Messages

16

Hardware / Re: Getting a new printer

« on: June 06, 2024, 09:25:38 am »

If you use the Manage Printers GUI then there's no need to clean the PPD manually - just select Import PPD from the menu and it will handle all of that automatically.

Does it import more than one ppd files too? I've tried to import at least 4 ppds for different printers in the lasts 20 years. Most of them with the IBM cli tools before your versions come up. I'm thinking about if it's worth starting from scratch again.

Btw. I've sometimes still the problem with your psndrv (?) that it takes very long until the page came out. Sometimes pages are printed only after a reboot. Also I can't still print with small margins (less than 12,xmm). Although one of my printers allow 4-5mm the other can print without any margin on the other system. Maybe my setup is mess up hence the question to the expert on this topic :-).

17

Hardware / Re: Getting a new printer

« on: June 05, 2024, 09:51:39 am »

Hi Martin

Looking at sane supported scanners I see the ecotank l3160 is supported by current sane release  http://www.sane-project.org/sane-mfgs.html#Z-EPSON   man page  http://www.sane-project.org/man/sane-escl.5.html

So, looks like you may have to wait until current sane release - 1.3.1 - is ported to see if the l4150 will also work...


Regards

Pete

Personally I've no need for sane since a long time. Both my Brother MFC-J6957DW and my HP Officejet  X476dw scan to SMB shares. At least the Brother to ftp too. I usually store some scan profiles to some of my computers including my wifes one. Works with our Samba. Didn't test on Linux until now. Both are connected via Ethernet cause they are used by different systems and I really dislike and avoid USB when possible.

On both you can set all the scan settings (pdf/jpeg/resolution/dublex/.....) on the local display or you can use the web interface. The web interface works with our old SM. Never wanna go back again playing with sane/Tame/... or such.

18

Applications / Re: AOS RAM Disk

« on: June 04, 2024, 09:15:58 am »

I've setup the RAM disk but don't use it for anything except testing. I tried formated with HPFS and JFS but no matter what it's slower than any of my SSDs. Also tried HPFS (or FAT?) strategy 1 (?) which should be faster but that does not work with the applications I tried. FAT32 of course is the slowest file system for use on OS/2. So don't even think about it could be a good option on anything else then data interchange with other OSes. IMHO when you have a SSD in your system it's not worth playing with RAM disk.

19

Hardware / Re: Modern Motherboards - Whats working

« on: June 03, 2024, 09:08:02 am »

file 'C:\OS2\svgadata.pmi'

I ever thought this file is used for SNAP only. But maybe all gradd based drivers use is? SNAP manual deinstallation instruction mention that deleting this file is needed. 

20

Off Topic discussions / Re: Comparison between an inkjet printer and a cat

« on: May 31, 2024, 09:09:10 am »

Are there any color lasers available with Postscript, A3, duplex, Ethernet < 1k€? I few months ago I searched for one but couldn't find any.

21

Off Topic discussions / Re: Comparison between an inkjet printer and a cat

« on: May 30, 2024, 11:57:25 am »

My four HP 970XL/971XL Officejet cartridges lasts for 6600 pages (estimation). I've inserted them between 2017-07-23 and 2019 after the included small cartridges got empty. Black one nearly 7 years ago. They last for another 2200-2700 pages from now. I've printed more than 7700 all in all. About 5000 pages with this 5-7 years old cartridges. Just checked this printer is already more than 9 years old from January 2015. I've never ever any problem with the first small cartridges or with the current second XL cartridges. No problem even after a month of holiday without printing a single page. You know inkjets like my HP or my Brother regularly cleans itself if they are not used for a long time.

My Xerox Laser I had before didn't last more than 5 years. Another Laser I bought about 12 years ago couldn't be used anymore cause the 4 toner cartridges are not available anymore from the manufacturer and the compatible ones would cost nearly 400€ together. Way to much for a cheap (<500€) A4 laser without duplex at this age. So it went to trash last year.

I know the HP Lasers we use at our company work >10 years too. But they are in the price region of 2k€ and more. And they get a service every few years which cost the same as a brand new SoHo Inkjet I'm talking about. The Lexmark Laser we used in the company before was an expensive crap which I remember had to spent more time on repairing than on printing :-). The Tektronix Phaser I had (sort of laser) also didn't nearly last as long as my HP Officejet  X476dw now. The last good laser I had was the HP Laserjet 5L which I used about 8 years. But it was only black and white and so don't compare it to the much better and cheap current color inkjets.

Sum up, IMO if you've bought a HP SoHo inkjet (~500€ with PS and duplex) in the last 3-10 years you got a much better device than any <1k laser. Unfortunately HP don't offer PS devices anymore in my price range. So if you buy today something like the Brother MFC-J6957DW you probably get a solid device for the next 10 years (I hope) with Postscript and A3 for a price you can't get any feature/quality comparable laser. The technology isn't bad anymore. Good (not the cheapest crap) inkjets work reliable since 10 years at least.

