration path. Apple those days did it better in
providing an emulator to run older 68K apps on the PPC.
--
Holger
It didn't happen, at least not at IBM or
Microsoft during the Joint Development Agreement era. It would have been physically
impossible.
After IBM had OS/2 to itself, all sorts of strange things went on. So, I can't
completely discount a port after that point. I would be extraordinarily surprised if IBM
had targeted DEC hardware, though.
But up until "the divorce", I can unequivocally state that no such thing
happened.
As I said, the only "port" was to PPC but that contained 0
(zero) source from the OS/2 kernel.
TTFN - Guy 
11:03 a.m.
On May 13, 2013, at 7:45 AM, Holger Veit wrote:
Not having seen the PPC source, but the 86/286/386
monster of OS/2-kernel source (3.x), I can only agree. I consider it almost impossible,
without a complete rewrite and then only - as in the PPC implementation - with largely
different APIs to port this thing to anything else, including PDP-11. Given the 386 ring
architecture, it would be more likely to transfer a look-alike to a VAX, but not to a PDP
with MMU. But even then; the question is: what benefit would there be? DEC systems were
already a dying platform at the time of OS/2, and lack of any compatibility to the
original x86-based system would gain nothing. Even the PPC was not a success, not only
because of the obscure CHRP architecture no other vendor used, but also because of the
lack of killer application or migration path. Apple those days did it better in providing
an emulator to run older 68K apps on the PPC.
I dunno, I think the PPC was a success, just not as much on the desktop.
There are LOADS of PowerPCs running high-end embedded stuff in cars and
telecom systems, and all three of the previous generation of game
consoles used a PowerPC of some sort as the CPU.
- Dave
1:10 p.m.
New subject: [cctalk] Re: OS/2 on hardware other than '286 or '386 processors
On 05/13/2013 11:03 AM, David Riley wrote:
On May 13, 2013, at 7:45 AM, Holger Veit wrote:
I don't think that's what the OP meant. I really don't think anyone is
unaware that the PPC (and POWER) is a rather substantial commercial success.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA
Not having seen the PPC source, but the
86/286/386 monster of OS/2-kernel source (3.x), I can only agree. I consider it almost
impossible, without a complete rewrite and then only - as in the PPC implementation - with
largely different APIs to port this thing to anything else, including PDP-11. Given the
386 ring architecture, it would be more likely to transfer a look-alike to a VAX, but not
to a PDP with MMU. But even then; the question is: what benefit would there be? DEC
systems were already a dying platform at the time of OS/2, and lack of any compatibility
to the original x86-based system would gain nothing. Even the PPC was not a success, not
only because of the obscure CHRP architecture no other vendor used, but also because of
the lack of killer application or migration path. Apple those days did it better in
providing an emulator to run older 68K apps on the PPC.
I dunno, I think the PPC was a success, just not as much on the desktop.
There are LOADS of PowerPCs running high-end embedded stuff in cars and
telecom systems, and all three of the previous generation of game
consoles used a PowerPC of some sort as the CPU.
1:24 p.m.
New subject: [cctalk] Re: OS/2 on hardware other than '286 or '386 processors
On May 13, 2013, at 1:10 PM, Dave McGuire <mcguire at neurotica.com> wrote:
On 05/13/2013 11:03 AM, David Riley wrote:
Perhaps I misread it and Holger just meant for OS/2? I'll agree with that.
- Dave
On May 13, 2013, at 7:45 AM, Holger Veit wrote:
I don't think that's what the OP meant. I really don't think anyone is
unaware that the PPC (and POWER) is a rather substantial commercial success. Not having seen the PPC source, but the
86/286/386 monster of OS/2-kernel source (3.x), I can only agree. I consider it almost
impossible, without a complete rewrite and then only - as in the PPC implementation - with
largely different APIs to port this thing to anything else, including PDP-11. Given the
386 ring architecture, it would be more likely to transfer a look-alike to a VAX, but not
to a PDP with MMU. But even then; the question is: what benefit would there be? DEC
systems were already a dying platform at the time of OS/2, and lack of any compatibility
to the original x86-based system would gain nothing. Even the PPC was not a success, not
only because of the obscure CHRP architecture no other vendor used, but also because of
the lack of killer application or migration path. Apple those days did it better in
providing an emulator to run older 68K apps on the PPC.
