It was the "Operating System of the Future." At least, that’s what the billboards promised in 1987. A joint venture between IBM and Microsoft, OS/2 was supposed to dethrone DOS, tame the 286’s protected mode, and eventually run on everything from point-of-sale terminals to massive IBM mainframes.
Look at the date stamps. Read the comments. See the FIXME notes that were never fixed. Notice the sheer craft—the hand-tuned assembly loops, the clever data structures, the desperate hope that this, this would be the OS that killed the Mac and buried Unix.
OS/2 could run DOS, Windows 2.x, Windows 3.0 (badly), and OS/2 native apps. The source code shows thousands of lines of "shims" and "thunks" to make this work. Every line of compatibility code is a line that wasn’t spent improving the native API. Modern OSes (looking at you, Windows 11 and macOS) suffer from the exact same problem.
One comment in pmdrv.asm reads: "REV 1.34: Fixed race condition. Again. If Bill G. actually shipped this, users would hang daily. Good thing we have six more months of testing." Another, in the memory manager: "This entire module is a hack to support the 286's stupid segmented architecture. When the 386 ships, rewrite from scratch." (Spoiler: They never did, fully. OS/2 2.0 still carried 286 compatibility baggage.) And the most haunting comment, found in the boot loader: "If Microsoft ships Windows 3.0 with VxD support before we ship OS/2 1.3, we are dead. -- Dave, 10/12/1989" Dave was right. Why should a modern developer—someone building React apps or Kubernetes clusters—care about thirty-year-old assembly code? os 2 source code
Then, history took a sharp turn. Windows 3.0 launched, Microsoft walked away, and OS/2 became a niche relic—beloved by bankers, airline clerks, and die-hard hobbyists, but forgotten by the masses.
There is nothing in the OS/2 source that is technically inferior to Windows 3.1. In fact, OS/2’s crash recovery and memory protection were objectively superior. But Microsoft had better developer tools, cheaper licenses, and a ruthless focus on the desktop. IBM had mainframe culture. The source code proves it: OS/2 is a server in desktop clothing. Windows is a toy that grew up. The Ethical Gray Area Let’s address the elephant in the room: This source code is proprietary. It belongs to IBM (and maybe some bits still owned by Microsoft). Leaking it was almost certainly illegal. However, for a dead platform—one that hasn’t been commercially relevant in 25 years—the archival argument is strong.
When the source code finally surfaced (primarily for OS/2 1.2 and 1.3 from the late 1980s, with fragments of 2.0), it told a story of engineering brilliance hamstrung by corporate politics. It was the "Operating System of the Future
OS/2 did it in 1987 on a 6MHz 286 with 1MB of RAM. Windows didn’t get true preemptive multitasking until Windows 95 (and even that was flaky). Reading the OS/2 scheduler teaches you the eternal trade-off: fairness vs. responsiveness. Their solution (a time-slicing priority system with "critical section" boosts) is still used by QNX and VxWorks today.
For historians, developers, and retro-computing enthusiasts, this wasn't just a zip file of C and assembly files. It was the discovery of a lost civilization. Let’s dive into why the OS/2 source code matters, what it contains, and what it tells us about the road not taken in personal computing. To understand the value of the source code, you have to understand the pain of the OS/2 user. By 1991, the relationship between IBM and Microsoft had curdled into open warfare. Microsoft was secretly pouring its best talent into Windows 3.0, while IBM kept paying for OS/2 1.x development.
It wasn’t. But for a few glorious years, OS/2 was the best operating system nobody used. And now, thanks to a leak, we can finally read its diary. For educational purposes only. If you’re a student of operating systems, hunt down the OS/2 1.3 kernel leak. Compile it (good luck finding a 16-bit IBM C compiler). Run it in an emulator. And when it boots—when that blue screen with the white text appears—raise a glass to the engineers who built a cathedral in the age of bazaars. Read the comments
That is, until recently, when the unthinkable happened:
AcmeBarGig offers us no less than eleven free amp simulators. To be completed with a speaker cabinet simulator in order to get sounds that go from Vintage to Metal and good old Rock. The included audio samples are only a mere example of what these amps can do. Twist the buttons to make them shriek and yell!
