OS/2 is an absolutely fascinating operating system and I want you to see it. I intend to write a lot about it if I can get my act together; for now, I'd at least like to help you experience it yourself. It's a trip and a half.
When I started looking into getting it working on a virtual machine, I had a hard time finding some crucial information and files, there were steps in the install process that were not explained in the few guides I could find, it wasn't clear to me which versions could be installed, and some of the install files were in formats I couldn't read.
Now that I've figured out all those problems I've created a guide with specific instructions on how to get all major versions working on VirtualBox, complete with sound, video and network in some cases, and you'll find those guides below. I also created prebuilt virtual machines you can just download and press play on.
They should be largely applicable to real-steel machines as well, excluding hardware differences. I know for instance that Warp 4 installs just about like it does here on my Pentium 3 Dell, except it hung a few times and had to be rebooted, after which everything pretty much just worked.
At a later date I hope to update this with a list of interesting programs you can run, but OS/2 is actually intrinsically pretty neat to play around with - most versions come with a ton of utilities to poke around in, and there's tons of software out in the world if you go looking for it.
Have fun!
If you like my work, consider tossing me a few bucks. It takes a lot of effort and payment helps me stay motivated.
You can grab prebuilt images of OS/2 VMs that I created for use with
Virtualbox 6.0+ from here
.
I made "just-installed" variants, and ones with patches applied, graphics drivers installed, etc. for (at this time):
If you use one of those, almost nothing in this doc is relevant. If you'd prefer to experience the joy of installing and configuring, or are working on a real-steel machine, press on.
Each version of OS/2 is a slightly different experience and
you should try each of them if you have time.
For the record, "Warp"
means nothing. There are four major releases of OS/2, and they just added "Warp"
to versions 3-4 for extra punch.
os2museum.com covers a lot of
this stuff in better detail. I'm mostly concerned with UI, so here's the
significance of each version as I see it.
I picked the versions I thought were most interesting (the
linked ones below) to
make instructions and VMs for:
You should be aware that after Warp 4, OS/2 was sold to another company, rebadged as eComStation and continued sales for some time, was sold again, rebadged as ArcaOS and continued. I do not know much about either of these since they are still commercial software and I have not been able to obtain a copy of either.
Info you find online about either of these may apply to OS/2, but may not. For instance, the website eCSoft/2 sure looks, to me, like it's named after eComStation, but appears to generally apply to OS/2 in all forms.
Here are some assorted notes about the general experience of OS/2:
The sci-fi series Falling Skies (Seasons 1–5) is currently available for streaming in India on
. While the query mentions "Hotstar," the series is not listed as part of the Disney+ Hotstar library as of April 2026. Streaming and Resolution Details : You can stream the complete series on Netflix India Resolutions : Netflix offers different tiers that affect video quality. Mobile Plan : Provides
resolution, which is the closest official quality to the 360p mentioned in your query. Higher Tiers
: Basic (720p), Standard (1080p), and Premium (4K) plans are also available. Offline Viewing
: The Netflix app supports downloading episodes for offline viewing on mobile devices. Series Overview (Seasons 1–5)
Produced by Steven Spielberg, the show follows Tom Mason, a history professor who leads a group of survivors (the 2nd Massachusetts) against an alien invasion. www.netflix.com Watch Falling Skies
Deep text for the series Falling Skies (Seasons 1–5) explores the evolution of the human resistance from a ragtag militia to a global force against the extraterrestrial Espheni. Produced by Steven Spielberg, the series centers on Boston history professor Tom Mason and the 2nd Massachusetts Militia Regiment as they navigate survival, shifting alien allegiances, and the rebuilding of human society. Series Narrative Arc
Falling Skies: The Ultimate Post-Apocalyptic Binge Guide The skies went dark, the Skitters arrived, and humanity was pushed to the brink. If you are looking for a gritty, emotional, and action-packed survival story, Falling Skies remains a standout in the sci-fi genre. Produced by Steven Spielberg, this series follows the 2nd Massachusetts Militia Regiment as they fight back against an overwhelming alien invasion. Season 1: The Resistance Begins
The story opens six months after a global invasion. We meet Tom Mason, a history professor turned soldier, searching for his captured son. Focus: Survival and urban guerrilla warfare.
The Threat: Introduction to the "Skitters" and the mysterious "Overlords."