As said above, it's not allowed to regularly pull the power cord with inkjets as this asks for malfunction. I think that's the only problem with inkjet printers in the middle price range. But very cheap crap nearly always behaves like cheap crap. F.i. you can't expect even the lowest quality level from a 150€ color printer with duplex IMO. No clue which specific HP type you had the problems though. My HP Officejet Pro X476dw MFP works astonishing well. (Knocking on wood).

22

Off Topic discussions / Re: Comparison between an inkjet printer and a cat

« on: May 29, 2024, 03:19:22 pm »

Inkjet printers: ink dries over time

Which time you're talking about? Decades or centuries. Honestly, are you repeating experiences we all made 20-30 years ago. Or do you have made any experience in the last 5 years with inkjet printers in the more than 200€ class? (read - not the cheapest crap you can get but in the price range of cheap laser)

Yes there's still a problem when you cut the power supply regularly with inkjets in comparison to laser printers. But as the all now consume way less then 1W in stdby this is no more than a few € a year. Over an estimated lifetime of 10 years f.i. less than 20€. You'll save a lot more of money with the inkjet in this 10 years cause the ink costs per page are much lower then the toner costs for a laser THESE days. Yes it was different 10 or 20 or 30 years ago. But time has changed.

(Hope my new Brother inkjet with Postscript and A3 will last longer than the latest laser printers I bought. But I'm still very confident)

23

Off Topic discussions / Re: Comparison between an inkjet printer and a cat

« on: May 29, 2024, 08:57:23 am »

I gave up on inkjet printers about the time that warp connect was released and converted to laser printers.

The same here.

But I don't missed the huge improvements the last 10 years or so. And now own 2 single line (?) SoHo all in one (scanner, copier, printer) devices. One HP for A4 which serves me well since more than 6 years and a new Brother for A3 sheets. Of course you can stay on your old laser if it still works. But mine are broken since many years. And if you think about a new printer today in the < 1k€ class then laser is a terrible bad choice.

24

Hardware / Re: Modern Motherboards - Whats working

« on: May 26, 2024, 10:43:26 am »

Thanks for the information. I slowly start to search for an replacement of my current 4-core Intel based system so this very useful to me.

PS/2 is often needed for OS/2 as I run into situations where USB does not work anymore but the also attached PS/2 keyboard does. Maybe this is now better with the very last USB driver set but I fear such problems I had with my SATA drive where nothing except PS/2 and copy com1: worked could not be debugged without this old interfaces.

Although I currently run an Asus board I thought I should go with MSI now (again). But the Asrock A620M-HDVP you mentioned looks very good on the first sight. I wanna have at least 8 cores (real ones, not the hyperthreading crap) so I will end up with AMD this time. But I also wanna have the integrated graphic to work with my 3840x2160 via DP. Anyone tested this with current AMD chips? Low energy consumption to get very quite operation are primary requirements too.

25

Networking / Re: VNC to Ubuntu LTS

« on: May 03, 2024, 10:28:57 am »

Once I've VNC working to my NAS I think (Debian) but just checked, does not work anymore. I usually connect via RDP cause I can select the screen resolution I wanna see on the host not dependent on the physical setting of the guest. Copy/paste works too. Only drawback is the rectangular cursor shape background.

Anyway I think you need X11 for VNC and RDP instead Wayland. I've not very much experience with Linux but what I've read and tested a while ago is - VNC/RDP does not work with Wayland. Maybe this is not true anymore though. Just a hint for start searching. Probably you need to add your user to some 'allowed users' file too for VNC (as it is with RDP).

26

Applications / Re: LarsenCommander - new test version

« on: April 28, 2024, 07:44:28 pm »

Speed tests with SSDs vary on my system. I've tested with -
Samsung SSD 850 PRO 256GB
Samsung SSD 870 EVO 2TB
Samsung SSD 860 QVO 1TB
Crucial CT500MX500SSD1

It's sometimes not clear why copying from one SSD to another is faster with some setting while it's a bit slower with another target or source. I ever thought the maximum throughput you can get with an OS/2 system is copy from CLI cause a GUI program with progress indicator will always lower performance (the progress indicator needs to be update while CLI copy only waits for disk to accept new data, CLI does not even check CTRL-C). To my findings this is still true with disks although now LCMD comes very close to CLI. But in the last months I've even found scenarios where copying with LCMD is much faster than CLI copy (which TTBOMK uses 4k fixed buffer).

You may think copying with LCMD should be faster when not much else is running at the same time. But I've even scenarios where copying is actually a bit faster when LCMD lost the focus and some other heavy task are running. Once I even need a reboot to get the copy speed from/to a specific source/target to the level I'm used to. It was about 20% slower for unknown reason before.

