FAQ: Should I buy

This document is intended to serve as an answer to the above question, which is being posed with regularity to various OS/2 newsgroups. I am posting this to comp.os.os2.advocacy, and making an official HTML version available at http://ezinfo.ucs.indiana.edu/~rodsmith/buy-os2.html. This document is undergoing continual, but mostly minor, revisions. Please feel free to e-mail me with corrections or additional information.

Permission is granted to distribute this file on Internet web sites, BBSes, or by any other means, so long as its content is not altered. I do request that you try to keep whatever you distribute up to date.

Change Summary

1. Miscellaneous small textual changes
2. Changes to shift the implicit and explicit focus of comparison from Windows 3.1 to Windows 95
3. Major re-write of the OS/2 features section
4. Added a paragraph about Windows 95 programs to the software section
5. Mentioned the shareware Advanced Boot Manager
6. Added a discussion of removable disks (like Zip drives) to the hardware section
7. Expanded the discussion of printers
8. Added a brief section on scanners to the hardware section

Contents

• Introduction
• OS/2's History and Purpose
• Software Issues
• Hardware Issues
• A comparison to Windows 95
• Concluding Remarks
• An ASCII version of this document is available