OS/2 and floppy disks, aged but not extinct technologies
Technology old fogeys can rejoice: even though they have lost the chance to obtain new Windows for Workgroups 3.11 licences by now, the almost-defunct operating systems and storage devices that persist in not wanting to fade away surely aren’t lacking. A recently surfaced couple of news actually highlights as even in information technology, probably the most rapidly evolving technology field, there are users niches that really don’t want (or can’t) abandon an outdated standard to adopt a more modern one.
Almost two years ago Microsoft pulled to plug on supplying WfW 3.11 for embedded environments, putting an end to the commercial history of an (MS-DOS dependant) operating system introduced 15 years before. An operating system is dead, but it seems that another one could soon rise from its ashes if what a systems integrator close to IBM has stated is true, ie that somewhere in Big Blue’s corporate body someone is thinking about bringing OS/2 on the market again.
OS/2, for who missed the turbulent technology facts of the early Nineties, was the offspring of collaboration between Microsoft and IBM, both committed to the effort to go beyond the then-dominating MS-DOS and the “operating environment” of Windows first versions to offer their customers a modern operating system equipped with an advanced graphical interface. The collaboration, as it’s easy to figure out, didn’t go as planned, Microsoft leaved IBM to its destiny and what should have been the x86 systems’ OS of the future has slowly turned into a minor platform that is currently available under the eComStation commercial name.
The “renewed” OS/2, the source close to IBM has said, would take the shape of a series of “services” (”Presentation Manager” shell above all) to run atop a Linux kernel. To the present day Big Blue hasn’t issued any official statement on the matter, and while speculations try to explain the reasons for a possible return of “Operating System/2″ (an easier to use Linux OS?) it’s interesting to highlight the fact that someone, after almost ten years from the last official version, is still using it in the present time.
Single enthusiast users don’t lack and some Internet-connected server exists as well, but where OS/2 has put down roots that are seemingly impossible to eradicate in full is within the professional area, banks, among accounting specialists, within the auditing companies, on oil platforms and in some remote IBM shop. The operating system that wanted to cancel Windows in the DOS era is now a survivor giving life to virtual machines and obsolete computers worldwide.
The persistence of attention for OS/2 hits the headlines, but the ongoing consumers interest toward 3,5″ floppy disks is possibly even more strange. Sony Corporation, which first introduced the PC “micro floppy” format in 1981, has recently announced the decision to block the marketing of 1.44 Megabyte magnetic disks in Japan - after the stop to worldwide distribution occurred on March of this years - starting from the upcoming March 2011. In 2009 the Japanese giant sold 8.5 million floppy disks on the national market, with a 70% estimated market share.
For a company that decides to abandon floppy disks, another one reaffirms its commitment to sold them: “Almost 30 years after the 3.5-inch disk’s launch in 1981“, Verbatim Europe’s press release states - the floppy remains a widespread data storage medium despite the advent of powerful rivals such as the CD and USB stick“. During all the 2009, Verbatim estimates to have sold 50 million floppy disks in Europe alone and in the ex-soviet countries in particular.
In the middle of 2010, Verbatim says, when you can purchase portable flash memories with several Gigabytes for a few euros, floppies still represent a cheap, easy to use, store and carry archiving medium. There is a large user base that uses them for its personal or professional needs, within factories and research laboratories as well, in theaters and on old and (relatively) new domestic computers, thus Verbatim “will continue to supply the floppy worldwide” notwithstanding the physiologic reduction of suppliers in a shrinking market segment.
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old cdrom go flaky, because they’re used hard.
meanwhile the fdd survives, because it gets used only to boot. when you’ve got an older pc (~2001) that doesn’t have solid usb boot support in bios, the floppy works.
(though it’s still easier to borrow a cdrom from a newer pc, and boot from cd)
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