I dunno, I think the PPC was a success, just not as much on the desktop.
There are LOADS of PowerPCs running high-end embedded stuff in cars and
telecom systems, and all three of the previous generation of game
consoles used a PowerPC of some sort as the CPU. 
1:27 p.m.
New subject: [cctalk] Re: OS/2 on hardware other than '286 or '386 processors
On Mon, 13 May 2013, Dave McGuire wrote:
On 05/13/2013 11:03 AM, David Riley wrote:
There were definitely quite a few PPC-based macs. The XBox 360 is
PPC-based and the playstation 3 is (I think) POWER-based...might be PPC
though. So yes. I'd think most people would know it's a success.
On May 13, 2013, at 7:45 AM, Holger Veit wrote:
I don't think that's what the OP meant. I really don't think anyone is
unaware that the PPC (and POWER) is a rather substantial commercial success.
Not having seen the PPC source, but the
86/286/386 monster of OS/2-kernel source (3.x), I can only agree. I consider it almost
impossible, without a complete rewrite and then only - as in the PPC implementation - with
largely different APIs to port this thing to anything else, including PDP-11. Given the
386 ring architecture, it would be more likely to transfer a look-alike to a VAX, but not
to a PDP with MMU. But even then; the question is: what benefit would there be? DEC
systems were already a dying platform at the time of OS/2, and lack of any compatibility
to the original x86-based system would gain nothing. Even the PPC was not a success, not
only because of the obscure CHRP architecture no other vendor used, but also because of
the lack of killer application or migration path. Apple those days did it better in
providing an emulator to run older 68K apps on the PPC.
I dunno, I think the PPC was a success, just not as much on the desktop.
There are LOADS of PowerPCs running high-end embedded stuff in cars and
telecom systems, and all three of the previous generation of game
consoles used a PowerPC of some sort as the CPU. -Dave
--
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA
--
Cory Smelosky
http://gewt.net/ Personal stuff
http://gimme-sympathy.org Experiments
1:39 p.m.
On 05/13/2013 01:27 PM, Cory Smelosky wrote:
I don't think that's what the OP meant. I really don't think anyone is
unaware that the PPC (and POWER) is a rather substantial commercial success.
There were definitely quite a few PPC-based macs. The XBox 360 is PPC-based
and the playstation 3 is (I think) POWER-based...might be PPC though. So
yes. I'd think most people would know it's a success.
Macs, routers (real grownup routers, not so much plasic consumer crap that
people call "routers" these days), ethernet switches (ditto), game consoles,
embedded processors in most everything, a few decades' worth of RS/6000s,
ditto on AS/400s..
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA
Not having
seen the PPC source, but the 86/286/386 monster of OS/2-kernel
source (3.x), I can only agree. I consider it almost impossible, without
a complete rewrite and then only - as in the PPC implementation - with
largely different APIs to port this thing to anything else, including
PDP-11. Given the 386 ring architecture, it would be more likely to
transfer a look-alike to a VAX, but not to a PDP with MMU. But even then;
the question is: what benefit would there be? DEC systems were already a
dying platform at the time of OS/2, and lack of any compatibility to the
original x86-based system would gain nothing. Even the PPC was not a
success, not only because of the obscure CHRP architecture no other
vendor used, but also because of the lack of killer application or
migration path. Apple those days did it better in providing an emulator
to run older 68K apps on the PPC.
I dunno, I think the PPC was a success, just not as much on the desktop.
There are LOADS of PowerPCs running high-end embedded stuff in cars and
telecom systems, and all three of the previous generation of game
consoles used a PowerPC of some sort as the CPU. 
4:06 p.m.
