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OS/2 Thread

mikey99

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I was an OS/2 user starting with release 1.0 :) I still have my original
copy of OS/2 1.0 with the manual, slipcover, and 4 - 3.5 inch diskettes.
I have a machine at the office with OS/2 Release 4 installed. I boot
it up occasionally just to relive the OS/2 experience.
 
No, OS/2 required 286 or greater machines...I think (but I'm not sure) that by 2.x or so, it required a 386 or better.
 
Reading all this using eComStation 2.0 RC3 here. Even with the Serenity Systems boys slaving away, tons of devices still don't work. Out of 3 different laptops, I can only get it to struggle along on one. None of the mouse stuff works on my Toshiba A75 (try using OS/2 without a mouse, it can be done but what a pain). The PCMCIA support still is lacking! I couldn't get any of my PC Card wifi cards to even be recognized. Kept thinking it was a memory card.
 
Interesting Input...

Interesting Input...

It's interesting to hear about your issues with eCom...

We have a POS package that runs exclusively under OS/2 with LanServer, that we have been contemplating porting to eCom. I'm not so worried about device compatibility, as we have a fairly limited set of devices to deal with. Right now, our biggest issue is replacing the functionality of the RIPL server (part of LanServer) with our own software.I've done quite a bit of research on google, but the RIPL protocol seems like IBM's best kept secret.

I've been thinking about getting the latest copy but I don't have an extra machine hanging around to run it on right now. Cost is something of a factor as well, not from our end, but asking the customer to fork over an extra hundred bucks over the price of Warp 4 is probably pushing it. Our best option now, is to run the server on eCom, with a RIPL program of our own design, and run the terminals on PC-DOS or FreeDOS. Having the terminal program run on DOS has been an option since around 1992, but we didn't embrace it. The other benefit of DOS is that RIPLing a DOS image is a lot less "involved" than an OS/2 image.

I really have high hopes for eCom...I'm fond of OS/2 (using it right now) and I believe they could have a future. I guess it's probably time for me to show my support by actually buying a copy...

Speaking of compatibility issues; as rock-solid as OS/2 is once it's properly installed, the setup process was NEVER easy. We've installed a lot of OS/2 desktops and a few servers, and they almost never come off without a hitch. I think that was a major problem in making OS/2 a consumer OS.
 
When I was trying to troubleshoot my os/2 build a few years ago (was trying to get it up on the network to host a vintage bbs) I ended up finding my way back onto IRC which led me to a chatroom by the OS2eCS folks who were quite helpfull. Perhaps one of them may know some of the insides that you're looking for? I know one of them had me use some proprietary packet dump format and he disected the packet dump all resulting in me having a bad nic (not sure why my pile of network cards all seem to be bad now).

Still, I know packet dumping and this was a little different and raw data output so it gave me the impression he was an ex-IBM dude or ex-support for os/2.

- John
 
Boy Howdy! Are you right about install issues! On most of my machines, get 2 device drivers out of order and the machine locks up during boot. eCS does a fairly poor job of auto-configure during install. The "amouse" (advanced mouse?) product doesn't work at all with a Synaptics mouse pad (which is only on just about every laptop you can find). I had to switch it over to a old plain vanilla IBM driver. USB support is bad. My SiS chips aren't even supported for USB. Card Services is a total joke! I was worried that I had fried one of my expensive WiFi Cardbus cards trying to get it to work but after some more tests, card seems to be alright. It was fun playing around trying to get it to work but I think I wasted my money. I had the feeling that would be the case but I tried it anyway. I wrote an email to the main man at eCS asking what happened to the 2.0 GA release, which was due by the end of Sept - no response at all.
 
OS/2, That's something I have plans to "reinstall" on my PS/2 9556 before too long. I'm trying to decide weather to crack open the shrinkwrapped copy of the original OS/2 2.0, use my usual OS/2 2.1 with Win OS/2 and Multimedia, or go with the image of OS/2 Warp 3 (or is it 4) that I have sitting on my hard drive taking up space, the latter meaning I'll have to find some sort of cable and an apropriate SCSI CD-ROM to work with.

I really like 2.1 Multimedia w/ Win OS/2. I'm surprised it did not do well, it has more productivity software out of the box, is customizable to a point that makes Windows 95 look weak in comparison, and can run Windows 3.1 programs as well as DOS programs with little or no trouble. Heck it's even pretty darn close to trouble free plug n' play compared to it's wannabe 32-bit Microsoft competitor. My only gripes are the following things with it.....

- I have to make very roughly 24 floppy diskette images. Apparently it does not recognize any "modern" SCSI or IDE CD-ROM drives, I have yet to see it do so. Put in the boot and then the install diskettes, and it cannot find the CD-ROM, so I almost always do a Disk Based install.

- And it almost always stops booting after sitting around for some odd months. I dunno what's going on, but if I don't run the computer with OS/2 on it for any extended period of time, it stops booting up OS/2 and throws 2 cryptic numerical error messages on screen.

Now if I can just find the network services for it, and a bridge to my ethernet network for my PS/2, I might use OS/2 more, but until then, it's pretty much useless for me as an O/S. Internet connectivity is a must, as is Networking.
 
- And it almost always stops booting after sitting around for some odd months. I dunno what's going on, but if I don't run the computer with OS/2 on it for any extended period of time, it stops booting up OS/2 and throws 2 cryptic numerical error messages on screen.

Make sure you have the latest fixpack installed...that problem will go away. Also, there is a revised IDE handler, though I think it needs to be copied over the original, rather than "installed". That will not only provide larger drive support, but it evens out some of the irregularities in the version that shipped in the install kit.

If you want to be somewhat productive on the machine, I recommend Warp 3 or 4. In fact, 4 is pretty much necessary if you want to use an internet connection more exciting than dial-up. I use Warp 4 at work successfully with Mozilla, Thunderbird and Client Access/400 for OS/2 as well as a bevy of DOS applications.
 
Boy Howdy! Are you right about install issues!

A couple of quick, amusing stories...

Installing Warp 4 on a Dell Optiplex: The IDE device driver that ships with Warp doesn't support media over (around) 4GB. They issued an updated driver that you have to copy on to your install disks before beginning the installation process. Sounds easy, right? Well, this Dell has a 1.x GB drive, so the original install disks worked fine. Then we applied the most recent fixpack for Warp 4, and it broke the IDE handler, so the OS couldn't find the drive. It wasn't difficult to fix, but still...

Installing Warp 4 on a home-built Pentium II: In this case the media is larger than the 4 GB limit, so the instructions on IBM's website tell you to copy the downloaded files on to the install disks after deleting their predecessors. The problem? The new files are bigger and don't fit on the disk, so you have to find something else to erase--something the install process isn't going to need.

Installing LanServer 4 on Warp 3: Puts an entry in Startup.CMD that attemts to do a network logon. That's good-except that it puts that entry BEFORE the entry that starts the requester. And I won't even get into the kind of rearrangement one has to do after performing an installation of Client Access/400 on OS/2.
 
When I was trying to troubleshoot my os/2 build a few years ago (was trying to get it up on the network to host a vintage bbs) I ended up finding my way back onto IRC which led me to a chatroom by the OS2eCS folks who were quite helpfull. Perhaps one of them may know some of the insides that you're looking for?

- John

Actually, that's probably my next step. I'm sure the eCS folks would be able to help me, especially if it means I can move some of their products...
 
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