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Topics - Martin Iturbide

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61
Applications / To .config or not .config
« on: September 30, 2022, 02:47:33 am »
Hi

I noticed that some Linux ported apps create their configuration files inside /.config inside the /home directory (example featherpad), but some other applications just go directly to the /home. (example Doodle, Tea).

Do you know if this is something hardcoded on the application, or if it something that can be adjust on compile time (when it is compiled on the OS/2 platform)?

I would prefer everything to try to get standarized and use /.config but I'm not sure if that should be a standard thing on the Linux apps. Is there any recommendation to use .config for Linux developers? Or was something interpreted for the OS/2 platform ports? I was not able to find about it on the internet.

Regards


62
Multimedia / [SOLVED] OS/2 Warp 4.52 VM, changing audio to Uniaud
« on: September 19, 2022, 08:04:14 pm »
Hi

I'm playing with some Warp 4.52 VM. It had the SoundBlaster working with, but I want to test to change it to Uniaud with Intel HD (on VirtualBox).

Problem: I installed the UniAud drivers (Uniaud-20220807-beta.exe), added them on the config.sys, changed the VM to use Intel HD as audio, but I get no sound.

I remember that someone once post a trick that you have to update also some INIs to make that kind of change.  Am I remember correctly? What was the trick?

Regards

63
Events / Warpstock 2022 - Presentations
« on: September 06, 2022, 10:41:25 pm »
Hi

I want to open the discussion with two things:

1) Do you want to give a presentation at Warpstock 2022? In person or Skype? Let Neil Waldhauer ( presenters AT
warpstock DOT org) or me know about it.

2) Is there any topic that may be interesting to talk about in Warpstock 2022 ?

You don't have to answer both  ;D

Regards

64
Hi. I found the need to repost this from Quora right here:

Why did IBM's OS/2 project lose to Microsoft, given that IBM had much more resources than Microsoft at that time?

Reponse from "Dave Whittle".

Great question. I'm the founder of Team OS/2 and IBM's first OS/2 Evangelist, so I lived through the answer to your question for a decade. There's just no easy answer - it's like asking what makes any given startup a success or failure - but I'm happy to share the way I see it.

First a few facts - from memory - you might find relevant that support your question.

- IBM spent more than a billion dollars developing and marketing OS/2.

- It was the most advanced small systems operating system of its time - the most secure, the best architected, and the most powerful - without question (unless perhaps you were a journalist defending your decision to give the nod to Windows, perhaps in anticipation of the legendary envelopes of cash that landed mysteriously on Microsoft-friendly reviewers' desks). One example, it had pre-emptive multi-tasking (now a staple in multi-core systems and operating systems) when Windows 3.1 was still running on top of DOS and context-switching was the norm for any other desktop OS. It would run multiple DOS, Windows, or OS/2 apps smoothly. It was reliable and almost never crashed - something DOS and Windows was prone to do regularly. Yet Microsoft slammed OS/2 in the press (and got the media to echo their whining) because it needed 4MB (MB! not GB) of RAM - "too much memory" - and could be crashed by Ballmer at trade shows using specially written code on a diskette.

- IBM's Personal Software Products (PSP) - the division I worked for - had more employees and was better funded than all of Microsoft in the early '90s. IBM was the dominant force in that relationship, much to Gates chagrin, but was nonetheless weak-willed in using its power aggressively. I constantly heard "we should take the high road" in discussions about dealing with Microsoft. I value ethics as much as anyone, but IBM's Business Conduct Guidelines assumed perpetual dominant status in the industry and because they handcuffed executives and employees, they were thus inadequate to deal with foul play on the part of an underdog business partner. I once heard from reliable sources that Gates had called executives at IBM to complain about my violation of IBM's Business Conduct Guidelines, without specifics. I'm pretty sure what he was talking about was how I got quoted in PC Week as saying that "Bill Gates's gift to the industry is a win/lose mentality." Wow, I was so guilty as charged.

