Folks who remember the Windows 3 and early OS/2 operating systems for PCs may not know that OS/2 started as a Microsoft operating system. If history would have been different, after Windows 3, OS/2 may have ushered in the era of 32-bit computing.

OS/2 version 1 ran on a 80286 and wasn’t well received. With the 80386 coming out, OS/2 version 2 was polished up and actually a well rounded operating system which Microsoft was getting ready to release in partnership with their partner IBM.

But the success of Windows 3 had Microsoft pivot to stay on Windows which included Windows NT, Windows 95 and more. IBM was left to run with OS/2.

Brian Ledbetter, knowing what he was looking for, found a copy of Microsoft OS/2 version 2 prerelease 2 on eBay and bought it, releasing the disks on the Internet Archive.

There are a couple of gotchas trying to install the software but Brian found workarounds and in the video below demonstrates the build as fairly solid, if lacking applications. With some wizardry, the open source GCC compiler was ported, opening up many more application possibilities.

See the video below and more in the article here.