Key Moment: Discovery of the "harnesses" used to mind-control children. Season 2: On the Move
The 2nd Mass travels toward Charleston, hoping to find a functioning government. Focus: Internal politics and the toll of constant travel.
The Threat: Deadlier "Mechs" and the introduction of the rebel Skitters.
Key Moment: The shocking cliffhanger arrival of a new alien species, the Volm. Season 3: The New War
Set seven months later, humans have formed an alliance with the Volm to build a weapon to win the war once and for all. Focus: Large-scale military operations and espionage.
The Threat: The "Espheni" reveal their true endgame for Earth.
Key Moment: The birth of Alexis, a child with mysterious hybrid DNA. Season 4: Scattered and Hunted
The resistance is broken apart and sent to different "re-education" camps. Focus: Psychological horror and individual survival. falling skies season 1 2 3 4 5 threesixtyp hot
The Threat: The "Black Hornets" and the evolution of Lexi’s powers. Key Moment: The daring escape from the Espheni ghettos. Season 5: The Final Stand
The battle moves from Earth’s surface to the source of the invasion. The gloves are off as the 2nd Mass prepares for a suicide mission. Focus: Guerilla warfare returns to its roots; finality. The Threat: The Espheni Queen is revealed.
Key Moment: The global stand in Washington D.C. to reclaim the planet. 🚀 Why Watch It Now? Family Core: It’s a war story wrapped in a family drama. Evolution: The aliens change and evolve every season.
Practical FX: Excellent creature designs that still hold up.
Should we dive deeper into a character analysis of Tom Mason or look for similar sci-fi shows to watch next?
The 360 View: The final 10 episodes. The 2nd Mass returns to a ravaged Boston. The Espheni unleash their ultimate weapon: a "Queen" Overlord that controls everything. Tom Mason must unite the Volm, rebellious Skitters, and humans for one last, desperate assault.
The Hot Stuff: The action is relentless. Falling Skies finally delivers the "full-scale war" fans wanted. Episode 8 ("Stalag 14th Virginia") is a brutal prison-break thriller. The death of Colonel Weaver (Will Patton) is heartbreaking and earned.
The Notorious (and Surprisingly Hot among defenders): The ending. Tom Mason sacrifices himself to destroy the Espheni queen… only to wake up 200 years later as a "new human" on a rebuilt Earth. His final line: "I’ve been called a lot of things. General. Husband. Father. But the one I like best? Teacher."
The Cold Reality: Many hate the "jump forward." It erases the trauma of five seasons. However, a threesixty perspective argues: It’s a brilliant commentary on moving on. Tom’s war is done. History remembers him as a myth. The show ends not on a battle, but on a baseball game.
The sky over Boston burned the color of old rust when Tom Bennett climbed to the roof of the community center. Below him, the ragged camp of survivors hummed—quiet radios, whispered plans, children chasing a dog that hadn’t learned to be afraid yet. The alien rigs that had once pierced the skyline were gone; what remained were scars in the city and a taste for something like normal.
“Status?” he called to June, who joined him with a battered rifle and a mug of coffee that was still warm. Her hair was threaded with gray, but her eyes were the same stubborn green that had held up against worse than occupation.
“Scouts report movement near the Charles. Maybe a patrol,” she said. “We’ll need to be careful. And the kid—”
“Ben?” Tom’s face changed. The name made him both steady and broken. The son he’d lost and found again had grown into a leader, a quiet man who could make a group of terrified survivors hold formation like they were soldiers born, not made.
A sound cut through the morning: a vehicle approaching on the cobbled street below, its engine a low purr unlike anything made by human hands. Tom squinted. It wasn’t one of the plated walkers they’d seen in the first months; it was sleek, almost gentle—until it stopped and a hatch opened, revealing a slender figure in scavenged armor.
“Threesixtyp Hot,” the newcomer called as if introducing themselves to an old friend. The name was ridiculous and oddly hopeful. They had a grin that suggested they’d stolen it from a radio handle and kept it for luck. The patch on their sleeve showed a sun with three rays and a tiny, angry gear.
Tom raised a hand in the small code of parley. “State your purpose.”
“Delivery,” Threesixtyp said. “And a request. I have intel on a cache—fuel, meds, a rig transponder that still works. It’s north of here, in an old subway depot. I can lead you, but I want someone I can trust to watch my back.” The sci-fi series Falling Skies (Seasons 1–5) is
June’s hand tightened on the rifle. “We don’t know you.”
