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

« on: October 13, 2024, 01:08:52 pm »

my boxed copy of OS/2 2.1 with Stacker, UK Edition.

That's pretty neat.  I had Stacker for OS/2 back in the day.  I had no idea that IBM did a retail "bundle" deal with them in some parts of the world.  I'm pretty sure there was no such bundle ever offered in the U.S.

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General Discussion / 1995+ production / date code?

« on: October 13, 2024, 01:02:46 pm »

Prior to 1994, IBM software boxes in the U.S. did not have any kind of manufacturing date or batch/production code printed on them.  Sometime in '94, they started printing production dates on the boxes that are straightforward to read (in clear MMDDYY format, followed by some other characters).

In 1995, the U.S. boxes removed that style of code.  But on the sticker that they started applying to the bottom of the boxes, there is a 6-character code on the left side that I think might be some kind of production code.  But I haven't been able to find any information about it, or how to read/decode it.  Does anybody here happen to know anything about its format?

It seems to always start with "F0", followed by a single letter, and then 3 digits.  As far as I can tell, IBM only ever used this system in the U.S.  Here is an example.



(in this case, "F0I066")

I have seen several examples of this "code" across the exact same product/part#, and it does seem that when the letter is higher (e.g. "K" instead of "I"), or if the letter is the same but the numbers are higher (e.g. "I106" instead of "I066"), that the box is from a later production run.  For example, if you compare copies of Warp 4 with "F0Ixxx" codes to ones with "F0Kxxx" codes, the "K" copies have updated Application Sampler and Device Driver Pack CDs.  But "I" and "K" are not the only letters I have seen on U.S. Warp 4 boxes.

I originally thought that perhaps the letter represented the year of manufacture.  I thought this because I saw several examples of Warp Connect that were "F0H", and Warp Connect came out in 1995.  Warp 4 came out in 1996, and since originally the oldest copies of Warp 4 that I saw were all "I", I guessed that maybe "H" was 1995 and "I" was 1996.  This would make "K" to be 1998, which still fits the theory nicely...IBM was still manufacturing Warp 4 copies then.  But I have since seen Warp 4 copies with "F0G" codes on them, and also there are images circulating of a copy of Warp for PowerPC, which came out in limited supply in December 1995, with a "F0A" code on its package.

It also would make sense for the 3 digits to maybe be the day of the year, but that also doesn't fit if you try to make it work.  For example, if we say for the sake of argument that "I" is 1996, and "F0I066" is a valid code for a Warp 4 box (it is), and we assume the "066" is the day of year, that would mean this copy was manufactured in early March of 1996.  But that's impossible, since Warp 4 was not released until late September.

So does anybody have any idea what this code means, and how it is decoded?  It's possible it has nothing whatsoever to do with manufacturing date/batch/production run!  That was just my best guess given that it 1) changes frequently (and the letters and numbers go "up"), but also 2) I have seen two copies of the same product with the same code printed on it, which means it can't be a box#, and instead I think has to represent a "batch" somehow.  It also just seems very strange that IBM would add a date code in 1994, only to remove it later and not replace it with something else that fulfills the same purpose?

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

« on: October 13, 2024, 12:35:10 pm »

German Warp 3

Dutch CDPak ver 3

Both of these are interesting.

I am not very familiar with non-U.S. releases of OS/2 (other than what I've seen pictures of online), but other than the part#, the box for this 28H6733 copy looks indistinguishable (to my eyes) from the boxes I've seen for documented part# 19H5077, which is also German red-spine (pre-logo refresh).  So I wonder what the difference is between 19H5077 and 28H6733.

It is also interesting that the "special retail" Dutch copy shipped both with Dutch and English installation CDs.  But what is especially interesting about the English CD is that it is part# 83G8450.  This is very strange, because this is the exact same part# used for the very first CDs that shipped in the U.S., and so this is a U.S. English copy, not a U.K. English one (if the part# is accurate and not a printing error!).  1-2 months later, the U.S. English CD was refreshed with updated installer application files, and was assigned a new part# of 25H7300.  So you will often see CDs from U.S. releases with both 83G8450 and 25H7300, though I think the second is by far the more common one.