So, with those facts established, from my perspective, here are the following lessons to be learned from IBM's failure to establish OS/2 as the "operating system of the future" - as Bill Gates once called it:

LESSON ONE. As a company, if you are going to adopt and insist on compliance with strict Business Conduct Guidelines (as IBM and many other company's did - similar to Google's 'don't be evil' mantra), be aware of your strategic vulnerability to a company (such as Microsoft) willing to use other company's scruples as both shield and weapon in their war against you. In the words of a wise man, you need to be "wise as a serpent, and harmless as a dove." IBM had the harmless down pat - but they were unable to outsmart the serpent.

Gates was brilliant in negotiating deals to take advantage of other companies' blind spots - including their ignorance of Microsoft's willingness to bend the ethical constraints honored by other companies. For example, Novell entered into a contract with Microsoft that allowed MS to include Novell's networking code in Windows Version 3.1 (a consumer OS where Microsoft was strong and Novell wanted to make inroads). Ever wonder why the first version of Windows NT was Version 3.1? Now you know. Windows first major business OS literally stole its ability to co-exist in Novell networks based on a contract specifically designed to keep Microsoft from using it in a business OS (where Novell was strong and Microsoft was weak). When Noorda flew to Redmond to try to avoid having to sue and work things out with Gates, after making Ray wait for seemingly forever, Bill's response was "So sue me." Gates knew that the courts were too slow. No wonder when later, the media asked Noorda why he didn't just have a heart-to-heart with Gates, his reply was "To have a heart-to-heart, you have to have two hearts." Sure enough, within years, Microsoft had literally stolen leadership in the networking market from Novell on the basis of stolen rights to use code.

Everyone also knows that Microsoft encouraged other vendors to develop first for OS/2 and then for Windows. Some have called this the "head fake" that destroyed the ISVs (Independent Software Vendors - Lotus, WordPerfect, et al) and allowed Microsoft and their Windows apps to take the lead and establish dominance in the field of application software where they were followers, not leaders.

What is forgotten is that Microsoft also developed for OS/2. What is not well-known is that Microsoft again sabotaged whatever they shipped for OS/2. So running Word or Excel on OS/2 was a miserable experience, especially compared to running Word or Excel on Windows. I know - I used and tested all apps for Windows and OS/2 available at that time rather extensively. There's no question in my mind that Microsoft's OS/2-app crappiness was deliberate on their part. It was as if someone tried to turn a Tesla into a Prius by developing microcode that would run on either car.

And not all of the evidence of Microsoft's lack of scruples came out during their trial for violation of anti-trust laws. There was little or nothing, for example, on their online character assassination campaigns or manipulation of the media. As the target of one of their campaigns, I can tell you that they didn't play nice. They once concocted a scheme to cancel my cable service as if I were moving to Redmond. Strangely, they were recruiting me at the same time they were trashing my reputation online and it wasn't a case of the right hand not knowing what the left hand was doing. I got a phone call a week after the cancellation asking if I had gotten the message. What message? “We know where you live. Oh, by the way, how many children did you say you had, Dave?”
Get the picture?

Worst of all, IBM offered no support. In fact, they asked me to document everything I had ever said about Microsoft and Bill Gates online. I gave up and resigned in the fall of 1995 after being told to stop writing my book, while hearing that IBM was defunding OS/2 but would continue to publicly declare ongoing support for it, and putting two and two together. I had dinner with Steve Ballmer at an InfoWorld party, and I thought it interesting how interested he was in who might be remaining at IBM carrying the torch for the transformational online marketing ideas I had become known for. Yeah, I probably walked away from a fortune in declining to join Microsoft, but I couldn’t find the necessary levels of cynicism to join a company that was dragging my good name through the mud while telling me it was “nothing personal. Just business.”

In summary, IBM was foolish to continue to play nice with Microsoft and take the high road and treat them as a Business Partner under the Business Conduct Guidelines even after it was clear that Microsoft was out to destroy OS/2 and IBM's leadership in the PC industry.

LESSON TWO. 1) Strategic brilliance in exploiting the resources you have to deploy against the resources your competitor has, 2) smart marketing execution, and 3) cunning media relations ALL trump engineering genius. Microsoft had the former. IBM had the latter.

LESSON THREE. If you want to establish a desktop OS as the standard during the coming of age of the Internet, you had better understand how to get the media on your side. They established perceptions, and perception became reality.