“Then have my skull on the table,” Threesixtyp said, voice half-joke, half-dare. “But I’ve been trailing a band of skitters for weeks. They’re different now—new command patterns. Whoever’s running them is learning our tactics.”
Tom exchanged a look with June and another with the young man who’d been listening at the rooftop edge: Ben. He stepped forward, shoulders squared. “We do this together,” he said. “We take the cache as a unit. No lone wolves.”
They moved at dusk, the city folding into long shadows. Threesixtyp led them through back alleys with a sure-footedness that made it clear they’d lived on their wits for a long time. At the depot, the night smelled of dust and old electricity. The entrance was a gash of black, and the sound of their breathing echoed like a metronome.
Inside, they encountered the skitter patrol—smaller now, coordinated in three-sweep arcs that closed like fingers. The team formed silently: Ben at the front, June and Tom flanking, Threesixtyp weaving between them with a limp that suggested a past injury but didn’t slow them down. The firefight was brief and brutal. Bullets and improvised charges, a scream from the darkness, a flash of bioluminescent ichor where a skitter fell.
When they reached the cache, it was better than hoped. Cans, bandages, a stack of batteries, and the transponder—cold metal, a promise. Threesixtyp’s fingers trembled when they lifted it. “This’ll give you eyes,” they whispered. “Or a target, if it falls to the wrong hands.”
Ben looked at them. “Who are you, really?”
Threesixtyp’s smile softened. “Someone who remembered laughter when the world stopped. Someone who lost a sister on the first day and decided survival should taste like something more than fear.”
They camped in the depot until dawn. Around a sputtering light, they traded stories—monster jokes, names of towns that had fallen and stubborn holdouts that still clung to radio towers. Through it all, the transponder pulsed faintly, like a heart finding rhythm.
Weeks passed. Threesixtyp integrated into the small militia in an odd, easy way—teaching how to move through transit tunnels, how to jam a drone with a cheap CD, how to keep hope in a place that ate it. They were reckless when it mattered, careful when the stakes were just survival. Children took to them, and Ben argued with them, sometimes losing, sometimes not.
Then the raids grew louder. The new skitters adapted faster than anyone expected, striking in patterns that were cruelly intelligent. Tom’s squad lost people; the sky seemed to make room for grief. The transponder crackled with intercepted chatter: coordinates, a directive—something more than mere patrol.
“Command,” June said softly. “They’re coordinating from a central node at the river mouth. If we take it down, we blunt their reach.”
It was a raid that required more than courage. It needed cunning. They planned in silence, mapping entry points and fallback routes. Threesixtyp drew an improbable diagram in the dust and laughed at the complexity. “We’ll go in like ghosts with a taste for chaos,” they said.
The river smelled of iron the night they struck. The node was a skeletal platform with antennae like thin trees. Guard skitters circled; human collaborators—huddled, half-broken—manned the perimeters. The fight that followed was cleaner and more terrible than the depot's. Explosions painted the sky in short-lived auroras. Ben moved like a man who’d learned the language of loss. Threesixtyp moved like someone with nothing left to lose and everything to give.
They reached the core. The transponder Threesixtyp had carried hummed, keyed to the node like a wolf to a gate. With a scream of static, the node folded into silence. Radios in miles of occupied territory went quiet, like a rusted door snapping shut. For a breathless moment, the world inhaled.
Victory was not clean. They lost people on the way back—friends and ghosts—but they also gained a day that felt like a future. As the first light of morning spilled over the river, survivors came down from hidden perches, eyes bright with a cautious, furious hope.
Threesixtyp stood on the riverbank with Ben and Tom and June, watching the city wake. “You ever think about leaving?” Ben asked, voice small. Season 5 (2015): The Final War & The
Threesixtyp looked at the skyline—half ruined, half stubbornly standing—and then at the band of people who had become family. “Maybe,” they said. “But if I go, I’ll bring the sun with me.”
Tom laughed, a short, rough sound that was almost joy. “You and your names.”
“It’s a promise,” Threesixtyp said. “When things get too dark, call the name. Someone will come.”
Ben rolled his eyes, but he said, “We added you to the watch roster.”
