OS/2 still lingers today

[screwballl]

eComStation :: an OEM Upgrade to IBM OS/2. Right for today's PC hardware

kinda crazy that anyone is still handling this Win95 looking OS... guess there must be a market if they are still working on it.

[Hitman]

There are still systems out there that run a version of it, like ATM's, Ticket Machines, Cash Register Terminals things of that nature.

[screwballl]

it would be nice to see some graphical updates added instead of them keeping the plain windows 3.1 look

[Hitman]

Keep in mind that many of the systems that OS/2 is still running on, are extremely old. Some of these systems have been in the field for 10 or more years, some of them may actually be older then some of our younger members, and most likely couldn't run updated graphics. Companies are notorious for keeping outdated systems running to avoid the cost of a full upgrade (Just ask Ron). They just simply want to keep these systems running as long as possible. eComStation is just providing updated software that will keep these older systems working with newer technology, and communications systems. Also many of these systems require a lightweight OS, where pretty graphics aren’t necessary. Do you really care how pretty the graphics are on the ATM? No you just want to punch “English”, get your money and go.

[screwballl]

I understand that aspect of it.... but if linux can have a 200KB desktop manager that looks almost as good as the latest Gnome and KDE then I would assume the systems that use the desktop managers could get a nice GUI update without sacrificing too much speed or resources.

[polobunny]

Originally Posted by screwballl

eComStation :: an OEM Upgrade to IBM OS/2. Right for today's PC hardware

kinda crazy that anyone is still handling this Win95 looking OS... guess there must be a market if they are still working on it.

It's rock solid, that's why. It would be my OS of choice if I needed maximum security and uptime. None of that fancy linux thing. :P

Edit: That's a joke, just in case someone takes this seriously*. It's rock solid, but it isn't really secure.

[Hitman]

After looking at some of the screen shots it looks more like an older version of kde or even gnome then a variant of windows. I know some of our systems that we use in the field are still running a very old and extremely modified version of Sun Solaris. I remember a few years ago they tried to update the OS on some of the systems to a newer version of Solaris, and it was a disaster. The hardware was so old that the OS update was crashing the systems, thanks to Raytheon testing the new software on new machines, not actual machines in the field. As enthusiast we get used to the latest and greatest, and often forget that many of the systems that are running day to day operations have been around for many years and to upgrade them would cost billions or trillions of dollars. Look at the old Y2K scare; they were finding systems running software that was written in the late 60’s and 70’s that were still operational and functioning. I think most of those systems have been since updated, but it wouldn’t surprise me if there was software out there that was written in the 80’s and early 90’s that’s still fully operational.