Microsoft played many in the media like Itzhak Perlman plays a Stradivarius. And the media created many of the myths - inconsistent with reality - that persist to this day and can be seen in many of the answers to this question.

Microsoft succeeded in perpetuating myths like:

-  "OS/2 was clumsy and IBM's programmers were incompetent while Microsoft's programmers were geniuses." Totally backwards. OS/2 was a billion-dollar miracle of software engineering. IBM created rock-solid, reliable, flexible, elegant, mission-critical operating systems that businesses relied on. OS/2 was in most ATMs for well over a decade. Can you imagine using Windows 3.1 or Windows 95/98 in an ATM? Hahaha. IBM was the company that was #1 in Forbes for attracting the best and the brightest - especially engineers and scientists including Nobel Prize winners - back then. Not Microsoft. Case in point: the web (HTML) is modeled after IBM technology, not Microsoft's. Yet Microsoft would talk to the media, and IBM was pretty insular. So Microsoft's twisted version of reality won the day.

- "IBM is proprietary but Microsoft is open." How the media bought this lie is a mystery. Truth: Both were / are proprietary. When it came to enterprise marketing, Microsoft copied a lot from IBM - just years later. Only in hindsight is it obvious that the difference (in the consumer tech space at least) is that Microsoft produced unreliable proprietary crap marketed well, and IBM produced reliable proprietary quality marketed poorly.

- "IBM doesn't care about consumers or the little guy." Again, totally backwards. IBM supported its products. Microsoft did not and still does not. IBM did the same thing then that Apple does now - create a solid infrastructure of well-supported quality and insist that others play by their well-designed rules. They then supported their products in order to constantly improve them.

- On the other hand, Microsoft created an opportunistic wild, wild west of anything-goes shoddiness that they crammed down the market's throat using their ruthless disregard for anything but their own best interests. Microsoft Explorer anyone? We've just grown accustomed to believing that software companies don't need to support their products because that's what Microsoft pioneered.

- "IBM couldn't market its way out of a paper bag." IBM didn't get to be the biggest company in tech throughout the '60s, '70s, and '80s without knowing how to market. Their marketing prowess in B2B was rightfully legendary.

Where they failed was in media relations and in countering Microsoft's ruthless perfidy in establishing a monopoly for Windows, largely because they were under the constraints of defending themselves against the anti-trust lawsuit brought by the U.S. Justice Department in 1969 that lasted for 13 years and had a major impact on IBM culture and policy.

The IBM culture, as a result of that lawsuit, was shaped by IBM’s “Business Conduct Guidelines” that were heavy on being seen as ethical and fair and light on being as competitive as possible within ethical constraints. There was even a provision forbidding “disparaging competitors,” that was often used against IBMers who spoke up about unethical competitors or business partners. There were provisions that forbade any IBMer who wasn’t at the level of Director or above from speaking to the press at all.

So these factors had even more to do with IBM's failure to establish OS/2 than its marketing decline of the '90s and its poor showing in transitioning from B2B to B2C marketing for OS/2. In other words, IBM's marketing would have been good enough if Microsoft had played by the same ethical rules - honoring the law and their agreements and playing fair - as most other companies of that day.

LESSON FOUR. That same genius that worked to get you established and make you successful in the first place is inadequate to defend your position at the top. IBM was the Google of the '60s and '70s, but by the '90s was often rightfully compared to an elephant trying to dance. Proprietary (but elegantly designed) systems lost to cheaper, better marketed systems. What made Microsoft and Windows successful is now working against them as Windows becomes increasingly irrelevant to a new generation growing up with awesome computing and networking power they can hold in their hands.

LESSON FIVE. When creating an infrastructure to support an OS or platform, treat application developers as if they were kingmakers. Because they are. IBM saw developers (ISVs) as both business partners AND customers. Microsoft saw them for what they were - critical partners.
Today, App Stores have assumed the role that ISV relations used to have, which renders this point a bit less important, but the point of using an app store to empower and support developers for your platform is still of critical importance if you want to have any chance of your platform’s success.

LESSON SIX: Never under-estimate the willingness of the market to support an underdog and adopt cheap but easy technology. Windows was the cheaper and easier path for most people. Never mind that it was the low-quality path. A market is just like water - always flowing downhill following the easiest path it can find.