They all grinned, fragile and fierce, because light could be made even in small things: a radio fixed for a night, a ration saved for a child, a laugh shared when the sky was most merciless.
When the next patrol rose on the horizon, it rode a silence that had been bought. They had lost much, but the city still had people who would fight—and a new name in their stories: Threesixtyp Hot, the one who carried sunlight in a battered chest.
And somewhere above, the sky, forever changing, seemed to bow in answer.
It looks like you’re trying to combine a few different elements into one search: the TV show Falling Skies, its five seasons, and a mention of “threesixtyp hot” (which may be a typo or reference to something like 360p quality, a hot take, or a fan site).
Below is a long-form article optimized around the keyword “falling skies season 1 2 3 4 5 threesixtyp hot”, written to be informative for fans of the series while naturally incorporating the phrase in a way that makes sense for search visibility.
The 360 View: The show takes a massive left turn. The "Volm" – a benevolent alien race – arrive to help humanity. Also: a new Espheni weapon (the "Bug" that causes insanity) and Charleston becomes a capital.
What’s Burning Hot: The introduction of the "Volm Weapon" and the reveal that the Espheni are building a massive energy shield over Earth (a "planet-blockade"). The action budget tripled. We get laser rifles, huge battles, and the death of a major character (R.I.P. Dai).
The Cold Spot: John Pope (Colin Cunningham), the fan-favorite anarchist, becomes a cartoon villain. His constant betrayal-groveling-betrayal cycle is exhausting. Also, the "re-uniting with Tom’s dead wife" via alien clone? That’s where some fans bailed.
Hot Take: Season 3 is Falling Skies at its most ambitious, but also its messiest. It tries to be Game of Thrones (politics) + Star Wars (Volm tech) + The Walking Dead. It mostly works, but you can see the seams.
Most critics agree Season 4 is the low point. The setting moves to a ghetto-like Espheni internment camp, and the plot leans into surreal, dream-logic sequences (a “skitter-queen” hive mind). The show loses its grounded survival feel. Character decisions become erratic—Tom is separated from the group for episodes, and new child characters are introduced without proper development.
Nevertheless, Season 4 is thematically bold: it explores collaboration vs. resistance, showing humans who willingly serve the Espheni. The “360p” bootlegs that circulated online during this season ironically mirror the chaotic, low-resolution moral ambiguity of the narrative.
The final season brings the war to a head. The Espheni deploy a weapon to destroy the Moon, causing planetary chaos. The 2nd Mass must ally with former enemies (including the treacherous Pope) to reach Washington, D.C., and activate a Volm device.
The series finale, “Reborn,” is divisive. Tom Mason sacrifices himself to destroy the Espheni queen, only to be resurrected years later—a messianic arc that some found fitting for the show’s hopeful tone, others overly sentimental. Notably, the final shot of a rebuilt civilization drives home the show’s core thesis: humanity’s ability to rebuild is its greatest weapon.
The final season is a race against time. The Espheni are dying out due to an ancient enemy, and they plan to destroy the Earth before they leave. Tom Mason, scarred and hardened, leads the final offensive to destroy the Espheni power core on the Moon. Season 5 brings the series full circle. The writing is tighter, the stakes are global, and the finale offers a definitive conclusion to the war. It wraps up the fates of the Mason family and the 2nd Mass, providing the closure that long-time viewers deserved.
You may need to install from OS/2 floppies at some point. IBM had their own floppy image format called DSK. Some modern software will read it, some won't. Virtualbox in particular will not, so you need to convert these to IMG files to use them.
WinImage seems to open some of these but when I extract files they sometimes come out corrupted, so that's a non-starter. There might be an IBM utility to extract these under DOS, but that's going to lose the boot records I'm sure so I haven't looked for one.
IBM provides LOADDSKF, an OS/2 utility that writes a DSK to a floppy. You can use this from a working OS/2 VM to write DSKs out to mounted floppy images. There's a DOS version but I haven't experimented with it. It would be nice to use it in DOSbox but I recall trying and failing. It might also work from a DOS VM, but I just use Warp 4.5.
Here's how I do this:
Now you have a set of IMGs.
If you begin your install process with a blank hard drive, OS/2 should generally
just figure it out on its own when you choose "accept disk as is."
If the drive is anything *but* blank, weird things may start happening.
