During the move This marks the end of an era, and New Mexico State University (NMSU) recently announced that the Hobbs OS/2 Archive will close on April 15, 2024. For over 30 years, this archive has been an important resource for his IBM users. The OS/2 operating system and its successor once fiercely competed with Microsoft Windows.
In a statement to The Register, NMSU representatives wrote: “We have made the difficult decision not to host these files on hobbes.nmsu.edu. We cannot go into details, but we have considered our priorities and have had to make the difficult decision to discontinue the service. I didn’t get it.”
Hobbes is sponsored by the School of Information and Communication Technology at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces, New Mexico. In an official announcement, the site states, “After many years of service, hobbes.nmsu.edu is being retired and no longer available. As of April 15, 2024, this site will no longer exist.”
We contacted New Mexico State University about the history of the Hobbs archives, but did not receive a response. The earliest record of Hobbs' archive that we have found online is his 1992 Walnut Creek CD-ROM collection, which assembled the contents of the archive for offline distribution. Hobbes' age is at least about 32 years old, making him one of the oldest software archives on the Internet, similar to the University of Michigan archives and his UNC ibiblio.
Archivists such as Jason Scott of the Internet Archive claim that files hosted on Hobbes are safe and have already been mirrored elsewhere. “No one needs to worry about Hobbs. I've taken care of Hobbs,” Scott wrote in Mastodon in early January. OS/2 World.com also issued a statement regarding the creation of mirrors. But every time such an old and important piece of Internet history bites the dust, it's still worth noting.
Like many archives, Hobbes began as an FTP site. “His primary distribution of files on the Internet was through FTP servers,” Scott tells Ars Technica. “And if an FTP server goes down, they are also mirrored as subdirectories on other FTP servers. Companies like CDROM.COM/Walnut Creek have become the only way to get CD-ROMs of their items. However, in most cases the data is now available at http://ftp.cdrom.com.
The Hobbs Ruins are a valuable digital time capsule. The Top 50 Downloads page includes OS/2 builds of sound and image editors and the Thunderbird email client. This archive contains thousands of OS/2 games, applications, utilities, software development tools, documentation, and server software dating back to the launch of OS/2 in 1987. There's a certain charm to running across an OS/2 wallpaper from 1990. The Archive Update Policy is also a historical gem, last updated on March 12, 1999.
Legacy of OS/2
OS/2 began as a joint venture between IBM and Microsoft and was planned as a replacement for IBM PC DOS (also known as “MS-DOS” in the form Microsoft sells for PC clones). Despite advanced features such as 32-bit processing and multitasking, OS/2 later competed with Windows and struggled to gain traction. The partnership between IBM and Microsoft ended after the success of Windows 3.0, leading to divergent directions in the companies' OS strategies.
Through iterations like the Warp series, OS/2 established a significant presence in niche markets that required high stability, such as ATMs and the New York subway system. Today, that tradition continues, albeit in the shadow of Linux and Windows, with specialized applications and new versions managed by third-party vendors, such as eComStation.
Such footprints are worth preserving, and the loss of one of OS/2's primary archives, even if mirrored elsewhere, is a cultural blow. Apparently, Hobbs almost disappeared before, but he reportedly received probation. In the comments section of an article in The Register, a person named “TrevorH” wrote, “This isn't the first time Hobbs has announced a repeal. Last time it was rescued after a lot of complaints and a lot of students and faculty.” I wrote. He came forward to keep it that way. ”
As the final closure approaches in April, Hobbs' legacy serves as a reminder of the importance of preserving software's digital legacy for future generations. That way, decades from now, historians can look back and see how things got to where they are today.
This story was originally Ars Technica.
