Hiya all, I just used OS/2 for the first time today. Yeah, I know, most of you are wondering where I have been. It looks and operates so much like Win 3.1 it's not funny. So I am wondering, who stole from who? Did Bill five finger discount his upgrade from Win 1.01?

actuall some would argue that microsoft took the interface from apple. im not getting into that arguement, i have no idea. but between microsoft and ibm, they did work together to make os/2, the first version of os/2 took the look of windows 1.0. after ibm released os/2 version 2.x microsoft went there own way, and released there own, as windows NT 3.x and os/2 kept going that way. i felt the os/2 interface(s) to clusmy, i like the win9x style, but 3.x is alright. and felt with os/2's dos/windows support clumsy, nt can run everything (if it works) within one interface, you can run dos apps from the cmd.exe prompt, you can run win3.1x apps in the gui. with os/2, you have to switch to dos to run a dos program, cmd won't run it (actually it does, it switches the interface to dos automatically) same with windows. draw up your own conclusions though, but between ibm and microsoft, since they both worked on os/2, its bound to have similarities.

Okay, lets get one thing straight: the GUI for both Windows and MAC OS was stolen from PARC, because XEROX had the stupidest people on earth on their board of directors. 0S\2 was a collaboration between IBM and Microsoft. IBM wanted and easy to use 'NIX OS and MS had developed XENIX, so they slapped a Windows GUI on it and got it to market post-haste. When IBM and Microsoft ended their relationship IBM continued along with OS\2 and MS developed Windows NT in it's stead. It's quite remarkable that IBM has released a very comprehensive update just this year and will continue to support it for the next two years.OS/2 Home page

I am not a Microsoft fan but you have to give them credit in some respects. As the Doof mentioned, Microsoft did not develop their early products. DOS came from Seattle Computer and MS-DOS was a reworked version of QDOS. Windows is obviously cloned from Xerox and Apple. During the 80's, IBM was the senior partner in a software relationship with Microsoft (remember PC-DOS from IBM?). When IBM began to feel threatened and realized that Microsoft was fast becoming the senior partner, IBM used it's licensing agreements to create OS/2, hoping the public would follow along blindly with them and abandon Microsoft. However, just as IBM lost it's dominant computer making position, they also lost their software leadership as well. For whatever reason (poor marketing, execution by IBM), Microsoft's version of Windows has become the public's favorite instead of OS/2. I don't think Microsoft "five fingered" Win3.x from IBM. It's more likely to argue that IBM tried to steal Windows from MS by using the licensing agreement to use Microsoft's work (which was based on Xerox/Seattle Computer. After all, business is business and when you have a licensing agreement as IBM and MS did in the eighties, you can't really call it stealing.

microsoft had a deal with ibm to have windows on ther systems and microsoft wanted to back out but they couldn't so they made a deal to make os/2 aka b---tard windows to be on ibm's computers and yes bill gates stole from apple and know bill gates owns a big chunk of apple

I watched a movie called "Pirates of Silicon Valley" and it clearly depicted this topic. Bill Gates stole the idea of the Apple GUI and later tuned it up and claimed it as his own <@:)