Author Topic: It's a sad day...  (Read 13544 times)

ChrisGWarp

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It's a sad day...
« on: July 19, 2022, 02:30:43 pm »
It's a sad day, as I can now say good bye to my trusty steed, of waaay too many years.

My development box was a Dual Pentium II (!) @ 400MHz with 512Mb RAM, 3 IBM 9Gb SCSI disks, a SCSI CD and a SCSI CD Writer and a Sony DDS 4 Tape drive. Built in the very early 90's. I can not think of the number of hours I've spent on that box. The tower of power has served me well, but it's time to finally put it out to pasture.

See attached image IMG_6063.JPG

I had to replace the boot drive, which failed - AS IT WAS BEING BACKED UP!!!! - with a new (well, new-ish) one. I found a tape backup from 11th of Nov 2006 !!!! And Fastback/2 could still restore it - the tape was good!

That got me back to 2006, which is good enough.

However, it's not all sad news, the next step was to ressurect the host as a VM.

That was a matter of virtualizing it to VMware Workstation. I used the cold clone ISO to clone it. That worked, sort of, but then it was a matter of getting the right drivers in place.
I need to add BTSCSI.ADD as a basedev. The LAN card auto detected as an IBM PCI Lan Adapter (IBMEAN$). The SciTech SNAP Drivers worked to max resolution. Took a day or two to get right. The final thing to do was to resync the Lan Manager accounts database. In short. It's all up and running.

See attached image IMG_6067.JPG

I even managed to run a test compile of my utils... And fix a bug where TaskMgr would crash if the screen size was too big. :)

Happy days.

Now I can tidy up that end of the house...  ;)

-Chris


Neil Waldhauer

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Re: It's a sad day...
« Reply #1 on: July 19, 2022, 03:12:54 pm »
I hate it when a backup fails to restore. I'm glad you are still in business. A lot of authors lost their only copy of source code, and we miss their products.

Once ArcaOS 5.1 comes out, it will be reasonable to go back to a dual boot configuration, thanks to GPT support and also thanks to tweaks to various drivers to continue to operate on modern computers.
Expert consulting for ArcaOS, OS/2 and eComStation
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Ibrahim Hakeem

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Re: It's a sad day...
« Reply #2 on: July 19, 2022, 04:23:04 pm »
I'm glad that you made it back, Chris! A 16-year lapse still isn't a total loss.
I love a good recovery story with a silver-lining like that - especially after learning the hard way how quickly an OS/2 installation can go bad when I started using it as a daily driver in 2018.

May I ask what keyboard you've got in IMG_6067? I have the sudden itch to add one to my legacy workbench.
« Last Edit: July 19, 2022, 04:33:05 pm by Ibrahim Hakeem »

Ian Manners

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Re: It's a sad day...
« Reply #3 on: July 19, 2022, 05:13:49 pm »
Quote
May I ask what keyboard you've got in IMG_6067? I have the sudden itch to add one to my legacy workbench.

Looks like its same one I'm typing this on, an IBM Model M :)
Cheers
Ian B Manners

Ibrahim Hakeem

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Re: It's a sad day...
« Reply #4 on: July 19, 2022, 06:06:52 pm »
Quote
May I ask what keyboard you've got in IMG_6067? I have the sudden itch to add one to my legacy workbench.

Looks like its same one I'm typing this on, an IBM Model M :)

Much appreciated Ian, but I'm pretty familiar with the venerable Model M. I was referring to the one in the second image, you can see the top-row of it but not much else to be able to work out what model it specifically is  ;D

ChrisGWarp

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Re: It's a sad day...
« Reply #5 on: July 20, 2022, 01:35:24 am »
Quote
May I ask what keyboard you've got in IMG_6067? I have the sudden itch to add one to my legacy workbench.

