Messages

1

Utilities / Re: Booting OS/2 with an Animation

« on: Today at 08:05:04 am »

I'm like you - my first experience of OS/2 was Warp 3 back in 1994 - a trial version was included on a magazine cover CD when I was at University. I had a 486SX25 with 8MB RAM and I remember waiting patiently for the drivers for my CD-ROM (connected via my SoundCard, not IDE) so that I could actually install it!

More recently, in revisiting retro PC's and legacy OS's I've been having some fun getting to know OS/2 2.1 quite a bit more, and then 2.0 and 1.3 to a much lesser extent.

I have of course also bought ArcaOS 5.1 but I haven't actually used it much of late. My "daily driver" is my Windows 10 workstation but I want to spend some time with ArcaOS and get to know it more as well.

2

General Discussion / Re: OS/2 Box Collection Wiki - Questions

« on: Today at 07:58:47 am »

Hi Martin,

No apologies necessary, you do an amazing job maintaining the Wiki! I'll take a look through the photo gallery of each one and if you don't have pictures for any of the ones that I have then I'll send them to you for inclusion in the Wiki.

It sounds like you'll very likely have them all though since mine will all be either English (UK) or English (US) versions.

Best,
Richard.

3

Utilities / Re: Booting OS/2 with an Animation

« on: September 12, 2024, 09:52:16 pm »

The start of the animation sequence (little OS/2 logos then the main centre logo) was also present in at least OS/2 2.1 wasn’t it? And maybe OS/2.0? I liked that, sadly even my ‘Retro PC’ gets through that initial part of the startup that i so rarely see it, or perhaps it’s my Dell TFT taking a couple of seconds to switch resolution so I miss it. A shame, I really like seeing those at the start!

I quite liked the animation ending as well, shame they removed it from the release version of Warp.

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General Discussion / Re: OS/2 Box Collection Wiki - Questions

« on: September 12, 2024, 09:43:50 pm »

Martin - you very helpfully have many pages on the OS/2 Wiki with box shots and part numbers. Thank you for your continued efforts on that. And I know that recently you’ve asked people to help supply box shots for some of the rarer releases. Is there an easy way to see:

• All current box shots (i.e. what you already have)
• all missing box shots (i.e. what you still need)

That way we could perhaps more easily help you fill in the blanks if any of us happen to come across the rarer items from time to time.

Best,
Richard.

5

Article Discussions / Re: Asking OS/2 things to OpenAI - Fun and maybe Insightful.

« on: September 12, 2024, 09:37:09 pm »

That’s interesting, I use ChatGPT quite a lot, especially for info on old OS’s like OS/2. For example I recently had quite a lengthy conversation about it regarding old networking protocols such as NetBIOS. When you install OS/2 Warp Connect you can choose from protocols such as TCP/IP, NetBIOS, and NetBIOS over TCP/IP. I was trying to understand the difference between vanilla NetBIOS and NetBIOS over TCP/IP.

And that took me off on a tangent about NetBEUI since that’s what’s available natively with Windows for Workgroups 3.11.

You are absolutely right Martin that it’s very important to double check answers and challenge ChatGPT quite frequently. It gets things wrong fairly often, such as thinking that OS/2 2.0 was available on CD-ROM (it wasn’t, except for a very limited pre-release). But, to its credit, when challenged it will go away and think about it, then come back with a correction that’s normally closer to the truth.

Perhaps this would be a good time to resurrect the phrase: trust, but verify. 

6

Applications / Re: Any way to increase mouse tracking speed other than the regular System applet?

« on: September 01, 2024, 10:20:45 pm »

Do you have USBMOUSE.SYS on your config.sys ?

Hi Martin,

Well my curiosity got the better of me and I went back and tried this :-)

Thanks for the second link to the IBM USB Mouse drivers - I didn't have those. I installed those, verified that usbmouse.sys was in my config.sys, and rebooted.

This time the mouse lit-up and I could see it move on screen - hooray!

Well... not quite. Unfortunately the pointer would only move up and down, it would not move left or right!

Perhaps with more tinkering I could get it to work but I think I'll keep trying to track down a new-in-box optical IntelliMouse (PS/2 connection) :-)

Thanks anyway for the tip - I really appreciate it!

Best,
Richard.

7

Applications / Re: Any way to increase mouse tracking speed other than the regular System applet?

« on: September 01, 2024, 06:30:28 pm »

Sorry Martin, I've wiped that installation now (rather than trying to "undo" the USB drivers) but I'll go back to it at a future date and update this posting if things change.

And thanks Andrew, I did check the ball and rollers - it was a brand new device so maybe the lubrication on the rollers has also dried up slightly (i.e. preventing them from rotating so smoothly). That would definitely explain how it sticks and pauses, but I think that in general it's just a dpi mismatch.

Best,
Richard.

8

Applications / Re: Any way to increase mouse tracking speed other than the regular System applet?

« on: August 31, 2024, 03:21:33 pm »

Hi Martin,

Very interesting that you supported this series all those years ago!

