Messages

31

General Discussion / Re: "request ISO build" not working

« on: July 18, 2024, 09:26:56 pm »

It is uncharacteristic for ArcaNoea to not respond.

Is this an upgrade, new purchase, or the remake of an ISO you already downloaded?

32

Networking / OS/2 extended attributes, the NSA and Wanna Cry on Youtube

« on: July 07, 2024, 05:53:24 am »

OS/2 extended attributes, SMBv1, mismatched variable sizes, the NSA and Wanna cry.

Interesting little video (2 actually) that mentions OS/2 extended attributes -
while describing some microsoft vulnerabilities located around SMB.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KfY1hlibZ0

While the vulnerability was patched with software updates, even for
Windows XP, I have stopped applying updates to my Win7 machine because one (or more) of
the updates break my scanners.  I guess I COULD apply each update individually and then test
all my applications to see if any of them are broken - or not.

FWIW: I also had an Apple update to my wife's iPhone 6 disable the speaker you hold up to your ear.  I bought a new 
speaker and installed but it didn't fix the problem.  It was only when my wife bought a replacement iPhone
and I was talking to the Apple Store people about trading in the iPhone 6 that the Apple rep
told me a software update disabled the ear speaker.  And Apple only gives you a limited time to downgrade to a previous IOS version after updating; I was way beyond that limited time.

If you have a windows machine and are concerned, this might be of interest
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/storage/file-server/troubleshoot/detect-enable-and-disable-smbv1-v2-v3?tabs=server

This SMBv1 vulnerability appears to be specific to Windows Windows platforms running SMBv1.

33

Setup & Installation / Re: Target 64Tb of memory, not one less.

« on: June 25, 2024, 07:56:00 am »

Roberto,

I think what you are describing is a segmented memory model - with each segment (floor in your description) being 4GB in size; memory addressed with pointer (register) to the segment  and a pointer (register) to the offset within the segment. 

To quote a Redbook
Like the 80286 processor, the 80386 processor also supports a segmented memory model, except that in the case of the 80386 the maximum segment size is 4GB. ... OS/2 version 2 implements the flat memory model by mapping the 4GB address space as a single code segment and a single data segment, each of which has a base address of zero and a size of 4GB.
End quote

So you can, theoretically, address much more than 4GB with a 32 bit processor and its 32 bit registers.  The advantage 64 bit processors have in addressing large memory is in not having to use segments and the performance hit that comes with switching segment registers, because their registers are 64 bits wide. 

But OS/2 is designed around a 32 bit flat memory model, meaning a single segment, and that single segment being a 4GB in size.

34

Hardware / Re: Modern Motherboards - Whats working

« on: June 22, 2024, 06:43:39 am »

Another possibility is plugging your mouse (actually the mouse output from the KVM) into the the serial port of a motherboard that does not have 2 PS/2 ports.

The MSI board I mentioned has a serial header.  It appears these headers have a standardized pin out - I used a ribbon cable that worked with an older ASUS motherboard on the serial header on the MSI motherboard and it works.  Neither MSI nor ASUS included the cable with the motherboard - I had to find one on the internet.

To test this I got an old PS/2 style mouse and plugged it into the serial port using a PS/2 to COM adapter - Logitech used to include these with all their mice. It works in OS/2 - after you adjust the amouse.sys line in CONFIG.SYS  Look in the command reference for the other requirements for using a serial mouse.

DEVICE=K:\OS2\BOOT\AMOUSE.SYS SERIAL=COM1

I need to point out that this arrangement does NOT work in the bios setup screens for this MSI board.  If you plug the mouse into the PS/2 keyboard/mouse port directly you can use the mouse in the bios setup screens, but when the mouse is plugged into the serial port (using the PS/2 to serial adapter) it does not work in the bios setup screens.  It does work in OS/2 however.





 

35

Hardware / Re: Modern Motherboards - Whats working

« on: June 21, 2024, 07:55:08 am »

Eric,

I am running AOS 5.1 on a MSI PROB550-VC motherboard, Ryzen 5 5600x, with a Radeon X600 graphics card, SNAP .   Mem says 16,355 MB  (3,567 MB accessible to system)

The motherboard has one combo type keyboard/mouse PS/2 port.  You can plug in a mouse, or a keyboard, but not both, even when using a splitter or y cable.  I tried.  And after trying the y cable and failing I found other people posting on the net with the same issue with other motherboards.  Apparently to use both a keyboard and mouse at the same time (via a y cable) the motherboard has to be built to to accommodate it.

You said you wanted 8 cores.  Remember - more cores equals more cost, both in terms of watts, cooling and money.  My system at the desktop consumes 62 watts.  It consumes 4 watts when not running  - unless I turn off the power supply.  I have seen a maximum of 130 watts at boot up and when watching a movie on VLC, Compiling small (3.5 mb applications) gets it to 87 watts. 

The motherboard/processor/SSD combination works well in OS/2  - with the following conditions/issues. 

