A version of OS/2 2.0 from Microsoft, not IBM, just surfaced on eBay. This pre-release version came out after Windows 3.0.

How much might you be willing to pay to own a piece of operating system history? Would you pay two-thirds of a grand? No, us neither, but fortunately for posterity, Reg reader Brian Ledbetter is. He wrote to tell us that he bought the [1]ULTRA RARE: IBM / Microsoft OS/2 SDK Version 2 Pre-Release 2 for v1 Users [Beta] for a non-trivial six hundred and fifty of your U.S. dollars.

The original Microsoft OS/2 1 SDK was a snip at [2]just $3,000 , but you can [3]grab a copy for free from the Internet Archive. Microsoft's press release for the first preview release, thus far lost to history, is dated December 29, 1989, and says:

The OS/2 SDK 2.0 can be ordered directly from Microsoft by calling (800) 227-4679. The SDK will be priced at $2,600 with a group discount offer of four SDKs for $8,500.

This means Mr Ledbetter got it for a song – just one-quarter of its original list price.

We also enjoyed this detail:

The prerelease version […] can be used to develop for Microsoft's OS/2 version 2.0 or IBM's OS/2 version 2.0, both of which will be available in 1990.

Microsoft co-developed OS/2 with IBM, but it only sold the 80286-specific OS/2 1 under its own branding. As the Reg [4]covered in depth back when OS/2 turned 25, when OS/2 1 failed to change the world, Microsoft pivoted, revamped the equally lackluster Windows 2 to create the best-selling Windows 3, and moved on… and onwards and upwards.

However, Microsoft did do some development work on the 32-bit OS/2 2.0 before the divorce. A version of the official Microsoft 32-bit OS/2 Software Development Kit was found about a decade ago, and [5]Virtually Fun got it working and shared some screenshots of a 32-bit Microsoft C compiler from about a year before the first preview release of Windows NT. As they said then:

Sadly this does NOT include the operating system, just the C compiler and the SDK bits.

Keen software archeologists did know about the existence of Microsoft OS/2 2.0. It was [6]covered in PC Mag in 1990 , from which Virtually Fun [7]sourced the only known screenshot . Well, finally, it looks like a copy of that operating system showed up.

OS/2 2.0 was intended to appear back in 1990, but Windows 3.0 [8]shipped in May that year and was a huge hit, [9]selling 10 million copies . Microsoft pulled out of the partnership, forcing IBM to go it alone and delaying the release of IBM OS/2 2.0 until 1992 – critically, after Microsoft had achieved market- (and mind-) share.

[10]

Several beta versions of IBM OS/2 2 have been found and archived, and the OS/2 Museum has detailed reports on the [11]Spring '91 Edition , the [12]Summer '91 Edition and the [13]Xmas '91 Edition . The oldest of these still has an OS/2 1.3-style "Desktop Manager" rather than the snazzy new Workplace Shell.

[14]Code archaeologist digs up oldest known ancestor of MS-DOS

[15]War of the workstations: How the lowest bidders shaped today's tech landscape

[16]These days you can teach old tech a bunch of new tricks

[17]Arca Noae is modernizing OS/2 Warp for 21st century PCs

Michal Nečásek of the OS/2 Museum told us:

The current oldest archived pre-release of OS/2 2.0 is from April 1991. So the June 1990 pre-release is quite a bit older, though not the oldest there was.

Microsoft kept selling OS/2 1.x for longer than you might think. Nečásek told us:

Of course Microsoft continued selling OS/2 1.3, because LAN Manager 2.x and SQL Server 4.2 ran on top of 16-bit OS/2 and Microsoft was forced to support these releases until they could be fully replaced by NT based products.

®

Get our [18]Tech Resources



[1] https://www.ebay.com/itm/116062509354

[2] https://logos.fandom.com/wiki/OS/2

[3] https://archive.org/details/ms-os2-sdk-1.00

[4] https://www.theregister.com/Print/2012/11/27/the_os_wars_os2_25years_old/

[5] https://virtuallyfun.com/2013/11/05/microsoft-os2-2-0-sdk-beta/

[6] https://books.google.com.hk/books?id=FK9cQfDtQZkC&lpg=PP1&pg=PT391#v=onepage&q&f=false

[7] https://virtuallyfun.com/2014/05/09/a-sneak-peak-at-microsoft-os2-2-0/

[8] https://www.theregister.com/2010/05/24/windows_3_turns_20/

[9] https://www.theregister.com/2013/05/23/microsoft_windows3_birthday/

[10] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2ZdSGWBFYancHB1hCMqpKAwAAAII&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0

[11] https://www.os2museum.com/wp/os-2-2-0-spring-91-edition/

[12] https://www.os2museum.com/wp/os2-2-0-summer-91-edition/

[13] https://www.os2museum.com/wp/os2-2-0-xmas-91-edition/

[14] https://www.theregister.com/2024/01/05/oldest_ancestor_of_msdos_recovered/

[15] https://www.theregister.com/2023/12/25/the_war_of_the_workstations/

[16] https://www.theregister.com/2023/09/14/pc_xt_with_hdmi/

[17] https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/19/retro_tech_week_arca_os/

[18] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/