I did a fresh install of OS/2 Warp 3 Connect followed by FixPak 40. I then installed the USB drivers from your link. Unfortunately the USV mouse would not work - in fact the USB light on the mouse didn't even come on. I know the USB ports work (well, at least the power part!) because I also have connected a pair of speakers which have a 3.5mm jack for the audio but take power from a USB socket. I temporarily disconnected the speaker USB connector to make sure it wasn't drawing all the power but sadly that didn't help :-(

Anyway, an interesting experiment!

Best wishes,
Richard.

9

Applications / Re: Any way to increase mouse tracking speed other than the regular System applet?

« on: August 30, 2024, 09:57:24 am »

Thanks Bogdan, I'll be sure to give that one a go!

10

Applications / Re: Any way to increase mouse tracking speed other than the regular System applet?

« on: August 29, 2024, 11:36:38 pm »

Thanks, yes it does. But on reflection I think the ball is gliding more than turning. Even though it’s brand new it’s a Microsoft ball mouse (new old stock) and I have a funny feeling it’s just not rotating properly. And that would of course cause exactly the problem I’m experiencing.

So I’ve reverted to my Logitech PS/2 optical mouse and will take advantage of AMouse to see if I can get the wheel working for scrolling.

Thanks!
Richard.

11

Applications / Re: Any way to increase mouse tracking speed other than the regular System applet?

« on: August 29, 2024, 07:28:37 pm »

Thank you both for taking the time to reply. Unfortunately IBM Single Mouse (any version) requires Warp 4 or greater.

I was able to download an older version of AMouse that installed on Warp 3 and whilst it offers some excellent customisation options for wheel mice it doesn't include any functionality to adjust the tracking speed.

If anyone has any other suggestions I'd be very grateful, otherwise I will simply revert to the Microsoft Home Mouse for now. I was previously using a Logitech PS/2 mouse without issue so perhaps this Microsoft one has just too low a dpi tracking rating for which the control panel slider can't compensate enough.

Thanks again for taking the time to reply!

Richard.

12

Applications / Any way to increase mouse tracking speed other than the regular System applet?

« on: August 29, 2024, 12:33:45 am »

Hi,

I run OS/2 Warp 3 on real hardware: an aging IBM PC 300GL.

I was previously using a Microsoft Home Mouse (serial) and it was fine, but I had to crank up the mouse tracking speed to maximum in the regular Mouse applet in the System settings.

I've subsequently swapped to a Microsoft Basic Mouse (PS/2) and the tracking speed is noticeably slower. So much so that even with tracking speed at maximum it moves really slowly across the screen.

I've re-run Selective Install and told it that I'm now using a PS/2 mouse instead of a Serial mouse but unfortunately that's made no difference.

Is anyone aware of any other method or application that will allow me to crank up the tracking speed *even more* than what the built-in Mouse control panel applet allows?

Many thanks,
Richard.

13

Virtualization / Re: How to create Virtual Box floppy disk images without any cruft!

« on: August 28, 2024, 11:12:36 am »

Hi Jean-Yves,

One other thing you could try (if you haven't already). You said:

I then mapped a shared folder and in that placed 7 directories with the disks 1-7 files in the appropriate one

Rather than having individual subdirectories for each disk, try putting *all* files in the same directory - i.e. one installation source directory containing all files from all disks (e.g. C:\CARv2). My "hope" is that the installer won't then even need to prompt for a "location for file X" because file X is already immediately accessible.

I've done that before when installing stuff and on most occasions that's worked.

Best,
Richard.

14

Virtualization / Re: How to create Virtual Box floppy disk images without any cruft!

« on: August 27, 2024, 08:22:19 pm »

Hi Jean-Yves,

I'm really sorry to hear that you're having issues. I've replied separately by private message but for the benefit of others following this thread I can confirm that this version definitely works on OS/2 Warp 3 with FixPak 40.

I know this because I installed it myself and successfully built, ran, and then compiled a project on genuine OS/2 Warp 3 with FixPak XR_W040 on my IBM PC 300GL. The compiled EXE file then ran successfully on a *different* OS/2 Warp 3 FP40 PC (one of my legacy ThinkPads).

I fear therefore that it's an incompatibility with ArcaOS 5.x and I hope others in the forum are able to offer some useful suggestions.

I will be delighted on your behalf if I'm proven wrong about it being a compatibility issue rather than a disk corruption issue!

Best,
Richard.

15

Virtualization / Re: How to create Virtual Box floppy disk images without any cruft!

« on: August 25, 2024, 04:59:13 pm »

Hi Jean-Yves,

You could try creating an *additional* virtual hard drive of a smaller size, say 1GB, and attach that as a Drive-D to your existing VM. Then try installing on Drive-D (instead of Drive-C).

Alternatively you could temporarily shrink the partition of your Drive-C to get past the installer check, then grow it again. Unfortunately whilst I know that older versions of Partition Magic can resize HPFS partitions (e.g. Partition Magic 4) I'm not aware if there are any that can resize the ArcaOS partition type.

Best,
Richard.