maxtherabbit wrote:

Scali wrote:

maxtherabbit wrote:

I'm envisioning an entire OS with the UX of vi

Seems like a good match for the abilities of a 386SX-16 😀

I'm not necessarily opposed to a CLI-only experience, but I was referring to the counterintuitive nature of vi specifically

like maybe it's not like that at all I really don't know, but the thought has always stuck in my head that you'd have to be shaped like richard stallman to enjoy a 1980s UNIX 🤣

I think you may just not understand the power of vi 😀

For qnx there's the photon microgui, not sure how well that runs on the machine in question though...

emacs

Scali wrote:

emacs

Eighty Megabytes And Constantly Swapping, and here we're talking about a machine with just 8 MB 😁

But seriously, some ancient Linux should work fine in text mode.
If you want GUI, then Windows 95, preferably the original release, not OSR2.

For OS/2 2.x or Warp 3, 8 MB is the very minimum - it will work, but slow.
Same with Linux+X11, I think.

And don't even think about Windows NT.

which would run less shitty? win95 original or OS/2? I kind of hate windows 95 tbh so not sure how fun that would be

XENIX is looking like the best option right now

Anders- wrote:

Give QNX a try? It's significantly less bloated than the other options listed here.

8MB might be a bit short and depending on what shadow option you can turn off in the Bios, but you can still try the floppy QNX demo disks if you want a taste of the GUI.

maxtherabbit wrote:

which would run less shitty? win95 original or OS/2?

OS/2 version 1.3 should run very reasonable, Win95 won't. OS/2 version 2.x will run as well and fully use the 386, but no idea about its speed. I never installed that version.

if I go for OS/2 it's going to be version 3 or bust, not very interested in messing around with the previous versions

Anders- wrote:

I think you may just not understand the power of vi 😀

Or the UX obscurity of ed, or TECO.

Ed, after all, is the standard text editor.
https://www.gnu.org/fun/jokes/ed-msg.html

Back in the day I ran OS/2 Warp 3 on a 486DX-40 with 8MB RAM and it started paging right from the desktop, before loading any applications. You might reduce the life of your CF card that way. It was sort of usable but slow, Windows 95 was less memory hungry and felt faster on the same hardware.
I also tried Warp on a 386DX-33 with 12MB RAM and it was faster there, even when multitasking native OS/2 and Win 3.1 programs.

jtchip wrote:

Back in the day I ran OS/2 Warp 3 on a 486DX-40 with 8MB RAM and it started paging right from the desktop, before loading any applications. You might reduce the life of your CF card that way. It was sort of usable but slow, Windows 95 was less memory hungry and felt faster on the same hardware.
I also tried Warp on a 386DX-33 with 12MB RAM and it was faster there, even when multitasking native OS/2 and Win 3.1 programs.

Thats absurd. OS/2 has nearly no pagefile usage compared to Win95.

maxtherabbit wrote:

if I go for OS/2 it's going to be version 3 or bust, not very interested in messing around with the previous versions

Version 3 is far too new for a 386sx-16. It was released in late 1994 and will run just as bad as Windows 95.

What's wrong with OS/2 2.11 for example? Version 2 is not primitive by any means, take a look here: http://toastytech.com/guis/os220.html

OS/2 2.0 has an incredibly modern UI and architecture for its time.

Yes, OS/2 2.0 is also a good contender. Despite me never using it back in the day, I did play around with it recently on PCem.

I'm also curious now how well OS/2 2.0 wil run on a 386SX-16.

derSammler wrote:

maxtherabbit wrote:

if I go for OS/2 it's going to be version 3 or bust, not very interested in messing around with the previous versions

Version 3 is far too new for a 386sx-16. It was released in late 1994 and will run just as bad as Windows 95.

What's wrong with OS/2 2.11 for example? Version 2 is not primitive by any means, take a look here: http://toastytech.com/guis/os220.html

appiah4 wrote:

OS/2 2.0 has an incredibly modern UI and architecture for its time.

It does indeed, in fact it is almost indistinguishable from OS/2 version 3 GUI. Versions 2 and 3 have the same system requirements according to IBM, and their GUIs appear to be the same, so why bother with 2? What makes y'all think that 3 will run any worse, any actual experience or just because it's slightly newer?

maxtherabbit wrote:

derSammler wrote:

maxtherabbit wrote:

if I go for OS/2 it's going to be version 3 or bust, not very interested in messing around with the previous versions

Version 3 is far too new for a 386sx-16. It was released in late 1994 and will run just as bad as Windows 95.

What's wrong with OS/2 2.11 for example? Version 2 is not primitive by any means, take a look here: http://toastytech.com/guis/os220.html

appiah4 wrote:

OS/2 2.0 has an incredibly modern UI and architecture for its time.

It does indeed, in fact it is almost indistinguishable from OS/2 version 3 GUI. Versions 2 and 3 have the same system requirements according to IBM, and their GUIs appear to be the same, so why bother with 2? What makes y'all think that 3 will run any worse, any actual experience or just because it's slightly newer?

I ran OS/2 Warp version 3 on my 486DLC-40 with 4MB RAM back in the day but, despite IBM's system requirements, I doubt it will run satisfactory on a 386SX-16.
But, as I said before, since you're doing this for fun, try it.

maxtherabbit wrote:

Versions 2 and 3 have the same system requirements according to IBM, and their GUIs appear to be the same, so why bother with 2?

Because the system requirements are just the (technical) minimum to run it, it says nothing about speed. The recommended system specs for version 3 are much higher than those for version 2.

Think about it, Windows 95 has the same system requirements as Windows 3.11 (apart from RAM, 3 MB vs. 4 MB). But you would not think that Win95 runs as fast as 3.11 because of that, would you?

Of course, no one holds you back trying OS/2 3.0 first, but don't say no one warned you. 😉

derSammler wrote:

Because the system requirements are just the (technical) minimum to run it, it says nothing about speed. The recommended system […]
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maxtherabbit wrote:

Versions 2 and 3 have the same system requirements according to IBM, and their GUIs appear to be the same, so why bother with 2?

Because the system requirements are just the (technical) minimum to run it, it says nothing about speed. The recommended system specs for version 3 are much higher than those for version 2.

Think about it, Windows 95 has the same system requirements as Windows 3.11 (apart from RAM, 3 MB vs. 4 MB). But you would not think that Win95 runs as fast as 3.11 because of that, would you?

Of course, no one holds you back trying OS/2 3.0 first, but don't say no one warned you. 😉

I appreciate the warning. If I go through the whole process of installing an OS and end up with a wholly unusable pile of shit it will be decidedly unfun.

Just wanted to make sure the ver2/3 thing was backed up by first hand experience, not assumptions that's all.

Does OS/2 version 2.x include the Win-OS/2 VM to run win3.x software like version 3 does?

Yes, but it's on Windows 3.0 level. It does not run programs that require Windows 3.1.

http://www.os2museum.com/wp/os2-history/os2-2-1-and-2-11/

OS/2 2.0 came with Windows 3.0, version 2.1 shipped with Windows 3.1

http://www.os2museum.com/wp/os2-history/os2-timeline/

1OS/2 2.1—May 1993—Codename Borg (previously Yawl)
2Internal revision 6.514 (93/04/12), XR02010
3Win-OS/2 based on Windows 3.1