Messages

46

Programming / Re: Getting started with OS/2 development - any recommendations?

« on: December 29, 2023, 01:16:30 am »

I really appreciate everyone's continued replies, thank you very much for your thoughts, opinions, comments about pro's & con's, and links to other sites. There's certainly a lot of options here so I'll take time to look at each of those in detail. What a great community that's so keen to offer advice and recommendations!

Best,
Richard.

47

Programming / Re: Getting started with OS/2 development - any recommendations?

« on: December 24, 2023, 03:48:42 pm »

Thanks Neil, funnily enough I ordered that from eBay a few months ago but it was returned to the seller before it was even delivered to me because the courier damaged it in transit. Very frustrating! I have the slightly older "Real-World Programming for OS/2 2.1" but m on the lookout for the 2.11 edition if it ever crops up again!

48

Programming / Re: Getting started with OS/2 development - any recommendations?

« on: December 24, 2023, 12:39:38 pm »

Thanks Darius. It sounds like if I go with VACPP I'll certainly learn about the history of OS/2 development but anything I write will be stuck in the past and I expect there'll be a lot fewer helpful resources if I get stuck and need to turn to an internet search engine to try and find the solution to a problem! It's a shame because I learn best when reading paper books and of course I've got those in spades courtesy of the VACPP box!

Thanks Olafur for letting me know that VisPro/Rexx is now free. I also found a copy of the full PDF manual which will allow me to learn how to use it although, as I hinted above, I may pay one of those printing companies to print it in book format for me.

Thanks Martin for your pointers about setting up the gcc environment which will certainly be necessary if I go down the gcc/watcom route. I'll also watch your Warpstock segment on YouTube to learn a bit more about this.

So plenty for me to think about then and some really good suggestions - thanks everyone!

Richard.

49

Programming / Getting started with OS/2 development - any recommendations?

« on: December 22, 2023, 11:12:27 pm »

I have an amateur/hobbyist background in VB.NET but have also written some applications in Python (for Linux), in PHP (for Linux and Windows) and in C (for DOS). I'd like to start experimenting with development for OS/2 but I don't really know a good place to start. I know I'll need OpenWatcom as a compiler.

I actually though REXX might be a good place to start so I purchased SAMS Teach Yourself REXX in 21 days and I have... well... taught myself REXX in 21 days. For example I've created a few scripts which run successfully to help with applying Fixpaks to a new installation.

In the old OS/2 Professional Magazine there were many adverts for VX-REXX, and I know there was also VisProREXX as a competitor for a while. I also have a boxed copy of IBM VisualAge C++ v3 courtesy of a very generous person right here via the OS2World marketplace.

Would anyone have any recommendations for where to start? Equally, does anyone know if there's a legitimate way to obtain either VX-REXX or VisProREXX anymore since I expect they've long since been abandoned now? I've been keeping an eye out for them on eBay but haven't seen them come up at all.

Any recommendations would be welcome!

Thanks,
Richard.

50

Setup & Installation / Re: Is anyone interested in a guide for creating an OS/2 2.1 Installation CD-ROM?

« on: December 18, 2023, 04:26:35 pm »

Thanks both for your replies, I'll go ahead and write-up the process properly and then send it to you directly Martin.

To answer your questions Martin:

I haven't slipstreamed anything other than the updated large hard drive support and ATAPI/IDE CD-ROM support (in fact I wouldn't know how to do so!).

"ver /r" reports:
The Operating System/2 Version is 2.11
Revision 6.617

As I understand it that's the same as the result of installing regular OS/2 2.1 followed by XR06200a, but I'm happy to be corrected by anyone more knowledgeable.

I used my regular Windows 10 workstation to create the modified Diskette 1 and the installation CD-ROM. I then used that modified diskette and the new CD to install it on my IBM PC 300GL - i.e. real hardware, not just a VM.

51

Setup & Installation / Is anyone interested in a guide for creating an OS/2 2.1 Installation CD-ROM?

« on: December 17, 2023, 10:56:58 pm »

I recently picked up a boxed edition of OS/2 2.11 on 3.5" disks. This is the fairly rare OS/2 2.11 which is essentially OS/2 2.1 with Fixpaks, I don't believe it's the other OS/2 2.11 (i.e. the SMP version).