New subject: [cctalk] Re: OS/2 on hardware other than '286 or '386 processors
On 5/13/13 1:27 PM, Cory Smelosky wrote:
On Mon, 13 May 2013, Dave McGuire wrote:
OS/2 for the PPC wasn't written to run on just any PPC hardware. It was
written to run on the hardware that met the standard that IBM, Apple and
Motorola setup, CHRP (for Common Hardware Reference Platform). This was
supposed to be the RISC platform that would crush the Wintel monopoly.
They created a whole new company named Taligent to work on the object
oriented operating system for this platform. Does anyone remember "Pink"
which was to be the base platform OS that could run multiple flavors of
operating systems? I don't think Apple ever released any hardware that met
the standard and IBM only released a couple of desktops and 2 models of
Thinkpads. Apple abandoned the project and eventually the PPC completely,
then Motorola bailed on Taligent and finally IBM kicked a very poor version
of OS/2 for the Power PC out the door just to say they did and closed the
whole project down. Taligent was absorbed into IBM. Rumor was IBM sank
over $500 million into the whole thing (hardware and software development),
back when that was still a lot of money. Supposedly some of the technology
they developed for OS/2PPC was incorporated into OS/2 Warp4, but by then
(1996) IBM wasn't promoting its own operating system any more and were
discouraging new sales and encouraging existing OS/2 users to switch to NT.
Mark
--
From the eComStation Desktop of: Mark Dodel
Warpstock 2013 - http://www.warpstock.org
Warpstock Europe 2013 -http://www.warpstock.eu
For a choice in the future of personal computing, Join VOICE -
http://www.os2voice.org
"The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the
growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their
democratic State itself. That in it's essence, is Fascism - ownership
of government by an individual, by a group or by any controlling private
power." Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Message proposing the Monopoly
Investigation, 1938
On 05/13/2013 11:03 AM, David Riley wrote:
There were definitely quite a few PPC-based macs. The XBox 360 is
PPC-based and the playstation 3 is (I think) POWER-based...might be PPC
though. So yes. I'd think most people would know it's a success.
On May 13, 2013, at 7:45 AM, Holger Veit wrote:
I don't think that's what the OP meant. I really don't think anyone is
unaware that the PPC (and POWER) is a rather substantial commercial success.
Not having seen the PPC source, but the
86/286/386 monster of
OS/2-kernel source (3.x), I can only agree. I consider it almost
impossible, without a complete rewrite and then only - as in the PPC
implementation - with largely different APIs to port this thing to
anything else, including PDP-11. Given the 386 ring architecture, it
would be more likely to transfer a look-alike to a VAX, but not to a
PDP with MMU. But even then; the question is: what benefit would there
be? DEC systems were already a dying platform at the time of OS/2, and
lack of any compatibility to the original x86-based system would gain
nothing. Even the PPC was not a success, not only because of the
obscure CHRP architecture no other vendor used, but also because of the
lack of killer application or migration path. Apple those days did it
better in providing an emulator to run older 68K apps on the PPC.
I dunno, I think the PPC was a success, just not as much on the desktop.
There are LOADS of PowerPCs running high-end embedded stuff in cars and
telecom systems, and all three of the previous generation of game
consoles used a PowerPC of some sort as the CPU.
4:59 p.m.
New subject: [cctalk] Re: OS/2 on hardware other than '286 or '386 processors
On May 13, 2013, at 1:06 PM, madodel <madodel at ptdprolog.net> wrote:
OS/2 for the PPC wasn't written to run on just any PPC hardware. It was written to
run on the hardware that met the standard that IBM, Apple and Motorola setup, CHRP (for
Common Hardware Reference Platform). This was supposed to be the RISC platform that would
crush the Wintel monopoly. They created a whole new company named Taligent to work on the
object oriented operating system for this platform. Does anyone remember "Pink"
which was to be the base platform OS that could run multiple flavors of operating systems?
