I only remember OS/2 from magazines, never saw it in person, either then or now. I've thought about trying it, but only if I were bored. I think everyone who knew about it around here thought it was an alternative to Windows.
I suppose it was used in banks, companies, and by people who bought a computer with OS/2 pre-installed without really knowing what they were buying.
I didn't know anyone who used it, never thought about the possible confusion with the name, nor did I hear anyone comment on it.

And yes, it's pronounced as you say.

Hoping wrote on 2025-09-08, 17:53:

by people who bought a computer with OS/2 pre-installed without really knowing what they were buying

Not.
OS/2's hardware requirements were so high, that for many years OS/2-ready computers pretty much didn't exist on the market - thus it wasn't possible to pre-install OS/2 by default.

The average PC only cought up with OS/2 in mid-90s, when it was already too late to sell OS/2 as the default system.
I recall that - for a moment - Vobis/Highscreen did try to sell computers with OS/2 Warp 3, but I don't think it was a success.

Grzyb wrote on 2025-09-08, 18:39:

I recall that - for a moment - Vobis/Highscreen did try to sell computers with OS/2 Warp 3, but I don't think it was a success.

Yeah, so did Escom for a while. I remember working on an assembly line for those machines as a summer job. Some people further down the line were responsible for installing OS/2 Warp on it. I believe this was in 1996.

So what you guys are basically saying is that OS/2 was so niche and had such limited market penetration that there was no general confusion among Spanish-speaking consumers?

I do remember OS/2 being hyped at least in computer magazines back in the day. So my question was more in that context. I guess Spanish readers of such publications tended to be sufficiently tech-savvy as to not be confused about it.

I have no idea about Spanish.

But in general - it must have been extremely rare for a casual user to encounter OS/2.

In the early years, vast majority of OS/2 usage seemed to be servers.
In the 2.x era - and even more so in the Warp 3 era - there came power users, who craved for 32-bit and other advanced features.
There were also ATMs, and other specialized applications - eg. I recently scored a 486 with OS/2 and "FPLC director" software, obviously to control some chromatography gear.

In any case, these were the prerequisites to be an OS/2 user:
- read computer magazines to even learn about OS/2's existence, and I mean *serious* magazines, not some stuff for gamers
- spend extra money for a better-than-average hardware, making sure that all the devices come with OS/2 drivers
- acquire the OS/2 installation media, which wasn't quite easy if you had no power users among your friends...

Overall, being an OS/2 user was *very* elitist.

Didn't some IBMs come with os/2 installed? I thought we had some where I worked for some specialist software, though I forget what, possibly a database. We didn't have them for long though.

In any case, these were the prerequisites to be an OS/2 user:
- read computer magazines to even learn about OS/2's existence, and I mean

Hey, OS/2 was on the cover page of many PC magazines of the day! 😃
Walking past a magazine rack was enough to take notice of OS/2.
That happened to me a few times and it wasn't even in a computer store,
but a grocery store were Mickey Mouse magazines were next to computer magazines, women's magazines and TV magazines.
Also, many shareware CD-ROMS mentioned OS/2 in some way or another. 🙂
Book stores also had big books about Windows NT, 95 and OS/2 in the 90s.

Overall, being an OS/2 user was *very* elitist.

Or it was being German and ready to go through some suffering? 😉
Seriously, though. The more tech savy users here considered trying out OS/2, because OS/2 seemed reasonable.
OS/2 2.x and especially Warp 3.0 had gained some noticeable market share.
In the mailbox scene, OS/2 was quite well known, too.

But yes - ordinary users here didn't use OS/2 for very long, either, I think.
Because their Vobis or Escom PCs had a lowly 4MB of RAM or so, so they went back to using DOS/WfW 3.11 after a while.
Home users were into video games, after all and didn't need a real OS with multitasking.

Too bad OS/2 Warp Connect was so rare over here. It would have rivaled WfW very well.
Because, Warp 4, as good as it was, was a bit late and came out when OS/2 users were about leaving the platform.

Edit: An acquaintance of mine had worked at Siemens in 80s/90s and had a big collection of OS/2 2.x books and floppies.
So maybe it was relevant for his workplace, too.

At least for a while, there was quite an advertising push. I even remember seeing TV adverts from IBM for OS/2.

So it's indeed not true that it never got any mainstream exposure. As short-lived as that exposure may have been.

Now that I did some search, I've found that IBM did advertise OS/2 on TV in Poland as well - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDNpRFsXRSM
But it must've been rare - I've never seen it before.

I do recall, however, "Computer School" educational programs on TV - and that did include OS/2.