I believe you can mix GPT and MBR disks in the same machine, but there are considerations when booting.
The alternatives for a 'boot manager" for booting into different disks/partitions are: 1) the boot menu from the bios, 2) the AOS 5.1 GPT boot manager, 3) Airboot.  The bios boot menu will boot to either MBR or GPT disks.  The  AOS GPT boot manager will only boot GPT disks.  Airboot will only boot MBR disks.  On this machine Airboot does not work with a USB attached keyboard - you have to use a PS/2 attached keyboard.  On my Thinkpad T530 with AOS 5.1 Airboot works fine.   

On this machine some Windows applications lock up the machine when running in Win-OS/2 seamless mode.  They appear to run fine in Win-OS/2 full screen.

Once OS/2 boots up it is fast.  However this machine takes longer to boot than my Thinkpad T530. 

Finally - I would strongly encourage you to check out Neil's stuff (Blondeguy.com) when going through a make-buy decision.  If he has what you need it might save you a considerable about of time in specifying, buying, assembling and troubleshooting a new machine.  Plus he list the watts used by various machines you can get an idea of the trade off between cores and electricity usage.

36

Applications / Re: AOS RAM Disk

« on: June 07, 2024, 01:34:02 am »

Yeah - the tests aren't all that scientific.  Each machine had a different processor, DRAM speed and type, and bus for the M.2/SATA SSD/SATA spinning.

The RAM disk is HPFS.  All others are JFS. 

The cache on HPFS (RAM disk) is
IFS=C:\OS2\HPFS.IFS /CACHE:2048 /CRECL:4 /AUTOCHECK:*

For JFS
IFS=C:\OS2\JFS.IFS /LW:5,20,4 /AUTOCHECK:*

The spinning disks have an internal cache of 32 MB.  One drive is Western Digital, the other Toshiba.

All tests were copying a file from one disk to another using Larsen Commander, the speed reported comes from Larsen reported Average

I used various file sizes when copying across a network.  The file size, destination drive and source drive didn't make much difference in the times.  I think the network was the limiting factor.

On the Ryzen machine (RAM to M.2, RAM to RAM, Spinning to Ram, Ram to Spinning) the file size was 2 GB, which should have been large enough to swamp any cache.

On the Lenovo t530 laptop the file size was a little smaller. HPFS and JFS on that machine are setup the same as the Ryzen desktop.

I also tried to test SATA SSD to RAM on the WSeB/eComStation machine.  But the RAM drive on that machine is only 64MB in size and a 64MB file copied so fast I could not get the time off the Larsen File Copy screen.  The file system for that disk says "RAMFS" and I don't think you can make it larger than 64MB.  But you can share it across a network with WSeB.  I think it also runs in lower memory only.


I used various file sizes when
The file size

37

Applications / Re: AOS RAM Disk

« on: June 06, 2024, 08:53:03 pm »

Andi,

Your post made me curious about the speed for my 11 year old Thinkpad T530 laptop - i5-3320m, 2.6 ghz CPU.

 For that machine my SSD to RAM drive transfer speeds are pretty close to yours.

SSD to RAM
----------
70,153K
74,140K
73,819K

The SSD to SSD speed are copying a file from one directory to another on the same
drive - so it is probably limited by the write speed, age of the disk, and the conflicts of reading/writing
to the same disk.

SSD to SSD
----------
13,669k

I don't use my laptop all that often. But an ankle injury forced me onto the laptop these last few weeks and I am surprised how well  it performs - even now compared to my newer Ryzen 5.   The interesting thing is how different the same applications perform on the laptop and the desktop (Ryzen) - even though both are running AOS 5.1   On the new desktop (and on my previous desktop) I experience something similar to what Dave sees when he is compiling - the system seems to freeze for 4 - 8 seconds and then resume.  It is almost like it is taking a short rest.  I see it with VLC when watching movies. This doesn't happen with the laptop.  On the new desktop Win-OS2 applications freeze the machine when running seamless mode - on the laptop they run fine.

Just a reminder I guess how complex machines are now and how difficult it is to support all the hardware that is out there.

Take care.

38

Applications / Re: AOS disk size limitation?

« on: June 06, 2024, 06:52:31 am »

On the other thread (sorry again) there were some comments on the speed of the RAM disk.

So I thought I would post some times.  The first set is transfer speeds across a network - not really RAM disk related but establishes a baseline.  It appears the wirespeed is the limiting factor rather than source or destination disk types.

The second set is transfer times from disk to disk on the same machine: M.2 to spinning disk, M.2 to RAM disk, RAM disk to RAM disk.
I did not do any M.2 to M.2, or any RAM to M.2  - cause the file was 2GB in size and I didn't want to waste any more writes on the NVMe than I already had.