I don't think Apple ever released any hardware that met the standard and IBM only
released a couple of desktops and 2 models of Thinkpads. Apple abandoned the project and
eventually the PPC completely, then Motorola bailed on Taligent and finally IBM kicked a
very poor version of OS/2 for the Power PC out the door just to say they did and closed
the whole project down. Taligent was absorbed into IBM. Rumor was IBM sank over $500
million into the whole thing (hardware and software development), back when that was still
a lot of money. Supposedly some of the technology they developed for OS/2PPC was
incorporated into OS/2 Warp4, but by then (1996) IBM wasn't promoting its own
operating system any more and were discouraging new sales and encouraging existing OS/2
users to switch to NT.
Taligent was started by Apple and ran on 68K Macs. When IBM came to the party
a joint venture was formed (which resulted in the Taligent name). Pink was what it
was called prior to Taligent.
Taligent was never a big part of the OS/2 for PPC effort. Most of that work had begun
as the IBM Microkernel project. OS/2 for PPC as I recall used no Taligent code.
Taligent was to be part of the application framework. The microkernel used by Pink and
the object model were "toys". Much of the consternation over Taligent at IBM
was fighting
over trying to get fundamental issues addressed (which I won't go into here...it would
take
many hours to compose a sane account).
The rumor is false. IBM sank closer to $2Billion into the Microkernel project alone (ie
just SW).
TTFN - Guy
5:47 p.m.
New subject: [cctalk] Re: OS/2 on hardware other than '286 or '386 processors
On 5/13/13 4:59 PM, Guy Sotomayor wrote:
On May 13, 2013, at 1:06 PM, madodel <madodel at ptdprolog.net> wrote:
>
> OS/2 for the PPC wasn't written to run on just any PPC hardware. It was written
to run on the hardware that met the standard that IBM, Apple and Motorola setup, CHRP (for
Common Hardware Reference Platform). This was supposed to be the RISC platform that would
crush the Wintel monopoly. They created a whole new company named Taligent to work on the
object oriented operating system for this platform. Does anyone remember "Pink"
which was to be the base platform OS that could run multiple flavors of operating systems?
I don't think Apple ever released any hardware that met the standard and IBM only
released a couple of desktops and 2 models of Thinkpads. Apple abandoned the project and
eventually the PPC completely, then Motorola bailed on Taligent and finally IBM kicked a
very poor version of OS/2 for the Power PC out the door just to say they did and closed
the whole project down. Taligent was absorbed into IBM. Rumor was IBM sank over $500
million into the whole t
!
hing (hardware and software development), back when
that was still a lot of money. Supposedly some of the technology they developed for
OS/2PPC was incorporated into OS/2 Warp4, but by then (1996) IBM wasn't promoting its
own operating system any more and were discouraging new sales and encouraging existing
OS/2 users to switch to NT.
Taligent was started by Apple and ran on 68K Macs. When IBM came to the party
a joint venture was formed (which resulted in the Taligent name). Pink was what it
was called prior to Taligent.
Taligent was never a big part of the OS/2 for PPC effort. Most of that work had begun
as the IBM Microkernel project. OS/2 for PPC as I recall used no Taligent code.
Taligent was to be part of the application framework. The microkernel used by Pink and
the object model were "toys". Much of the consternation over Taligent at IBM
was fighting
over trying to get fundamental issues addressed (which I won't go into here...it
would take
many hours to compose a sane account).
The rumor is false. IBM sank closer to $2Billion into the Microkernel project alone (ie
just SW).
No one would have believed 2 Billion back in the 1990's. That would have
bankrupted just about any company back then. Kind of explains why almost
no one at IBM would talk about OS/2 after 1996.
Mark
--
From the eComStation Desktop of: Mark Dodel
Warpstock 2013 - http://www.warpstock.org
Warpstock Europe 2013 -http://www.warpstock.eu
For a choice in the future of personal computing, Join VOICE -
http://www.os2voice.org
"The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the
growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their
democratic State itself. That in it's essence, is Fascism - ownership
of government by an individual, by a group or by any controlling private
power." Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Message proposing the Monopoly
Investigation, 1938
6:18 p.m.