OS/2's partition manager is not a very smart cookie. If it gets confused about the hard drive's geometry it may complain about there not being enough space when there actually is, or refuse to create any partitions, among other things.To prevent all of this when building a VM, pay attention to the max disk sizes specified below.
Disks larger than 2.1GB require a boot floppy patch. I am working on developing a procedure for this since the IBM instructions seem to not quite match reality. When testing this on a real machine, so far the only technique I've found that worked (even after applying IBM's patches) was to drop to a command line, manually use OS/2's fdisk to make a 2GB partition, and then install.
OS/2 1.x will crash on any modern system unless you patch some files. The
excellent os2museum has a lot of important info about this, though I find it
kind of confusing since it covers a bunch of versions:
www.os2museum.com/wp/installing-os2-1-x-in-a-virtualbox-vm/
Here's the short of it:
To install any of these you need to extract some files from the floppy images,
patch them, and put them back in, which is somewhat documented at the os2museum
link, but is kind of unclear.
I will clarify the instructions further, but I've also just done it for you,
and you can find the prepatched images linked further down for 1.1 and 1.3.
The process I used is:
Doing this without Winimage is kind of a pain. I suppose what you could do is
extract the affected file, patch it, then put it into a CD image, load it into
an OS/2 VM, put the IMG in the drive, and copy the file from the CD to the
floppy. That ought to work.
Now we can install!
As mentioned earlier, 1.0 is a pain to get working but also pointless.
1.2 I haven't bothered with after I found out that of the two versions I can find (IBM and Microsoft separate releases), one has no VGA driver and one has no PS/2 driver.
I'm told 1.3 is basically identical to 1.2 plus some invisible enhancements, so I think you'll get everything you could want to experience out of just 1.1 and 1.3.
I don't even need to give instructions for this one. Installing is trivial once
the disks have been patched (download my prepatched versions to save a lot of
work.)
Just boot from install.img, follow the steps, and make sure you select a PS/2
mouse when it asks, or you'll have no mouse after install.
Install is now complete.
There is a CDROM version of Warp 2.1 that I wasn't able to figure out. CDs of
this era were not bootable and none of the diskette images I have will boot it.
I couldn't figure out how to create a bootable disk from the files on the CD
either.
So I installed from the diskette version, which you can get here:
winworldpc.com/product/os-2-20/21 under the name "IBM OS2 2.1
(3.5-1.44mb)"
You should now have a working OS/2 2.1 system. Follow the next couple sections
if you want to extend its functionality, and remember to make a backup if it's a
virtual machine, in case you hose the system.
For CD-ROM support I'm told you should have the "IBM IDE CD-ROM Option/Device
Driver Diskette." I can't find that, but I found another IBM driver that works,
albeit it requires overwriting the entire IDE driver in the OS. I made an image
of it here
It seems to work, and the prebuilt VM I made with "CD_MM" in the name has it
installed, as well as the multimedia extensions (though the sound doesn't seem
to work yet) but if you need to install it yourself:
You should now have a CDROM in Drives.
This install uses the diskette form of OS/2 2.1 since I couldn't figure out how
to get the CD version to boot. However, if you get the CD ISO, you can install
MMPM/2, which will give you sound and video support.
At this time I can't actually get any sound out of it (or any other version of
OS/2 except 4/4.5) but maybe your luck will be better. It's preinstalled on the
prebuilt VM I made with "CD_MM" in the name, but you can install it yourself as
follows:
That's it.
Note: Sound doesn't seem to work. I'm not sure why. It works on Warp 4/4.5
Installing Warp 3 on Virtualbox 6.0 is actually a fairly smooth process. It didn't use to be, it used to suck. Things have improved.
First you'll want Warp 3. Get it here:
archive.org/details/IBMOS2Warp3Collection IBM OS2 Warp 3 Connect - Blue - 8.200 - English - CDROM.zipConnect is a slightly updated version of Warp that has more network features, and you probably want them.
.) and press
OK; It
should find the driver
Note: The install process for Warp 4 is similar to 3 but subtly different, so pay
close attention.
Get the ISO from
winworldpc.com/product/os-2-warp-4/os-2-warp-40
IBM OS2 Warp 4.0 (ISO)
I maI may add detailed instructions for 4.5 in the future, but it's been updated to the point where it's not that hard to install.