I also have OS/2 2.1 on CD-ROM and since the CD-ROM really just contains the contents of each floppy disk in appropriately named folders I was convinced that I should be able to find a way to turn my OS/2 2.11 floppy disk version into one that I could install from CD instead.

Moreover I naturally wanted to use a regular ATAPI/IDE CD-ROM drive, and of course I wanted large hard drive support as well.

So by slipstreaming the official IBM updated IDE and ATAPI drivers and by making lots of mistakes along the way, I actually managed to get it to work!

That is:

• I created a CD-ROM containing the contents of each floppy disk, the printer drivers, the display drivers and MMPM.
• I created a modified Diskette 1 which supports large hard drives and ATAPI/IDE CD-ROM drives.
• I modified the config.sys on my modified Diskette 1 to actually use the CD-ROM rather than floppy disks for Diskette 2 onwards.

It was one of those things that probably took me an awful lot longer to accomplish than any time that I actually saved by being able to install from CD instead of from floppy disk! Nevertheless I was pleased to get it working, and it's given me a much better understanding of OS/2's installation and boot process.

I took plenty of notes along the way but they're only in Notepad and they could probably do with a little tidying-up before being posted for anyone else to follow. And whilst I did all this with OS/2 2.11 I expect the same steps would work to convert a regular OS/2 2.1 floppy disk edition into a CD-ROM installable version.

Would anyone be interested in a write-up of this process, or would this be useful for the Wiki at all?

Richard.

52

Marketplace / Does anyone have BackMaster 3 (with Iomega Ditto 2GB support)?

« on: November 05, 2023, 11:57:26 am »

Does anyone happen to have a copy of MSRDev BackMaster 3 that they'd be interested in selling? It looks like it's one of the few (maybe the only!) backup programs that will work with my Iomega External/Parallel Ditto 2GB tape drive.

I know there's a BackMaster 3 demo on Hobbes (thanks Martin!) but that's only the demo and is limited to backing-up approx 5MB.

Alternatively if anyone knows of another OS/2 backup program that works with an Iomega Ditto 2GB I'd be keen to hear about it. This is for use with OS/2 2.1, Warp 3, and Warp 4.

Thanks,
Richard.

53

Applications / Re: ArcaOS 5.1 - First Impressions

« on: August 29, 2023, 09:21:40 pm »

Did the Wifi used to work before on ArcaOS 5.0.x ?
On the information I got the "Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG adapter" worked with GenMAC
- https://www.os2world.com/wiki/index.php/Lenovo_ThinkPad_T60

Hi Martin,

I didn't previously use ArcaOS 5.0.x, I was a genuine Warp 4 user waiting patiently in the wings for ArcaOS v5.1! I'm sure it's just user error so I'll spend a little more time on this over the weekend and let you know either way whether the Lenovo T60 can now be considered fully functional. It definitely sees the WiFi NIC so it's likely either a local settings issue or possibly the fact that my APs have defaulted to WPA-3 only (which might not be supported by ArcaOS 5.1).

Best,
Richard.

54

Applications / Re: ArcaOS 5.1 - First Impressions

« on: August 29, 2023, 09:15:19 pm »

At the moment mantis.arcanoae.com is up and running, unlike www.arcanoae.com. Maybe a different server?
So you should be able to open a ticket.

Thanks but curiously I can't login at present ("bad username or password") - I'll contact AN Support directly and ask them to help me get logged-in so I can file a bug report.

55

Applications / Re: ArcaOS 5.1 - First Impressions

« on: August 28, 2023, 05:49:37 pm »

ArcaOS 5.1 installed without any issues on my IBM/Lenovo T60 with ATI Graphics. It auto-detected the onboard audio, onboard wired-LAN and onboard WiFi adapter. It connected to my wired-LAN and got a DHCP address and I can browse with Firefox just fine.

I can't get the WiFi to connect at the moment but that could be me - I'm new to ArcaOS so it's taking me a while to understand how to setup the WiFi connection.

Unfortunately it wouldn't even install on my Lenovo T490s. Even switching the BIOS back to full Legacy mode it won't install. It fails at various stages (depending on whether I set full UEFI, UEFI with CSM, or full Legacy mode) which I've documented and will log a ticket for AN once Mantis is back up and running.

Richard.