Looks like its same one I'm typing this on, an IBM Model M :)

Here ya go. They are USB ones, and identify as an IBM Enhanced Keyboard. Never managed to get the drivers specifically for them to install on W10 though. Always some weird error. But, it works as I'm trying this. :)

Martin Iturbide

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Re: It's a sad day...
« Reply #6 on: July 20, 2022, 04:11:04 am »
Hi Chris

Your IBM black keyboard remind me the "IBM SK-8809 Multimedia USB Keyboard" that I used to have long time ago. Yours seems to be a newer one with the "IBM Access" key.

Nice memories.

Regards
« Last Edit: July 20, 2022, 11:00:34 pm by Martin Iturbide »
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ChrisGWarp

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Re: It's a sad day...
« Reply #7 on: July 20, 2022, 04:30:34 am »
(At the risk of going off topic, and making this a virtualisation/migration issue)
The only oddity that I can see, is some weirdness around the WPS.
For example, if I open up the desktop settings, go to the Background tab, and click on Find... it goes... nowhere. Even if I limit it to the root (uncheck the Search Subdis checkbox button) it sits there forever.
I even power on the original box, and that works. :(
So has anyone any suggestions about what could be going wrong?
The box is running on a Lenovo P53, and runs like lightening.
Except for some WPS stuff. I'm still able to open folders, create and save archives etc.
So far, it's just the search that seems odd.
-Chris

ChrisGWarp

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Re: It's a sad day...
« Reply #8 on: July 20, 2022, 04:34:22 am »
Hi Chris

Your IBM black keyboard remind me the "IBM SK-8809 Multimedia USB Keyboard" that I used to have long time ago. Your seems to be a newer one with the "IBM Access" key.

Nice memories.

Regards

I might have some of those floating around too! :)

Ian Manners

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Re: It's a sad day...
« Reply #9 on: July 20, 2022, 07:56:18 am »
Sorry Ibrahim, only took in one picture.

Re the other IBM Enhanced Keyboard, and Multimedia KB's, I also several left over from computer sales, and the Multimedia ones from kerbside. I've never been able to get those extra keys working but never tried with anything earlier than about Win7, did not even try to see if there were drivers. The Multimedia USB one is good for using with a laptop while traveling.
Cheers
Ian B Manners

Andreas Schnellbacher

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Re: It's a sad day...
« Reply #10 on: July 20, 2022, 05:02:39 pm »
Find... it goes... nowhere. Even if I limit it to the root (uncheck the Search Subdis checkbox button) it sits there forever.
I even power on the original box, and that works. :(
So has anyone any suggestions about what could be going wrong?
The problem is probably in the inis. Run checkini, followed by cleanini. For the future, run that regularly. More than 3 blocks in os2sys.ini cause more and more WPS errors. Read the docs for the options. For checkini, a WPS restart suffices. For cleanini, it's important to reboot instead of just restart the WPS to avoid moved desktop icons if you have a toolbar configured to reduce the desktop.

I use these options for checkini: /C /Y:2
For cleanini, I use only the /multipass /resp:cleanini.rsp options, with cleanini.rsp:
Code: [Select]
[Parameters]
# either specify parameters here or in the call to cleanini
#/c /delall /restart
/c /delall

[Handles]
# accepts also UNC names
# action can also be ignore instead of del
i:\* del
e:\* del
# c:\* del
c:\os2\archives\* del
d:\* del
# d:\os2\archives\* del
# d:\temp\* del
g:\dev\netlabs\* del
j:\* del
k:\* del
l:\* del
m:\* del
n:\* del
o:\* del
p:\* del
q:\* del
r:\* del
s:\* del
t:\* del
u:\* del
v:\* del
w:\* del
x:\* del
y:\* del
z:\* del

[FolderPos]
# accepts also UNC names
# action can also be ignore instead of del
i:\* del
e:\* del
d:\* del
c:\os2\archives\* del
c:\temp\* del
g:\dev\netlabs\* del
j:\* del
k:\* del
l:\* del
m:\* del
n:\* del
o:\* del
p:\* del
q:\* del
r:\* del
s:\* del
t:\* del
u:\* del
v:\* del
w:\* del
x:\* del
y:\* del
z:\* del

Additionally, you can run XWP's XFix from XWP's Panic menu and remove at least the invalid handles:
Actions -> Find invalid files, Sort -> Status. Better read the docs in advance. For the hidden nowhere folder(s), Steven has valuable tools on his side. In a few cases it helps to delete all contained template objects after cleaning the inis. They will be recreated on reboot.

