Protected mode on the 286 was seriously flawed. It couldn’t run most existing DOS real mode applications without resetting the CPU, and it didn’t make it easy to access the new features. You now had a 16MB address space (up from 1MB on the 8086), but you still had to access it through 64kB segments. Protected mode on 286 actually made this worse because it added overhead when modifying segment registers, so accessing large memory areas got slower.
OS/2 1.x was designed for the 286 and couldn’t escape these limitations. In theory it was a decent improvement on MS-DOS, but in practice there wasn’t enough value to counter the lack of compatibility and the higher price.
twoodfin [3 hidden]5 mins ago
It’s kind of wild that neither IBM (who got beat to the hardware punch by Compaq) nor Microsoft (who targeted the NT effort at everything except x86) initially grokked how revolutionary the 80386 was: A “decent enough” 32-bit architecture with a huge preexisting ecosystem that would be able to ride the rocket ship of commodity PC scale.
glhaynes [3 hidden]5 mins ago
On both counts, I think it's actually IBM who didn't get the importance. Both of the 386 to OS/2 and how important quick-to-market hardware was (even if just for brand prestige) versus Compaq.
Microsoft always got it, and I feel certain the first release of NT (3.1) sold many times as many copies for x86 as it did for other architectures; and it was targeted for it as much as for any other arch.
It was actually Microsoft that saw early that OS/2 needed to exploit the 386 but IBM dragged their feet on it. A strategy similar to Windows/286 vs. Windows/386 would've made a lot of sense IMO. And probably helped IBM sell more 32-bit Micro Channel hardware early on!
icedchai [3 hidden]5 mins ago
Microsoft kind of did though? Windows/386 was released in late 1987. It could run multiple DOS apps using the "virtual 8086" mode. That was pretty revolutionary at the time. I think I knew more people using DESQview back then, though.
twoodfin [3 hidden]5 mins ago
Sure, but their mainstream OS didn’t support the bulk of the 80386’s capabilities until late 1995.
That’s kind of insane if you think about it.
joshmarinacci [3 hidden]5 mins ago
I notice some unusual spelling errors. Was this translated from another language or scanned with ai?
HN.zip
OS/2 1.x was designed for the 286 and couldn’t escape these limitations. In theory it was a decent improvement on MS-DOS, but in practice there wasn’t enough value to counter the lack of compatibility and the higher price.
Microsoft always got it, and I feel certain the first release of NT (3.1) sold many times as many copies for x86 as it did for other architectures; and it was targeted for it as much as for any other arch.
It was actually Microsoft that saw early that OS/2 needed to exploit the 386 but IBM dragged their feet on it. A strategy similar to Windows/286 vs. Windows/386 would've made a lot of sense IMO. And probably helped IBM sell more 32-bit Micro Channel hardware early on!
That’s kind of insane if you think about it.