New subject: [cctalk] Re: OS/2 on hardware other than '286 or '386 processors
On May 13, 2013, at 2:47 PM, madodel <madodel at ptdprolog.net> wrote:
On 5/13/13 4:59 PM, Guy Sotomayor wrote:
IBM ran on the "infinite resource" curve. The project ran from ~'91 through
96 so it works out to
about $400million/year. The reality is that the project didn't really start spending
$'s until it became
"strategic" over Thanksgiving of '93 (or '94...can't remember now).
Then all hell broke loose and we
went from a project with less than 20 people to > 350 in less than 3 months. I
remember having to
give presentations/lectures on various parts of the technology to 200-300 folks at a
time.
TTFN - Guy
On May 13, 2013, at 1:06 PM, madodel <madodel at ptdprolog.net> wrote:
>
> OS/2 for the PPC wasn't written to run on just any PPC hardware. It was written
to run on the hardware that met the standard that IBM, Apple and Motorola setup, CHRP (for
Common Hardware Reference Platform). This was supposed to be the RISC platform that would
crush the Wintel monopoly. They created a whole new company named Taligent to work on the
object oriented operating system for this platform. Does anyone remember "Pink"
which was to be the base platform OS that could run multiple flavors of operating systems?
I don't think Apple ever released any hardware that met the standard and IBM only
released a couple of desktops and 2 models of Thinkpads. Apple abandoned the project and
eventually the PPC completely, then Motorola bailed on Taligent and finally IBM kicked a
very poor version of OS/2 for the Power PC out the door just to say they did and closed
the whole project down. Taligent was absorbed into IBM. Rumor was IBM sank over $500
million into the whole t
!
hing (hardware and software development), back
when that was still a lot of money. Supposedly some of the technology they developed for
OS/2PPC was incorporated into OS/2 Warp4, but by then (1996) IBM wasn't promoting its
own operating system any more and were discouraging new sales and encouraging existing
OS/2 users to switch to NT.
Taligent was started by Apple and ran on 68K Macs. When IBM came to the party
a joint venture was formed (which resulted in the Taligent name). Pink was what it
was called prior to Taligent.
Taligent was never a big part of the OS/2 for PPC effort. Most of that work had begun
as the IBM Microkernel project. OS/2 for PPC as I recall used no Taligent code.
Taligent was to be part of the application framework. The microkernel used by Pink and
the object model were "toys". Much of the consternation over Taligent at IBM
was fighting
over trying to get fundamental issues addressed (which I won't go into here...it
would take
many hours to compose a sane account).
The rumor is false. IBM sank closer to $2Billion into the Microkernel project alone (ie
just SW).
No one would have believed 2 Billion back in the 1990's. That would have bankrupted
just about any company back then. Kind of explains why almost no one at IBM would talk
about OS/2 after 1996. 
5:59 p.m.
New subject: [cctalk] Re: OS/2 on hardware other than '286 or '386 processors
On 5/13/13 1:59 PM, Guy Sotomayor wrote:
The microkernel used by Pink and
the object model were "toys". Much of the consternation over Taligent at IBM
was fighting
over trying to get fundamental issues addressed (which I won't go into here...it
would take
many hours to compose a sane account).
I was responsible for the drivers in the RISC products group (88110 before PPC) and
working
with the Pink kernel people was bad from the Apple side of things as well. It didn't
surprise
me that it all went away and Taligent became an applications framework. Neither Taligent
or
Kaleida ended well.
Before I left Apple, I tried to find copies of Pink/Taligent documentation, and it had all
been flushed.
6:32 p.m.
New subject: [cctalk] Re: OS/2 on hardware other than '286 or '386 processors
On May 13, 2013, at 2:59 PM, Al Kossow <aek at bitsavers.org> wrote:
On 5/13/13 1:59 PM, Guy Sotomayor wrote:
At IBM we tried to run away from it as far and as fast as possible. I was on the
evaluation team
The microkernel used by Pink and
the object model were "toys". Much of the consternation over Taligent at IBM
was fighting
over trying to get fundamental issues addressed (which I won't go into here...it
would take
many hours to compose a sane account).
