Porting to OS/2 | GitPius
When Microrim, Inc., became a beta site for IBM’s new Operating System/2 (OS/2) in late 1986, Microrim chairman and founder Wayne Erickson knew immediately what he and his staff had to do. Not only did they have to convert R:BASE System V, Microrim’s largest and most complex database manager, to run under OS/2, but the job had to be done in time to demonstrate a working product when IBM officially announced OS/2. At the time, no one knew how soon the announcement would occur (it came just six months later).
Microrim—located in the same Redmond, Washington, neighborhood as OS/2’s developer, Microsoft—is a forerunner in converting to OS/2. The company internally committed to the OS/2 conversion of R:BASE System V in late 1986 and completed it in time to demoastrate the product at IBM’s formal announcement of OS/2 on April 2 of this year in Miami.
“We knew the job would be big, because our program is big,” Erickson said. “But with all the enhancements we wanted to make to our product, and because of the endorsements of IBM and Microsoft, we felt we couldn’t ignore OS/2.”
