pcjs/_posts/2015-12-27-revisiting-os2.md
2015-12-28 12:32:33 -08:00

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layout title date category permalink machines
post Revisiting OS/2 2015-12-27 11:00:00 OS/2 /blog/2015/12/27/
type id config
pc-dbg ibm5170 /disks/pc/os2/ibm/1.0/machine.xml

Just for fun (because I have a warped sense of fun), I decided to revisit some of the old OS/2 software I wrote almost 30 years ago. But first, I needed an OS/2 development environment.

So I started with a clean install of IBM's OS/2 1.0 in the 8Mhz IBM PC AT machine below, by booting from the "IBM OS/2 1.0 (1.44M Install)" diskette in drive A and reformatting the machine's 20Mb drive C.

Next, I installed the MS OS/2 SDK 1.02. This SDK was released around December 1987 and included a copy of Microsoft OS/2 1.0. I don't have any of the printed documentation that came with the SDK, such as the Installation Guide, but I do have the Microsoft® Operating System/2 Programmers Toolkit documentation from March 1988, thanks to the OS/2 Museum.

Aside from Microsoft's assembler (MASM) and C compiler, the SDK included some other useful tools, such as SDKED (SDK Editor), which was essentially an OS/2 port of Mark Zbikowski's Z Editor that was used internally at Microsoft for many years. The same editor was later renamed to M and ultimately PWB (Programmer's Workbench). With the introduction of various Integrated Development Environment (IDE) products, such as Visual BASIC in 1991, Visual C++ in 1993, and Visual Studio in 1995, this stand-alone editor became obsolete, but in the 1980s, it was a valuable tool.

You can learn more about SDKED on the MS OS/2 SDK 1.02 page. I'll be adding a complete list of all the files that came with SDK to that page in the near future.

To boot IBM OS/2 1.0 and tinker with the SDK, scroll down and click the "Run" button.

{% include machine.html id="ibm5170" %}

@jeffpar
December 27, 2015