The basis for OS/2 Version 2.0 is its support for the Intel 80386 microprocessor; previous versions of OS/2 were developed for the Intel 80286 processor, and supported the 80386 in 80286 emulation mode only. Full support of the 80386 means that a powerful set of 32-bit features now becomes available to the operating system and applications, including enhanced memory management and more sophisticated multitasking capabilities. The Intel 80386 and 80486 offer significant improvements over the previous generation of 16-bit microprocessors, while retaining compatibility with these processors.
The memory addressing capacity of the 80386 processor is significantly greater than that of the 80286:
OS/2 Version 2.0 uses many of these processor features and capabilities to provide a more powerful and flexible operating system platform. Note that OS/2 Version 2.0 does not implement the full 64 TB virtual address space provided by the 80386, since this requires use of the segmented memory model; OS/2 Version 2.0 uses a flat memory model, as described in Memory Management.