You can get the disk here: https://winworldpc.com/product/os-2-warp-4/os-2-warp-452 IBM OS2 Warp 4.52 (4.52.14.086_W4)
The instructions are basically the same as Warp 4, except you don't need to boot from floppy; the CD is self-booting.
Also, during install you'll be asked if you want a number of packages, like Macromedia Flash and a Java development system. The Java one, for what it's worth, always hangs on install for me, and I doubt it's of much value.
Now that you're started up, you're going to want graphics drivers. Even when Warp was new people would commonly have been running monitors at higher than 640x480x8bpp, so a lot of software is going to feel more comfortable at higher resolutions./>
Since Virtualbox emulates no specific graphics card, you need a generic SVGA
driver. Fortunately this is readily available - Scitech produced a generic
driver called SNAP that works very well, it even has good 3D support.
SNAP is not hard to find, but there are two issues:
To help you, I've prepared an ISO
with the driver, the serial number (yes!
this was a commercial graphics driver! it cost money!) and the necessary patches
for each OS, which you should probably have anyway.
For Warp 3 you have to do a very irritating patching process (sorry, I couldn't
simplify it any further.) Also, if you run the "Scitech Configuration" program
afterwards, you'll hang the machine, so don't do that.
Note: You do not need to do this for Warp 4.5, it comes with
a VESA driver. Just skip straight to setting the resolution.
For Warp 4 it's pretty straightforward:
So what should you do in OS/2?
Good question. I don't actually know yet. Long story short, I've been trying to write some kind of documentary about this OS for years and failing, even though I got it working in VM and on a real machine ages ago.
What I can tell you is this: OS/2 enjoyed remarkable success as an underdog, and in its day there was plenty of software for it. There are a number of major commercial applications available for it, even some games, and bits and pieces of all sorts that you can scrounge up online. Beyond that, just dig through it, experience it. It's a weird piece of software.
The first thing you'll need to be able to do is to actually get software into the VM.
CD images are the most obvious route, since OS/2 natively understands those, any large commercial software package you find online has a good chance of being in ISO format, and you can make ISOs trivially from files on your computer with any CD burning app.
Floppy images are also an option but there are no good free manipulation programs. If you find software online that's already in IMG/IMA format that's one thing, but if you want to make your own floppy images it's tough to do except from inside a VM, which is a chicken-and-egg problem.
FTP could work to move files between a local server - there are several very simple and free FTP servers out there you can set up, and there's an FTP client built into OS/2, I think from 2.x up.
A web browser is probably the most convenient option if you can work it. Any site that's plain HTTP can be accessed with the basic browser included with several versions of OS/2, and certainly with Netscape, which you can get here and move into your VM via an ISO, as described above.
You can also run a local HTTP server, such as Miniweb - just put files to transfer in htdocs and (supposing your computer's real IP is 192.168.1.100) access them at http://192.168.1.100:8000/
Accessing HTTPS sites is a problem. Any browser released before the late 2000s - which covers everything ever officially released for OS/2 - will not access any modern website. I'm told there is a Firefox 45 build for this OS but I still don't know if that fixes the HTTPS issue.
I have limited experience with running OS/2 software at all, but here is what I've learned so far:
There are a number of substantial OS/2 hobby and resource sites where you can find software, as well as drivers etc. to make OS/2 work on real hardware.
Hobbes always deserves mention. It's kind of a bulk file repository for basically everything imaginable for OS/2, but it's just files with very little context or organization, and you won't be able to load it inside of OS/2 itself without signficant effort because as far as I can tell it's HTTPS-only.
eCSoft is another popular resource, but unlike Hobbes they don't seem to host much themselves, just link to other sites, so you may find broken links. They do however have plenty of info and screenshots on each program and
Internet Archive doesn't have a lot of easily located OS/2 software, but my recollection is that a lot of DOS/Windows software CDs from the 90s had OS/2 directories. So there's that.
OHFOWG is a compilation of OS/2 Warp games. I have not been through it at all thoroughly but you can check it out; I'll advise you that it's 1.8GB, but Warp 4.5 (at least) will read a DVD happily, so I extracted it, dumped it into a DVD ISO, and mounted it successfully.
If this was interesting to you, or if you did something interesting with it, email me:
If you like my work, consider tossing me a few bucks. It takes a lot of effort and payment helps me stay motivated.