PS/2s in general weren’t all that great in the area of performance. IBM shipped WAY too many machines that were basically souped up Model 50s using the 386/486SLC chips (386SX based, so 16MB RAM limit and 16bit bus). Ironic given that one of the big reasons for MicroChannel to exist was to give the PC a true 32-bit bus. Very few models supported 32bit MCA cards as a result.

I’d be surprised if the newer processor made that much difference, but who knows, you’re running a very early beta not intended for widespread distribution, and those could have specific hardware requirements.

For a generally released OS it’s unlikely any OS up to the mid 90s required an FPU, there were too many sales of 486SX systems (or earlier) and all operating systems had to work perfectly on them.

Back in the day I started my OS/2 journey with 2.1 on a 486DX with 8MB. That was generally usable, but even so it was using some swap immediately.

What could have been and the ‘extended’ development times of OS/2 are fairly moot. There was all sorts of IBM bureaucracy and politics, but let’s not forget that NT took just as long, if not longer, to be developed (although they got more of the architecture right from day one).

Also, if they’d have shipped OS/2 without the Workplace Shell, I simply don’t think it’d have gathered the interest of many people, including myself.

FYI, the compatibility box in OS/2 1.x looks like actual DOS, but isn’t. It’s customised and uses device drivers that run in both real and protected mode. The compatibility box is a horror that frequently switches between actual real mode to run DOS, back to protected mode, something the 286 was never designed to do.

I know it means less than nothing but in 86box under full emulation, it runs fine.

Back when it was new and exciting I did run the retail version of OS/2 2.0 on a 386sx 16 with CGA graphics & 4MB of RAM. It did run, DOS box in a window and everything, but yeah it was INSANELY SLOW. But it did run.

I did get a much newer rev d1 CPU from 1990, so I am hoping that this newer processor makes a world of difference.

Yes, early 386 steppings were horribly flaky, and it did also impact on Unix support. There were many work arounds included in Windows 95 to account for 386 bugs that were later dropped in 98 as the thinking was few people would be using the system any more. However, I don’t think that’s the main issue.

You’re using a system unsuited for OS/2. OS/2 earlier than v3 needs at least 8MB. v3 will run in 4MB, but not particularly well. You might get away with v3 or v4 with 6MB for light workloads.

OS/2 was also rather buggy on release, never mind in beta (even if you are running a build later than OS/2 2.0 LA), and it was only by the time it reached OS/2 2.1 with the 2.11 service pack the infrastructure and drivers had dramatically improved.

Im not sure, other than those errata sheets are so large, that I’m hoping that it makes some difference. Another thing is that I do have a MS-DOS 3.3 boot disk with Windows/386 on it, and the Battletech as well (1.44MB used to be so large!) and it refuses to boot on the PS/2!

I just received a new(er) 386, a SX218, making it a D1 stepping which hopefully is a lot more stable!