I was responsible for the drivers in the RISC products group (88110 before PPC) and
working
with the Pink kernel people was bad from the Apple side of things as well. It didn't
surprise
me that it all went away and Taligent became an applications framework. Neither Taligent
or
Kaleida ended well.
Before I left Apple, I tried to find copies of Pink/Taligent documentation, and it had
all been flushed.
from IBM to determine if we should do anything with the
Pink team (still have my Pink coffee mug).
It didn't see too bad at first, then once we *really* dug into it and started dealing
with the various
"personalities" did we realize how bad it all was.
I remember a friend of mine at IBM took the Taligent source code (which was all C++) and
ran it
through a program he wrote to graph the object relationships. I walked into his office
one day and
said "Lou, why do you have the wall of your office papered with black paper?".
His comment was
that was the object relationship graph for Taligent. All of the object were so
interrelated that the
"lines" turned the pages black. That's when we realized how bad it really
was.
TTFN - Guy
8:57 p.m.
New subject: [cctalk] Re: OS/2 on hardware other than '286 or '386 processors
On 5/13/13 3:32 PM, Guy Sotomayor wrote:
I remember a friend of mine at IBM took the Taligent
source code (which was all C++) and ran it
through a program he wrote to graph the object relationships.
At least IBM got to see it. Internally NO ONE outside of the Pink group was allowed to
look at it.
We had two people who were cleared to look at it (Phil Goldman, and Erich Ringwald who
both were
original members of the Pink microkernel team that came to RISC Products) and they had to
go over
there in a locked room with no network and no removable storage on the machines. Now,
imagine trying
to write drivers when you can't look at the kernel code, and there is no published
driver API.
Fortunately, they went away to Taligent before the our prototype was ready so I worked on
other things
besides drivers for them. By that point, people inside Apple were glad to be rid of them.
9:06 p.m.
On 05/13/2013 08:57 PM, Al Kossow wrote:
Jeeze. Were they THAT embarrassed about it? ;)
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA
I remember a
friend of mine at IBM took the Taligent source code (which
was all C++) and ran it through a program he wrote to graph the object
relationships.
At least IBM got to see it. Internally NO ONE outside of the Pink group
was allowed to look at it. We had two people who were cleared to look at
it (Phil Goldman, and Erich Ringwald who both were original members of the
Pink microkernel team that came to RISC Products) and they had to go over
there in a locked room with no network and no removable storage on the
machines. Now, imagine trying to write drivers when you can't look at the
kernel code, and there is no published driver API.
14 May
14 May
8:40 a.m.
On May 13, 2013, at 9:06 PM, Dave McGuire <mcguire at neurotica.com> wrote:
On 05/13/2013 08:57 PM, Al Kossow wrote:
Jeeze. Were they THAT embarrassed about it? ;)
Alas, they probably thought it was THAT great (and, I guess, easy to
copy if you caught a glimpse?).
- Dave
I
remember a friend of mine at IBM took the Taligent source code (which
was all C++) and ran it through a program he wrote to graph the object
relationships.
At least IBM got to see it. Internally NO ONE outside of the Pink group
was allowed to look at it. We had two people who were cleared to look at
it (Phil Goldman, and Erich Ringwald who both were original members of the
Pink microkernel team that came to RISC Products) and they had to go over
there in a locked room with no network and no removable storage on the
machines. Now, imagine trying to write drivers when you can't look at the
kernel code, and there is no published driver API.
10:44 a.m.
On 5/14/13 5:40 AM, David Riley wrote:
On May 13, 2013, at 9:06 PM, Dave McGuire <mcguire
at neurotica.com> wrote:
There was the issue of not wanting review from the internal 'competition', but
mainly they
had a religion that you ONLY were to know about the published interfaces since
they felt that most of the problems with the Mac OS was how exposed the implementation
was (low memory globals, etc.).
I know the person who wrote the TCP stack. Smart guy, but he REALLY preferred
Mesa to C++. He implemented TCP/IP for the Xerox Star.
Also, when I said Apple was happy when 'they' went off to Taligent, I meant the
Pink group, and not Phil and Erich. Phil left for General Magic, then was one of the
founders of WebTV, Erich went to Amazon a bit later.