Across a 1gb wired network - Netbios
====================================
Source Machine
WSeB on eComStation
AMD AM3+ socket FX4350 processor
3G/bs SATA
Intel NIC/Intel driver

Destination Machine
AOS v 5.1
Ryzen 5 5600X processor
PCIe gen 4 M.2 MVNe
6Gb/s SATA
Intel NIC/Intel driver

900MB file size

All times from Larsen Cmdr  Avg bytes per second for the transfer


SATA network to RAM
-------------------
25,055k

SATA network to Spinning
-------------------------
25,456k

Spinning network to Spinning
-----------------------------
25,319K


On Destination Machine - Drive to Drive
=======================================

2GB file size

Spinning to Spinning
--------------------
36,441K

Spinning to M.2
---------------------
139,586K

M.2 to RAM Disk
---------------
512,500K
493,447K
654,337K
381,786K
388,793K


RAM to RAM
------------------
396,887K
155,725K
219,919K
192,912K

Spinning to RAM
---------------
172,038K
172,661K
176,944K

39

Applications / Re: AOS disk size limitation?

« on: June 04, 2024, 06:29:23 pm »

Thanks Dave - the format routine is clever.

40

Applications / Re: AOS disk size limitation?

« on: June 04, 2024, 06:26:45 pm »

Thanks Dave for the info.

Sorry I posted this twice - I thought the first post had disappeared and so I re-posted.

What drove me to JFS from HPFS was the difference in CHKDSK times.  CHKDSK on HPFS takes forever on large volumes.   Since a RAM disk  gets thrown away on reboot CHKDSK is a non-issue.  And the "thrown away on reboot" is, for me, one of the advantages of a RAM disk.   Fits right in with my lazy, never get around to it,  disk  housekeeping tendencies.

41

Applications / Re: AOS RAM Disk

« on: June 04, 2024, 07:39:38 am »

Is the AOS RAM disk bound by the same limitations as file systems on "normal" disks,
or is there some magic going on in this app?

Without thinking I set my machine up some months ago with an 8GB HPFS RAM disk and have
been operating that way for months - although I don't think I have ever copied more that
2 GB to the RAM disk.

But what would happen if I did?

If I remove the line
IFS=C:\OS2\HPFS.IFS /CACHE:2048 /CRECL:4 /AUTOCHECK:*
from CONFIG.SYS I get the error

The specified disk or diskette cannot be accessed
C:\MPTN\BIN\VDOSCTL.EXE

The help for RAM disk says, in part
"The AOS loader can format the drive(s) it creates using FAT, FAT32, or HPFS; it can also leave them unformatted. Both drives will be formatted the same way. Note that if you choose FAT, any drive over 2gb will be left unformatted."
but it doesn't say anything about other file system types.

I tried using FAT32 but that makes the RAM drive VERY SLOW when copying files to and from the disk.

Finally - I tried setting the "Format partitions using" to none and using the WPS disk object
to format the RAM disk as JFS, and the application I was running (VLC) that was reading files
from the RAM disk started behaving badly.

And the final question:  If I don't have any other partitions, other than the RAM disk,
formatted as HPFS, do I really need the /CACHE:2048 clause the IFS statement in CONFIG.SYS?
Doesn't seem to make sense to cache a RAM disk in RAM.

42

Applications / AOS disk size limitation?

« on: June 04, 2024, 07:19:59 am »

Is the AOS RAM disk bound by the same file system limitations as "normal" disks?

Meaning - is an AOS HPFS formatted to HPFS limited to 2GB - as is normal for HPFS?  Or does the RAM do something "special" that allows it to transcend regular file system limitations?

Without thinking about this I set the RAM disk up to use 8gb of high memory format as HPFS and have been booting that way for months.  I don't think I have ever copied more than 2 GBs to the RAM drive - but what would happen if I did?

The help says is "The AOS loader can format the drive(s) it creates using FAT, FAT32, or HPFS; it can also leave them unformatted. Both drives will be formatted the same way. Note that if you choose FAT, any drive over 2gb will be left unformatted."

Since JFS is not an option on the RAM disk setup dialog I switched to FAT32 - but that makes the drive VERY SLOW.

I also tried reformatting the drive as JFS using the WPS drive object but the application I was running using files on the RAM disk (VLC) started behaving very strangely.

I seem to remember having to put IFS=HPFS

43

Programming / Re: REXX IDE recommendations?

« on: March 28, 2024, 06:20:14 pm »

I know that both NEPM and LxPM do syntax highighting.  Standard EPM may also.  NEPMD will also do syntax completion for multiple languages, including Rexx

LxPM will highlight certain syntax errors as well - including with Rexx.

I believe both allow you to modify the syntax file/language file where you define what elements there are in the language.

LxPM comes in VisualAge C++ version 4.   There is an LxPM in VisualAge C++ v 3 but I don't believe it works on later versions of OS/2.

NEPMD is available from NetLabs

44

Programming / Wdsibyl crash

« on: March 07, 2024, 10:14:30 pm »

Anyone know the solution to this crash when opening a previously saved project?

I also get error messages that major components are not available when trying to build a new application, such as TMain1 can't be found.

45

Programming / Re: SQL running total

« on: February 25, 2024, 01:30:57 am »

Oops - I realize that some of the entries in ODBCINST.INI still had the path to my Lotus SmartSuite install.   Which will cause an error of not being able to find the driver or setup routines.

These new files have the paths removed - because you really don't need to put them in either ODBC.INI or ODBCINST.INI.  ODBC can find them on the LIBPATH.

Sorry.