X-News (https://x-bit.org/x-news/://strawpoll.com/GPgVYJoeBna
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X-News (https://x-bit.org/x-news/://strawpoll.com/GPgVYJoeBna

DOS or OS/2.

... God isn't dead, he just couldn't find a parking place.

--- Renegade v1.35/DOS
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Re: Re: Best or Favorite OS for a BBS?
By: Exodus to Xbit on Wed Nov 05 2025 06:57 pm

X-News (https://x-bit.org/x-news/://strawpoll.com/GPgVYJoeBna

DOS or OS/2.

Always wanted to build an OS/2 BBS back in the day.
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|15<|07<|08< +h3 |02><|08-bi+ >|07>|15>



...Marriage is a great institution - no family should be without it.
--- SBBSecho 3.23-Win32
* Origin: X-Bit BBS > Oregon USA > x-bit.org (21:4/107)

xbit wrote to Exodus <=-

Always wanted to build an OS/2 BBS back in the day.

On period hardware, OS/2 rocked. Windows wasn't ready to mulitask DOS
cleanly for a long time. I ran a 486 with OS/2, and ran Maximus for DOS
in a DOS window. Worked pretty well - but then when I moved to all OS/2
binaries, I could do whatever I wanted on the system while the BBS was
running and I could barely tell it was there.



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Re: Re: Best or Favorite OS for a BBS?
By: poindexter FORTRAN to xbit on Thu Nov 06 2025 07:16 am

Always wanted to build an OS/2 BBS back in the day.

On period hardware, OS/2 rocked. Windows wasn't ready to mulitask DOS cleanly for a long time. I ran a 486 with OS/2, and ran Maximus for DOS in a DOS window. Worked pretty well - but then when I moved to all OS/2 binaries, I could do whatever I wanted on the system while the BBS was running and I could barely tell it was there.

So awesome. Sounds like a fun retro project... I have a working 486 w/ win95. Perhaps i could switch the HDD an os/2 one :) that said, it also sounds like a lot of work as it would be a new world for me and not sure support is what it once was. https://x-bit.org/info/retro486/
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|15<|07<|08< +h3 |02><|08-bi+ >|07>|15>



...Ignorance is the mother of research.
--- SBBSecho 3.23-Win32
* Origin: X-Bit BBS > Oregon USA > x-bit.org (21:4/107)

Re: Re: Best or Favorite OS for a BBS?
By: poindexter FORTRAN to xbit on Thu Nov 06 2025 07:16 am

On period hardware, OS/2 rocked. Windows wasn't ready to mulitask DOS cleanly for a long time. I ran a 486 with OS/2, and ran Maximus for DOS in a DOS window. Worked pretty well - but then when I moved to all OS/2 binaries, I could do whatever I wanted on the system while the BBS was running and I could barely tell it was there.

By the time I first tried OS/2 Warp around 1996, I'd have liked to see OS/2 continue and succeed. However, Windows was already so dominant at that time that it couldn't really be stopped. I thought OS/2 Warp was more stable than Windows 95 and was able to run Windows 3.x and DOS software alongside OS/2 software without a hitch.

Nightfox
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So awesome. Sounds like a fun retro project... I have a working 486 w/ win9 Perhaps i could switch the HDD an os/2 one :) that said, it also sounds lik lot of work as it would be a new world for me and not sure support is what once was. https://x-bit.org/info/retro486/

Download FULLPACK.ZIP if you are gonna run OS/2 on old hardware. And OSTSR to help DOS programs. FULLPACK.ZIP gives you all the tips and tricks to modify what is needed in the 100000 line config.sys to get the most performance out of it.

... Dorothy- hate OZ, took shoes, find your own way home Toto

--- Renegade v1.35/DOS
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xbit wrote to poindexter FORTRAN <=-

So awesome. Sounds like a fun retro project... I have a working 486 w/ win95. Perhaps i could switch the HDD an os/2 one :) that said, it also sounds like a lot of work as it would be a new world for me and not
sure support is what it once was. https://x-bit.org/info/retro486/ ===

Despite the challenge of keeping old hardware running, OS/2 would
probably prefer older hardware. OS/2 has been updated, there's a version
called eCOmstation and later Arca Noae (sp?) that support modern CPUs,
USB and more.

OS/2 was all about the CONFIG.SYS file, getting the drivers loading
right was a bit of a pain if I recall. Once it loads up, you get a
window environment called Presentation Manager that predated
context-based menus with right-click options that changed depending on
the context, and object context - drop a document onto the printer icon
to print, for example.

Its DOS support was amazing. You could create a DOS environment and not
need to load any DOS drivers, instead using the system drivers, and get
a lot of available memory - or create DOS virtual machine using
whatever version of DOS you want to use. Unlike a hypervisor, you could
share the file system with OS/2.

The beauty of the system was moving to OS/2 binaries - I ran Maximus,
Squish, Qedit, BlueWave and TimEdit all for OS/2, and the difference in
system drain compared to running in DOS was minimal.

Later versions could run older Windows binaries, but that was always
fiddly, and was an indication that IBM had given up trying to compete
with Windows. Sure, you could run Lotus Organizer, 1-2-3 and Word
Perfect for OS/2, but not a lot of home users did.



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Re: Re: Best or Favorite OS for a BBS?
By: poindexter FORTRAN to xbit on Fri Nov 07 2025 07:57 am

Despite the challenge of keeping old hardware running, OS/2 would probably prefer older hardware. OS/2 has been updated, there's a version called eCOmstation and later Arca Noae (sp?) that support modern CPUs, USB and more.

Arca Noae is the company; the name they've given the OS is ArcaOS.

Nightfox
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