On 05/13/2013 08:57 PM, Al Kossow wrote:
Jeeze. Were they THAT embarrassed about it? ;)
Alas, they probably thought it was THAT great (and, I guess, easy to
copy if you caught a glimpse?).
I
remember a friend of mine at IBM took the Taligent source code (which
was all C++) and ran it through a program he wrote to graph the object
relationships.
At least IBM got to see it. Internally NO ONE outside of the Pink group
was allowed to look at it. We had two people who were cleared to look at
it (Phil Goldman, and Erich Ringwald who both were original members of the
Pink microkernel team that came to RISC Products) and they had to go over
there in a locked room with no network and no removable storage on the
machines. Now, imagine trying to write drivers when you can't look at the
kernel code, and there is no published driver API.
12:03 a.m.
New subject: [cctalk] Re: OS/2 on hardware other than '286 or '386 processors
On May 13, 2013, at 5:57 PM, Al Kossow <aek at bitsavers.org> wrote:
On 5/13/13 3:32 PM, Guy Sotomayor wrote:
Oh, they were seriously paranoid about the source and ideas. I remember that I was
presenting at
the 3rd Mach USENIX symposium and they were in the audience. When I got back home I got
dressed
down by my division President (at IBM that's *huge* deal). I had no idea what was
going on. I talked
to the IBM Fellow who was in charge of the project about this since he was in the audience
during my talk.
He took care of it (no secrets had been disclosed...he would have dealt with me at the
conference if I had).
But after that I had no contact with the Taligent folks (much to my relief). They were a
pain to deal with.
TTFN - Guy
I remember a friend of mine at IBM took the
Taligent source code (which was all C++) and ran it
through a program he wrote to graph the object relationships.
At least IBM got to see it. Internally NO ONE outside of the Pink group was allowed to
look at it.
We had two people who were cleared to look at it (Phil Goldman, and Erich Ringwald who
both were
original members of the Pink microkernel team that came to RISC Products) and they had to
go over
there in a locked room with no network and no removable storage on the machines. Now,
imagine trying
to write drivers when you can't look at the kernel code, and there is no published
driver API.
Fortunately, they went away to Taligent before the our prototype was ready so I worked on
other things
besides drivers for them. By that point, people inside Apple were glad to be rid of them.
8:01 a.m.
New subject: [cctalk] Re: OS/2 on hardware other than '286 or '386 processors
On Mon, 13 May 2013, Guy Sotomayor wrote:
Oh, they were seriously paranoid about the source and
ideas. I remember
that I was presenting at the 3rd Mach USENIX symposium and they were in
the audience. When I got back home I got dressed down by my division
President (at IBM that's *huge* deal).
They didn't have upper management pre-clear presentations at that time?
That's certainly policy now, AFAIK (not that IBM ever sends me to
conferences, but that's another story).
--
10:17 a.m.
New subject: [cctalk] Re: OS/2 on hardware other than '286 or '386 processors
On May 14, 2013, at 5:01 AM, Steven Hirsch <snhirsch at gmail.com> wrote:
On Mon, 13 May 2013, Guy Sotomayor wrote:
Yes, they did and it was within IBM. It wasn't cleared with the Taligent folks and
they went crazy.
TTFN - Guy
Oh, they were seriously paranoid about the source
and ideas. I remember that I was presenting at the 3rd Mach USENIX symposium and they
were in the audience. When I got back home I got dressed down by my division President
(at IBM that's *huge* deal).
They didn't have upper management pre-clear presentations at that time? That's
certainly policy now, AFAIK (not that IBM ever sends me to conferences, but that's
another story). 
13 May
13 May
5:13 p.m.
New subject: [cctalk] Re: OS/2 on hardware other than '286 or '386 processors
On Mon, May 13, 2013 at 04:06:01PM -0400, madodel wrote:
Does anyone remember "Pink" which was to be
the base
platform OS that could run multiple flavors of operating systems?