Note that Acme Bar Gig offers other products, some free, some commercial. Visit their website to check them out. Also note that their website has been down for a few months, but the company's founders are working on new ways to communicate about their products.
Dick Head
(Preampus DICK HEAD 1.01 RC1 FINAL.rar - 2.07 MB)
Gimme Head (Preampus Gimme Head 1.01 RC4 FINAL.rar - 1.95 MB)
Knuckle Head (Preampus KnuckleHead 1.5.rar - 2.16 MB)
Meat Head (Preampus Meat Head 1.01 RC2 FINAL.rar - 1.79 MB)
Metal C-15 (Preampus METAL C-15 1.01 FINAL.rar - 2.22 MB)
Metal Razor (Preampus Metal Razor 1.01 RC6 FINAL.rar - 2.34 MB)
Metal Series 60 (Preampus Metal Series 60 1.01 RC2 FINAL.rar - 2.09 MB)
Mr Tater Head (Preampus Mr Tater Head 1.01 RC2 FINAL.rar - 1.86 MB)
Pecker Head (Preampus PeckerHead 1.01 RC3.rar - 1.73 MB)
Tamla Head (Preampus TamlaHead 1.01 RC3 FINAL.rar - 1.70 MB)
These simulations are provided under the form of "DLL" files.
They must be used within a hosting software, such as a Digital Audio Workstation (D.A.W.), and thus cannot be used alone.
Click here to know ho to use them.
It was the "Operating System of the Future." At least, that’s what the billboards promised in 1987. A joint venture between IBM and Microsoft, OS/2 was supposed to dethrone DOS, tame the 286’s protected mode, and eventually run on everything from point-of-sale terminals to massive IBM mainframes.
Look at the date stamps. Read the comments. See the FIXME notes that were never fixed. Notice the sheer craft—the hand-tuned assembly loops, the clever data structures, the desperate hope that this, this would be the OS that killed the Mac and buried Unix.
OS/2 could run DOS, Windows 2.x, Windows 3.0 (badly), and OS/2 native apps. The source code shows thousands of lines of "shims" and "thunks" to make this work. Every line of compatibility code is a line that wasn’t spent improving the native API. Modern OSes (looking at you, Windows 11 and macOS) suffer from the exact same problem.
One comment in pmdrv.asm reads: "REV 1.34: Fixed race condition. Again. If Bill G. actually shipped this, users would hang daily. Good thing we have six more months of testing." Another, in the memory manager: "This entire module is a hack to support the 286's stupid segmented architecture. When the 386 ships, rewrite from scratch." (Spoiler: They never did, fully. OS/2 2.0 still carried 286 compatibility baggage.) And the most haunting comment, found in the boot loader: "If Microsoft ships Windows 3.0 with VxD support before we ship OS/2 1.3, we are dead. -- Dave, 10/12/1989" Dave was right. Why should a modern developer—someone building React apps or Kubernetes clusters—care about thirty-year-old assembly code?
Then, history took a sharp turn. Windows 3.0 launched, Microsoft walked away, and OS/2 became a niche relic—beloved by bankers, airline clerks, and die-hard hobbyists, but forgotten by the masses.
There is nothing in the OS/2 source that is technically inferior to Windows 3.1. In fact, OS/2’s crash recovery and memory protection were objectively superior. But Microsoft had better developer tools, cheaper licenses, and a ruthless focus on the desktop. IBM had mainframe culture. The source code proves it: OS/2 is a server in desktop clothing. Windows is a toy that grew up. The Ethical Gray Area Let’s address the elephant in the room: This source code is proprietary. It belongs to IBM (and maybe some bits still owned by Microsoft). Leaking it was almost certainly illegal. However, for a dead platform—one that hasn’t been commercially relevant in 25 years—the archival argument is strong.