There is a lot of truth (and some myth) in the other responses as well. In the end, the history books are written by the conquerors and not the vanquished, so I appreciate your question and the opportunity it provided me to share the perspective of one of the vanquished.

Dave Whittle

65
Applications / Boot Logos !!
« on: July 17, 2022, 05:52:53 pm »
Hi

Just as amusement and I had been collecting the OS/2 Boot logos that we have around, included an PNG and TXT file of it, rename the files as .LGO and release it as a single package.

The "Boot Logos Volume 1" was upload to hobbes on 2021-06-24, with aprox 50 boot logos.

I'm working on the next one (Boot Logos Volume 2) , but for the moment I only have nine.

If you have you own boot logo that you want to share, or any other you found awesome let me know. Just post it here.

Regards

66
Applications / Boycott Discussion
« on: May 27, 2022, 12:08:38 am »
Hi Roderick
From my perspective this way of fixing stuff is the same as throwing mutt at the wall and see if it sticks.
I think everybody is putting Glenn on the wrong foot to make him replace pmmerge.dll. It might fix the crash the but nobody even knows why the crash occurs in the first place. So if you backlevel the last version of pmmerge.dll with an older one. The program might start to work, but then what is broken ?
I mean its all well intended but what is causing the crash in the first place ? PMMERGE.DLL is pretty important system dll and not something that should just be swapped out like spare tire from the trunk of your car.

I took these words as your opinion and FUD against the OS4 development. Please open another thread if you want to express something else. We know that the OS4 development is experimental and for me it is categorised as a research/educational project. We have discussed that a lot on the forums, and I don't want to continue with that.

Sorry Glenn, let's try to get the "popuplog.os2 entry" as Roderick also said.

Regards

67
Games / DOS Game - Privateer - EMS - NOEMS (DOSBox / VDM)
« on: May 25, 2022, 05:29:07 am »
Hi

I was following someone in Twitter that wanted to run a DOS game under ArcaOS, but says it is not possible because some non common EMM386 use.

The game is Wing Commander Privateer.

When I run it on DOS VDM it says:
Code: [Select]
C:\DGAMES\PRIVA1>priv
Protected mode driver is not responding to EMS function calls.
Make sure your EMS driver is not configured with the NOEMS option.
If it is, replace the option "NOEMS" with "RAM".

Even that DOSBox says Privateer is compatible, on OS/2 I get this error (Attached). DOSBox 0.74 for Windows gave me the same error.

There is an old OS/2 DOS games compatibility list that says about Privateer:
Quote
-Origin is up to their usual tricks.  This one uses a proprietary
  memory manager, so it doesn't run OS/2.

Any ideas if this game can be run on OS/2 VMD or DOSBox? or there is no way to run it?

Regards

68
Article Discussions / Old Static Forum Updated
« on: May 20, 2022, 04:19:33 am »
Hi

I had updated the forum script of the OS2World Old Forum:
- https://www.os2world.com/oldforum/
The script had been updated to Simple Machines Forum 2.1.2, which is the latest and have some improved layout.

But there is an issue that it has, but it does not apply to the oldforum, since it is read only. The reply box does not shows the text menu on older browsers like our Firefox 45. It works fine on Dooble, but again, it does not applies since the oldforum is a read only forum.

This means I will not be updating the currently OS2World forum to version 2.1.2 until Dooble became stable.

Regards

69
Programming / Desktop Apps from JavaScript - Electron?
« on: May 18, 2022, 02:32:24 pm »
Hi

As a theoretical exercise I want to know what would be required to port some javascript applications to run as desktop applications.

I will like to see Element, a Matrix chat tool, running as a desktop application. Currently Element is running on Dooble (You can test it here), so my guess is that we already have several of the libraries that it uses ported to OS/2.

But what is needed to have the "desktop" version of Element running on OS/2 as stand alone?
It seems that part of the trick is Electron ("If you can build a website, you can build a desktop app.")
It is needed for Electron to be ported? Is it some kind of compiler that will interpret Javascript to a desktop OS/2 app? Is it portable to OS/2 or we miss more things?