I *love* that MS's code name for the next Win8 update is "Blue", since
Apple's System 7 came out of the battle between Blue and Pink. Pink was
the sexy new OS that was supposed to be so cool, and Blue was just another
rev of the same old thing, and of course it's what became System 7 after
the dust settled.
I hope it's an apt name. Win7 wasn't all that bad (especially compared
to Vista) and if this is MS's way of admitting that a linear upgrade to
Win7 is a better idea than going off on some wacky tangent because MS has
misunderstood what smartphones are for, that'd be fine.
John (summer 1989 intern in Apple CPU/OS group)
7:10 p.m.
New subject: [cctalk] Re: OS/2 on hardware other than '286 or '386 processors
John Wilson wrote:
I *love* that MS's code name for the next Win8
update is "Blue", since
Apple's System 7 came out of the battle between Blue and Pink. Pink was
the sexy new OS that was supposed to be so cool, and Blue was just another
rev of the same old thing, and of course it's what became System 7 after
the dust settled.
This is the idea behind the logo for Alan Kay's research group, except
with the two colors switched:
http://www.vpri.org/
http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?BluePlane
-- Jecel
2:54 p.m.
Am 13.05.2013 17:03, schrieb David Riley:
On May 13, 2013, at 7:45 AM, Holger Veit wrote:
I was aiming at desktops, and
there in particular at its role as a
potential successor of the x86 platform. It failed there, mainly because
of the inability to come to an accepted (or acceptable) standard. The
same happened to MIPS at that time (WinNT on MIPS - no applications).
This is to a high degree due to the failure of Microsoft to understand
the impact of software availability - they are repeating it nowadays
with Win8 RT, in the markets where IOS and Android are already
ubiquituous. Apple, as mentioned was an exception because they provided
a migration path.
The embedded area is an entirely different battlefield - products don't
need and maybe producers don't want any compatibility at all. I agree,
the PPC surely had its application area there although it is meanwhile
going to be replaced by less power hungry ARM families.
--
Holger
Not having seen the PPC source, but the
86/286/386 monster of OS/2-kernel source (3.x), I can only agree. I consider it almost
impossible, without a complete rewrite and then only - as in the PPC implementation - with
largely different APIs to port this thing to anything else, including PDP-11. Given the
386 ring architecture, it would be more likely to transfer a look-alike to a VAX, but not
to a PDP with MMU. But even then; the question is: what benefit would there be? DEC
systems were already a dying platform at the time of OS/2, and lack of any compatibility
to the original x86-based system would gain nothing. Even the PPC was not a success, not
only because of the obscure CHRP architecture no other vendor used, but also because of
the lack of killer application or migration path. Apple those days did it better in
providing an emulator to run older 68K apps on the PPC.
I dunno, I think the PPC
was a success, just not as much on the desktop.
There are LOADS of PowerPCs running high-end embedded stuff in cars and
telecom systems, and all three of the previous generation of game
consoles used a PowerPC of some sort as the CPU. 
5:11 a.m.
On 11 May 2013 17:40, Robert Ferguson <rob at bitscience.ca> wrote:
It didn't happen, at least not at IBM or Microsoft
during the Joint Development Agreement era. It would have been physically impossible.
After IBM had OS/2 to itself, all sorts of strange things went on. So, I can't
completely discount a port after that point. I would be extraordinarily surprised if IBM
had targeted DEC hardware, though.
But up until "the divorce", I can unequivocally state that no such thing
happened.
Cheers for that.
It won't help this debate/zombie-thread-from-hell, if I am any judge,
but worth saying nonetheless.
--
Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven
MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven
Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884
4087
days inactive
4090
days old
25 comments
13 participants
participants (13)
-
aek＠bitsavers.org -
b4＠gewt.net -
cisin＠xenosoft.com -
fraveydank＠gmail.com -
ggs＠shiresoft.com -
holger.veit＠iais.fraunhofer.de -
jecel＠merlintec.com -
lproven＠gmail.com -
madodel＠ptdprolog.net -
mcguire＠neurotica.com -
rob＠bitscience.ca -
snhirsch＠gmail.com -
wilson＠dbit.com