When the source code finally surfaced (primarily for OS/2 1.2 and 1.3 from the late 1980s, with fragments of 2.0), it told a story of engineering brilliance hamstrung by corporate politics.
OS/2 did it in 1987 on a 6MHz 286 with 1MB of RAM. Windows didn’t get true preemptive multitasking until Windows 95 (and even that was flaky). Reading the OS/2 scheduler teaches you the eternal trade-off: fairness vs. responsiveness. Their solution (a time-slicing priority system with "critical section" boosts) is still used by QNX and VxWorks today.
For historians, developers, and retro-computing enthusiasts, this wasn't just a zip file of C and assembly files. It was the discovery of a lost civilization. Let’s dive into why the OS/2 source code matters, what it contains, and what it tells us about the road not taken in personal computing. To understand the value of the source code, you have to understand the pain of the OS/2 user. By 1991, the relationship between IBM and Microsoft had curdled into open warfare. Microsoft was secretly pouring its best talent into Windows 3.0, while IBM kept paying for OS/2 1.x development.
It wasn’t. But for a few glorious years, OS/2 was the best operating system nobody used. And now, thanks to a leak, we can finally read its diary. For educational purposes only. If you’re a student of operating systems, hunt down the OS/2 1.3 kernel leak. Compile it (good luck finding a 16-bit IBM C compiler). Run it in an emulator. And when it boots—when that blue screen with the white text appears—raise a glass to the engineers who built a cathedral in the age of bazaars.
That is, until recently, when the unthinkable happened:
So how can I contact LePou?
The latest X64 version of Legion has a bug where the Drive amount jumps when changing from green/red channels. The knob doesn't jump, but you can hear the drive amount jump when tweaking a little bit, so who knows what the default or chosen sound is being used whenever?
Also similar problems with the Engl as well. The old V 1.01 x86 32 bit version of Legion works perfectly however. (but the newer 64 bit version does sound a bit better, sadly).
Has you or anyone else noticed this?
I want to contact him for a way to fix these plugin bugs.
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Hello,
To my knowledge, Lepou has not been active for years in the simulation community. I think he has completely given up by lack of time and motivation. So I doubt he'll be willing to fix any bugs, and I have no idea how to contact him.
Grebz
musicien-bidouilleur
le 07/09/2025 à 17h58
Juste pour t'encourager et te féliciter pour ton travail. Bonne source d'informations.
J'ai écouté en partie ta musique : il y a un monde entre 2008 et 2020, non pas concernant les titres que j'aime bien mais concernant leur réalisation. 2020 >>> 2008 à mon humble avis.
Le travail et la persévérance paient !
Bravo.
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Merci beaucoup, ça me fait très plaisir !
Grebz
ace0fspades
le 25/08/2025 à 05h50
Thanks for the free impulses! Great stuff!
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Thanks for visiting!
Grebz
Jimmy
le 09/12/2021 à 15h16
Hello,
I would like to config my Schuffham S-Gear 2 but I don't know how to do.
I have Logic Pro X.6.2 with S-Gear plugin
I found your website and I ask myself what does it means in the folder Schuffham S-Gear 2.
I don't understand what you have writing like in this exemple : Guitar on the left:
1 impulse of baffle Marshall 1960A (loudspeaker: G12M) through a microphone Neumann U67 in Cap Edge position, at a distance of 2 inches (5 cm). Stereo panning: 100% left.
1 impulse of baffle Marshall 1960A (loudspeaker: G12M) through a microphone Neumann U87 in Cap Edge position, at a distance of 4 inches (10 cm). Stereo panning: 100% left.
How can I find the same sound as you ? How can I do to config my own S-Gear with these parameters ? What does it means ?
Sorry for my English ;) I’m French !
You can answer me directly on my email address.
Thanks in advance.
Jimmy
Labrava
le 29/10/2021 à 13h49
Hi Grebz,
I don't know if you read these... but I was wondering if your Lepou plugins are x32 or x64? Thanks for all the great stuff on here!
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Hello, thanks for visiting my website. They're x64.
Grebz