To keep the WPS intact (esp. templates), avoid to browse WPS archives and desktops of other OS/2 installations with the WPS. Use a file manager instead. E.g. FM/2 looks similar to the WPS, has more features and doesn't create unwanted handles.

Do regular WPS backups, every x days. XWP does that via setting.

ChrisGWarp

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Re: It's a sad day...
« Reply #11 on: July 21, 2022, 01:39:31 am »
I had some issues with the INI file. The load WPS classes checks hung. Thankfully (thanks martin!) the source to checkini was in GitHub, so I looked at it, and wrote a quick check progress to help diagnose which class was killing that test. As it turns out, it was one of the Fastback classes, so an uninstall/reinstall fixed that aspect of it.

As for the bitmap/background issue, I noticed in startup that I was renaming OS2OOOC.DLL just fort he PMShell startup. I wondered why I'd done this, so I stopped doing it and bam, no PMShell. :( Doing a cross check, it appears that it's referenced in a few EXE's, notably some of the MMPM ones... Fits.

I have lots of these in my popuplog.os2 file ;)


07-20-2022  20:45:31  SYS3171  PID 0027  TID 0001  Slot 0044
C:\OS2\PMSHELL.EXE
c0000005
1e5566e1
P1=00000002  P2=0003ffe8  P3=XXXXXXXX  P4=XXXXXXXX 
EAX=00914370  EBX=00914370  ECX=18a14944  EDX=00000000
ESI=010955b4  EDI=00914370 
DS=0053  DSACC=f0f3  DSLIM=ffffffff 
ES=0053  ESACC=f0f3  ESLIM=ffffffff 
FS=150b  FSACC=00f3  FSLIM=00000030
GS=0000  GSACC=****  GSLIM=********
CS:EIP=005b:1e5566e1  CSACC=f0df  CSLIM=ffffffff
SS:ESP=0053:0003ffec  SSACC=f0f3  SSLIM=ffffffff
EBP=0004002c  FLG=00010212

OS2OOOC.DLL 0001:000666e1


As described here: http://www.44342.com/os2-f520-t705-p1.htm. I do not get the intermittent hangs though.

I'm actually on the base WSeB (XR04500).

Suggestions would be welcome ;)


Dave Yeo

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Re: It's a sad day...
« Reply #12 on: July 21, 2022, 05:45:59 am »
Hi Chris,
I have a vague memory of some Desktop background BMP's etc causing problems. You might want to move them all out of the way and see if OS2OOOC.DLL still crashes.

ChrisGWarp

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Re: It's a sad day...
« Reply #13 on: July 21, 2022, 08:14:18 am »
Well. That's about right!
It could handle some other BMP's. I had a whole host of StarTrek Voyager ones. They worked.
Not any of that image, irrespective of whether I saved them as OS/2 1.x or OS/2 2.x (with or without RLE encoding). It just choked.
As did that image as a JPG. I didn't try a number of options here.
Could it be the colour depth? If I get bored I'll try.
However, saving it as a GIF did allow it to work.
The underlying error was that the exception handler ran out of stack space. The BMP's were 2+ Mb. I wonder if someone was doing something stupid and putting it on the stack rather than allocate mem?
Shrug
-Chris

ChrisGWarp

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Re: It's a sad day...
« Reply #14 on: July 21, 2022, 08:26:45 am »
I got bored. ;)
Dropping the colour depth from 24 bit to 8 allowed the file to be loaded.
Could be a size thing. :)