So there *were* attempts for OS/2 to go mainstream - but too little, too late...
Average computer users either didn't know about OS/2 at all, or only commented: "there's no programs for it..."

ratfink wrote on 2025-09-09, 11:38:

Didn't some IBMs come with os/2 installed? I thought we had some where I worked for some specialist software, though I forget what, possibly a database. We didn't have them for long though.

When I did my work experience at IBM in 2002 the call centre staff had two towers under each desk: one ran Windows 2000 and another ran OS/2 to access some arcane TUI database. They would use a KVM switch to jump between the two while on a call. It left quite an impression of corporate IT practices. Fond memories, though.

The call centre handled Europe Middle East and Africa (EMEA) customers. There were lots of Spanish speakers working there, including the guy I was with most of the week - now I wish I had asked them how they pronounced OS/2 😁

Big Pink wrote on 2025-09-09, 15:01:

The call centre handled Europe Middle East and Africa (EMEA) customers. There were lots of Spanish speakers working there, including the guy I was with most of the week - now I wish I had asked them how they pronounced OS/2 😁

I second that, that would have been interesting to know. 🙂
Hm. I can think of at least three possibilities of pronouncing it.
a) in original English™, b) the English abbreviation as pronounced in one's own language, c) a translated version
The latter happened in my country, when young OS/2 was still BS/2 (Beh-S-Zwei).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iigImGK1XCI

o-ese-dos

My parents bought an Amstrad 6128+ in 1992 when it was already discontinued, out of production and pretty useless. They had no idea about computers.
It was an improvement over the previous Atari 64XE, but still a big mistake.
I think it's very possible that someone here in Spain bought a discontinued IBM computer with a 486, for example, with OS/2 pre-installed in 1997.
I remember seeing IBM computers in the town hall, but they used Windows and had Token Ring cards, although I don't know if they used a Token Ring network. Like OS/2, I don't know if Token Ring would have been very successful outside the business environment; I only remember using Ethernet over coaxial cable.
I'm sure of this because two of those IBM computers from the town hall ended up in my hands.
Something similar happened later with the Intel DOT stations, which were sold after their great failure and when they were completely discontinued, even if upgraded.
These kinds of things happen often. Many technologies become history because they fail to catch on, but then when they are completely useless, yet cheap, they end up in the hands of people who don't have the knowledge to know that they are making a mistake.
If OS/2 was sold pre-installed on IBM computers, it is very likely that some novice users bought one.
But even more years later, people like us arrive and have hours of fun tinkering with these technologies that were not successful.

I've never heard anyone refer to OS/2 as ‘o ese dos, it's always been ‘OS dos’.

I'm wondering how common it was to call that product "half an OS" 🤣

Here in South America I've mostly heard it pronounced as "O ESE DOS", or even "O ESE BARRA DOS" ("O S SLASH TWO") in some cases. But I don't think it caused any major confusion as it didn't really come up in discussions outside of corporate discussions and computer magazines.

My brother worked for IBM during the early to mid '90s and since then he had a certain dislike for IBM stuff (including OS/2), describing it as bloated and overly expensive. When we were going to buy our first family computer in 1993, my father was going to go with an IBM since one of his childhood friends had a company which was the main IBM importer/distributor over here. But my brother talked him out of it and we got a generic 486 clone instead.

I'm wondering how common it was to call that product "half an OS" 🤣

Where I live, the people who didn't like OS/2 too much used to call it "OS halbe", I think.
It was similar to WinDOS, Windoze or "Windoof" (Winstupid).

digger wrote on 2025-09-09, 08:21:

Grzyb wrote on 2025-09-08, 18:39:

I recall that - for a moment - Vobis/Highscreen did try to sell computers with OS/2 Warp 3, but I don't think it was a success.

Yeah, so did Escom for a while. I remember working on an assembly line for those machines as a summer job. Some people further down the line were responsible for installing OS/2 Warp on it. I believe this was in 1996.

The timeframe sounds about right. Obviously, at Vobis and Escom (the two cheap computer chains in Germany at that time), everything was about cost, and it seems IBM offered OS/2 for a lower price than Microsoft offered Windows 95. Possibly IBM gave away OS/2 for nearly free as a kind of advertising campaign.

If I remember correctly, a school mate had a Vobis PC in 1996 that likely was the lowest spec and cheapest system they had to offer. A 386sx system with 2MB of RAM, monochrome VGA monitor, and I think a Win3.11 / OS/2 dual boot solution. OS/2 3.0 Warp was basically unusable in that configuration, but DOS and some DOS games worked quite well if they didn't rely on color.