Monthly Archives: May 2019

Why Does Windows Really Use Backslash as Path Separator?

More or less anyone using modern PCs has to wonder: Why does Windows use backslash as a path separator when the rest of the world uses forward slash? The clear intermediate answer is “because DOS and OS/2 used backslash”. Both … Continue reading

Posted in DEC, DOS, IBM, Microsoft, PC history | 41 Comments

Developer Connection 9/11/12 Anyone?

Recently I finally managed to put something on archive.org, namely images and scans of IBM’s Developer Connection for OS/2 CDs (called just IBM Developer Connection since Volume 10). My problem is that I don’t have any physical media for volumes … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | 10 Comments

Pointedly Confusing

While working on an unrelated problem, I stumbled across very surprising (to me) behavior of a C compiler. My code was the equivalent of the following: #include <stdio.h>int arr[42];int main( void ) { printf( “%u\n”, sizeof( &arr ) ); return( … Continue reading

Posted in C, Microsoft | 9 Comments

1988 Networking: NetWare OS/2 Requester

A while ago, the question of antique NetWare OS/2 requesters came up. The oldest known surviving NetWare OS/2 Requester is version 1.2, which is designed to work with OS/2 1.2. There are clear mentions of older requesters supporting OS/2 1.1 … Continue reading

Posted in NetWare, Networking, OS/2, PC history, Virtualization | 15 Comments

NetWare 2.x Notes

Novell NetWare has quite a long history, but the older parts of it are now almost completely lost. In the mid-1980s, Novell offered Advanced NetWare, NetWare ELS, NetWare SFT, and other members of the NetWare 286 family. With the partial … Continue reading

Posted in NetWare, Networking, PC history | 13 Comments