The actual CDs for red-spine that shipped in the U.S. as part# 83G8450 call themselves "Program Disc", not "Installation CD".  In addition, the actual U.S. CDs also had the same "US Gov't / GSA ADP" language printed on them that was discussed earlier.  So I would be very curious to know if this is really identical to the U.S. English version, or if that part# is a misprint.

About the German boot image you linked, by any chance, do you know to which German Warp 3 PN it belongs?

I unfortunately have no idea.  As I mentioned, I grabbed them straight from Internet Archive.  Whatever it says about them on that page is all I know...so I know only as much as you do.  Unfortunately, it also looks like Internet Archive is still down following the attack on their servers this past week. 

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

« on: September 27, 2024, 02:58:26 am »

I'm not sure if Archive.org has a non-US copy of those, I'll take a look. Unfortunately most of my copies of OS/2 (any version) are US even though I live in the UK because I've purchased them over the years on eBay.

Every once in a while, I will take a peek at ebay.co.uk just to see what's out there, and still find copies of UK releases on there from time to time.  I don't doubt, though, that US releases are far more common in the wild.

OS2LDR.MSG appears to be human-readable versions of various system messages and error codes, and does seem to be localized to the language of the region.  Interestingly, it only makes an appearance on the Installation (boot) Diskette and not on Diskette 1, so the whole thing is getting slurped up into RAM at boot (by bootloader, or by kernel?).  Haven't dug in deep enough to determine if this file just contains human-readable boot messages, or more than that.

The OS2World.com Wiki appears to have a screenshot of a non-US English (possibly UK) version of Warp 3 on the main page for the article on Warp 3 (right side).  The fidelity of that particular screenshot isn't great, but you can at least make out that it's in English but omits the US Government GSA ADP Contract language below the copyright statement.

I downloaded Installation Diskette and Diskette 1 images from this Internet Archive upload of a German Warp 3 copy, and booted them.  Here is a screenshot of what the boot screen for this German release looks like.  The English copyright statement at the beginning is retained, but an additional German copyright statement is located where the US Government GSA statement is located on the US release.

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Comments, Suggestions & Questions / Re: Re-joining the forum

« on: September 27, 2024, 02:48:03 am »

Maybe this one: Forum Database Corruption 14 September 2017

That doesn't seem to be related.  I signed up April 2017, and found a post from myself in December 2018, which would have been after this event...

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Comments, Suggestions & Questions / Re: Re-joining the forum

« on: September 25, 2024, 10:13:19 am »

Thanks.  I had previously registered on 30 April 2017, according to email archives.  I used the exact same email address to register my first account as I did with this one, and I registered with the same username that I also re-registered with this time around.

I haven't been able to find a reliable way to locate all of my past posts, since Advanced Search won't let me leave search terms blank even if I fill in "By user".  And since the database does not have my past posts associated with a particular account and it just considers them "guest" posts, it's also impossible to just show posts by that user since that "user" no longer exists.

It is looking like it may only be a very small number, so possibly not worth pursuing.  Unfortunately my prior PM history is also kaput now, too, I guess.

I am also seeing other people from around the same time period (some of whose threads I participated in) whose posts show they have also been converted to "Guest" users, indicating that their accounts have also been deleted.  I wonder what happened to cause such a purge of non-spam accounts from around the same time period...

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

« on: September 25, 2024, 10:01:40 am »

Do you, or does anyone else, know in what file the "US Government Users" statement resides? I guess I could do a text search across *all* files but I'm not actually sure if it's real text or whether it's part of the boot screen graphic.

I can confirm, by opening it up in PMView, that C:\OS2LOGO does not contain the text.