Regards

70
Off Topic discussions / Slowing Down But Not Hitting the Brakes
« on: May 12, 2022, 08:19:23 pm »
Hi Guys

I just want to share with you something off-topic and personal. Last friday (2022-05-06) my father passed away and I had been quite busy dealing with that issue.

My father worked for IBM since the 70’s till 1999 and I learned a lot of things from him that I used in my career and personal life. Thanks to him I learned OS/2 at its time and studied Computer Science. He was a great man and it had been a great loss for me and my family.

During this month I will be dealing with the usual local bureaucracy and taking a closer look to the family business with my brother.

I will be slowing down a little bit with OS2World during the next month, but I will keep connecting to check on a few things, slowly updating the hobbes archive, and I still have on my plans to assist Warpstock 2022 and stream the event with the help of the community.

Thanks to everyone for their condolence via e-mail and social networks.

Regards

71
Applications / Dooble: Websites / WebApps Testing
« on: April 25, 2022, 02:17:42 pm »
Hi.

I would like to hear your feedback on the working and non working sites and web apps with the Dooble browser.

The Dooble browser for the moment is this version: dooble-2022.04.04-1.oc00.pentium4.rpm

It is on the netlabs exp RPM: "yum install dooble"

You can also post bug reports at: https://github.com/bitwiseworks/dooble-os2

Regards

72
Applications / Searching Files on the RPM
« on: April 12, 2022, 06:30:54 pm »
Hi

I usually get into the issue that someone tell me install xxxxx.exe or yyyy.dll from the rpm repository and I have no idea what is the name of the package.

I was suggested to use "yum whatprovides", for example "yum whatprovides */libcn0.dll"
The command used to work, but now it does not procedure any results.

Any ideas on how to search for files or what is going on?

Regards

73
Games / Storing DOS VMD Sessions settings.
« on: April 09, 2022, 11:36:04 pm »
Hi

I usually do not use too much the DOS VMD on ArcaOS, but lately I had been using some DOS games to test the USB gamepad compatibility.

I remember that there was a way to export/import DOS VDM sessions settings. There is the famous "DOSGames.set", but I don't remember (or maybe I never learned) how to use it.

What is the procedure to import/export the DOSGames.set on a DOS VDM Session?  Or did I misinterpreted it and there is no way to import/export the settings?

Regards

74
Programming / Compiling a PM sample with GCC
« on: March 30, 2022, 12:06:44 am »
Hi

I'm trying to compile a little PM sample, just for the fun of it.

It is: PMWalker_r2.zip
The make file uses gcc, link386 and rc.

I run nmake and it shows me this error:

Quote
{2}[e:\projects\samplepack\pmwalker_r2] nmake

Operating System/2 Program Maintenance Utility
Version 4.00.001 Oct  4 2001
Copyright (C) IBM Corporation 1988-2001
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corp. 1988-1991
All rights reserved.

        gcc -c -O2 walker.c
walker.c:30:10: fatal error: os2.h: No such file or directory
   30 | #include <os2.h>
      |          ^~~~~~~
compilation terminated.
NMAKE : fatal error U1077: 'C:\SYS\APPS\4OS2\4OS2.EXE' : return code '1'
Stop.

I have OS2.h on "C:\usr\include\os2tk45"  and on the config.sys "SET INCLUDE=C:\usr\include\os2tk45"

Any idea why I have that error? Do I have to use other OS2.h ?

Regards

75
Programming / Python and GUI on OS/2
« on: March 23, 2022, 01:55:40 am »
Hi

I'm just curious about something. I was reading about python and I wondered if some GUI application can be done in this language. I read that GUI application on python are possible using "Python-Tkinter". There are these interfaces, PyQtis (for Qt), PyGTK (for GTK) and WxPython ( for WxWidgets).

I noticed recently on the installation of Scribus that there is a "python3-tkinter" lib/interface available for OS/2.
- Does python GUI apps porting is possible with python3-tkinter on OS/2?
- Is this "python3-tkinter" connected to Qt 5 to produce the GUI elements on OS/2?
- Is this the prefered way (python3-tkinter) for the python developers to produce GUI elements in python?

I'm just curious, I don't have any plans or ideas, (maybe to check more python 3 open source software that can be ported), but I wwill like to resolve these doubts.

Regards

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