Os2

OS/2 is a family of operating systems originally developed by IBM, created as a successor to DOS and the early Windows environment. The project began in the late 1980s as a joint effort with Microsoft, but Microsoft left the collaboration in 1990, and IBM continued development under the OS/2 brand. OS/2 was positioned as a business-oriented, multitasking operating system with a graphical user interface known as Presentation Manager, which evolved into the Warp line in later releases.

Technically, OS/2 offered preemptive multitasking, memory protection, and virtual memory for 16- and 32-bit applications. It supported full-screen DOS sessions and included a Windows-on-OS/2 compatibility subsystem that could run 16-bit Windows applications within the OS/2 desktop, though performance varied with hardware and drivers. The default file system for OS/2 was the High-Performance File System (HPFS), and the platform included built-in networking capabilities, supporting TCP/IP and other protocols used in business environments.

Version history and lineage have included OS/2 1.x and OS/2 2.x, with the commercially marketed Warp line beginning in the mid-1990s. After the decline of desktop OS competition, IBM continued to maintain and sell OS/2 in niche markets or through partnerships. In the post-IBM era, several derivative projects have kept OS/2 alive in various forms. Notable examples include eComStation, based on Warp, and ArcaOS, maintained by Arca Noae, which aim to provide updated drivers and improved hardware support for modern machines.

Today, OS/2 is considered obsolete in mainstream computing, but persists in specialized environments and as the basis for ongoing community and commercial derivative efforts. It is commonly used in virtualization or on older hardware to run legacy applications.