Limiting a file content search just to those on the boot diskette reveals that it is contained within OS2LDR.MSG.

Code: [Select]

# mount -r -t vfat -o loop ./disk00.img os2disk/
# cd os2disk
# grep -H "US Government" *
Binary file OS2LDR.MSG matches
#

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

« on: September 24, 2024, 02:44:50 am »

Hi

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

What it will be helpful, if you have  it in your collection and can easily identified which version are English (UK) or English (US), please double check if the I had mark them correctly on the Wiki.

I *think* that one way to identify the English (UK) version is by starting the installation process (which I'm obviously happy to do!) because I believe that when I've installed some of them it's defaulted to a keyboard layout of "English (UK)" without me having to change it from the usual default of "English (US)".

I am not 100% sure about OS/2 2.x, and I don't actually own any U.K. releases to compare in person, but at least for Warp 3.0, I have noticed the following obvious factors in online pictures over the years:

• Physically, the U.S. boxes for Warp 3 are like the OS/2 2.1 boxes, where they are two-piece and they sit on their back while you remove the front (like a shoe box).  But the U.K. Warp 3 boxes are like the other European Warp 3 boxes, where they are one-piece boxes and stand up straight while you open a flap at the top (like a cereal box).
• Prior to the updated wavy Warp logo (Connect-style), the slogan in the upper-left of the front of the box is different between U.S. and U.K.  For U.S. boxes, this reads "Your on-ramp to the information superhighway."  For U.K. boxes, this reads "World's most-popular 32-bit PC operating system".  I believe other European releases say the same as the U.K. ones but just translated into the target market language.  When the new logo refresh happened, both U.S. and U.K. standardized on "The totally cool way to run your computer" (or, with Connect, they add "...to run and network...")
• For OS/2 Warp Red Spine specifically, the back of the U.S. box actually doesn't use the word Warp anywhere in the marketing copy.  It says "OS/2 v3" at the top.  I believe this was related to the very last-minute decision to use the OS/2 3.0 internal codename in the actual product name.  This was finally corrected for Warp Blue Spine in the U.S., but did not get fixed for U.S. Red Spine until the wavy logo refresh occurred (though Warp Connect Red Spine also said "OS/2 Warp" on the back).  For U.K. and Europe, I believe all copies of all variants/editions say "OS/2 Warp" on the back.
• Inside the box, the printed manuals for U.K. and Europe are taller than the U.S. manuals.  Think Letter vs. A4 paper size kind of proportional difference.
• U.K. and Europe CD-ROM releases all seem to use plastic jewel cases to house the compact disc, while U.S. releases use paper or cardboard sleeves for the disc.
• Software-wise, the non-U.S. releases (except for some Japanese ones, curiously...but this at least seems to hold true for all European continent releases) do not seem to include the U.S. gov't centric text in the boot screen, or printed on the media labels: "US Government Users Restricted Rights - Use, duplication, or disclosure restricted by GSA ADP Schedule Contract with IBM Corp." (included on U.S. release, omitted from U.K. and European copies)

I think all OS/2 2.0 boxes were single-piece, top-flap-opened boxes, and that IBM moved back to standardizing on that box style internationally with Warp 4 as well.  OS/2 2.1 in the U.S. is I believe where the box styles started to diverge between U.S. and rest of the world, until Warp 4.  The text and layout for OS/2 2.0 between U.S. and U.K. / Europe I believe is notably different, however, but by Warp 4, it seems that IBM finally managed to unify most of the packaging across the board (with possible exception of Asian markets).

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Comments, Suggestions & Questions / Re-joining the forum

« on: September 24, 2024, 02:19:24 am »

I was a forum member (though very infrequent) a few years back.  Somewhere along the way, it appears my account got deleted.  I just re-created a new account with the same username, but all of my previous posts under this username now show as "Guest" posts and are not linked to my account at all.

Is it possible to fix this and re-link those posts to my username?  Thanks.