> I don't think it could do os/2 "Presentation Manager" for instance.
There was a Presentation Manager subsystem for NT that could run 16-bit OS/2 graphical programs, but it was about as hard to come by as buying a single LTSC license is today.
There was a Presentation Manager subsystem for NT that could run 16-bit OS/2 graphical programs, but it was about as hard to come by as buying a single LTSC license is today.
The lesson of DESQ is to design software to run on the computers of tomorrow and don't worry so much about the computers of today. That sounds stupid to me as well but neither of us have yachts or private jets so what do we know. It's about colonizing the future.
I wouldn't be surprised if FreeDOS could spin this up.
https://virtuallyfun.com/2011/03/27/desqviewx/
There's also a long running ticket in dosemu2 around some issues with DesqView/X https://github.com/dosemu2/dosemu2/issues/606
In some more years it will probably be working fine there.
DesqView/X was graphically multi-tasking DOS programs and running X applications the year after Linux was released. This was the Windows 3.1 era ( no cooperative multitasking ) and before OS/2 2.0 was out. Amazing.
Like everything else at the time though, it could not run Windows applications ( Microsoft Office ) and so it was doomed.