Bottom line is it needs a lot of tests to get reproducible results. In most scenarios you can't get the same full speed with LCMD than with CLI but we are very close to that. Facts based on my tests for single big files are -
- Samba is way slower than ftp (more than 1,5 times slower here), both via netdrive *)
- for SSDs and harddisks LCMD is not exactly as fast als CLI copy but very close to it
- Ramdisk is way slower than SSD or harddisks (JFS is faster than HPFS but still 3 times slower)
- Peak values may be very high cause of SSD (and JFS) cache

*) Samba is way faster than FTP with a lot of small files I think because of it's directory caching which FTP is missing

27

General Discussion / Re: PMfax

« on: April 28, 2024, 10:40:55 am »

I've it in that order and it works. I've used serial devices on this system since ages. Both the original ones (COM1: COM2: on the standard addresses with PSCOM) and USB converter devices. Mind the PL2303 device lines which are now remed out. I needed to load it 4 times to use the up to 4 attached USB converters. Since about a year the usbcom.sys (v12.13?) from Davids package work with my devices. And usbcom.sys is now loaded only once in contrast to the PL2303 driver.

Code: [Select]

DEVICE=M:\OS2\BOOT\PSCOM.SYS /F

.....
BASEDEV=USBD.SYS
BASEDEV=USBXHCD.SYS
BASEDEV=USBXHCD.SYS
BASEDEV=USBXHCD.SYS
BASEDEV=USBXHCD.SYS
BASEDEV=USBOHCD.SYS
BASEDEV=USBOHCD.SYS
BASEDEV=USBOHCD.SYS
BASEDEV=USBOHCD.SYS
BASEDEV=USBUHCD.SYS
BASEDEV=USBUHCD.SYS
BASEDEV=USBUHCD.SYS
BASEDEV=USBUHCD.SYS
BASEDEV=USBEHCD.SYS
BASEDEV=USBEHCD.SYS
BASEDEV=USBEHCD.SYS
BASEDEV=USBEHCD.SYS

BASEDEV=USBHID.SYS
BASEDEV=USBKBD.SYS
REM ! DEVICE=P:\util\USBCOM_PL2303\usbcom.sys /V /M:1 /N:COM5 /Z
REM ! DEVICE=P:\util\USBCOM_PL2303\usbcom.sys /V /M:1 /N:COM6 /Z
REM ! DEVICE=P:\util\USBCOM_PL2303\usbcom.sys /V /M:1 /N:COM7 /Z
REM ! DEVICE=P:\util\USBCOM_PL2303\usbcom.sys /V /M:1 /N:COM8 /Z
REM ! DEVICE=M:\OS2\BOOT\USBCOM.SYS
DEVICE=M:\OS2\BOOT\USBCOM.SYS /M:4 /N:COM6 /Z

When I attach one or more usb converters 'mode com6:' 'mode com7:' shows me the attached working devices. I need the /Z option cause I don't use CTS/RTS/DTR/DSR (?) handshake I guess. But with a real modem attached I think you should enable hardware handshake. Anyway as long as 'mode comx:' does not show the device working you don't need to play with any higher level program. Maybe it's necessary to attach a working modem to recognize the handshake lines for that. So maybe testing with /Z first.

Btw. when I played the last time with modems probably more then a decade ago I can't get my US Robotics 56k to work again after it was laying around for 10 years or so. The even older ELSA 33k on the other hand did work with PMFAX.

28

Applications / Re: LarsenCommander - new test version

« on: April 23, 2024, 04:56:30 pm »

I understand the problem for people with high resolution screen usually found in modern Notebooks. But I think it should be possible with current version to set all controls to the needed bigger fonts. This setting should survive restarts. I'm I right Martin?

If yes I think it's not high priority to invest much time in this and so there's nothing which I can do in near future. F.i. the (rare) crashes and some leak in currently unknown system resources are more important IMO.

I just wait on Martins response and if there is no real show stopper (f.i. some controls can't be changed to usable fonts) I'll create a ticket with all the valuable infos from Rich. Maybe some time someone finds the time to make a more elegant solution for that.

29

Programming / PMPrintf package v2.80 and PMPrintf_abtrace code samples

« on: April 21, 2024, 07:43:39 pm »

I've packed together my latest code base of PMPrintf and packed it together as v2.80. See https://sourceforge.net/projects/pmprintf-os-2-debug-helper/files/

PMPrintf sends standard printf formatted debug messages into a queue. If the PM viewer application (PMPrintf.exe) or CLI logger (PmPfLog.exe) is running it will display these queued data. Otherwise they go to NULL. Log files can be written to disk in parallel too.

If you never used PMPrintf I strongly suggest looking at the code and usage samples at https://sourceforge.net/p/pmprintf-abtrace/code/ci/master/tree/. These samples loads pmprintf.dll dynamically if it is available on the target system. If not your program will normally run and your debug messages goes to NULL. There is no need to make extra release and debug builds. The small overhead will be negligible most of the time. A programmers life can be so easy :-).

Have fun.

30

Applications / Re: LarsenCommander - new test version

« on: April 21, 2024, 06:20:25 pm »

Oh, I never used these setting page by myself. In fact I took the usual OS/2 way - drag/drop a font from the font palette to the desired place. I think I remember all these dropped fonts (and colors, and background colors) are saved and restored. So I think you only have to drop your desired fonts on the different controls and you're done. Does this not work for your on one of the controls?

Though I for myself rarely had the need to change my fonts the last decade or so as I still use monitors with 94-105dpi (most of the time).