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Messages - Mathias

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46
Hardware / Re: Report: ArcaOS on Panasonic Toughbook CF-M34 MK1
« on: May 12, 2020, 10:34:24 pm »
Solved!

The above STOP message means: You have selected AHCI & ACPI on an old machine.

Now I FINALLY have a working solution:

1) I`ve finally found the time to set up a new ArcaOS 5.0.4EN on VirtualBox. On install select the installer boot option ¨öld machine¨
2) then cloned the thing with Norton Ghost 6 (bootable floppy, since the notebook can only boot from A: or C:) - Norton Ghost parameter ¨ghost -slpit=85¨
3) loaded the Iomega ZIP100 driver (from floppy) and then cloned all data from local (virtual) HDD to ZIP100 disks
4) booted up the notebook
5) booted from Norton Ghost 6 boot floppy
6) loaded ZIP100 parallel port drive
7) started up Ghost6 from floppy
8) reloaded all the images onto the notebook hard drive
9 reboot.. and IT WORKS! :D

ArcAOS 5.0.4 booting and running excellently fine with 192 MB RAM 300 MHz Celeron.. : )
PCMCIA slot is Texas Instruments, network card is a PCMCIA card, 3Com Fast Ethernet III.. needs to be installed manually.

And... as I know.. Martin always is looking for pci.exe output... :D
... I´ve included the listing as an attachment.

Everything working now.. but tis notebook also comes with touch screen ... next task will be to get that working, too. :D
*happy*

47
Off Topic discussions / COBOL revived
« on: April 07, 2020, 01:28:35 pm »
Source: [https://www.tomshardware.com/news/new-jersey-cobol-coders-mainframes-coronavirus]

The state of New Jersey is looking for YOU, if you are a COBOL programmer. Due to the enormous rise in unemployment numbers (1.600%) they need to make changes to COBOL code powering their " 40-Year-Old Mainframes".

I knew the years in COBOL education would pay off one day! - Oh wait.. it's for volunteers only.. mhmm... ; )

48
General Discussion / Re: Twenty Years Online
« on: April 07, 2020, 01:20:41 pm »
\^___^/ Happy Birthday OS/2 World!

And indeed, BIG THANKS Martin for your continuous support and hosting over all these years!
~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-

 ;D THANK YOU  8)

~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-

Please keep going. :D

49
Marketplace / Re: ebay Stuff
« on: March 13, 2020, 08:45:31 am »
Oh dear.. 4x speed drive? Who still has such stuff? When remembering correctly, my slowest drive ever was a Mitsumi 6x in 1995, but that is long gone. :/
Currently my slowest drive is an HP Writer 8x read [picture], which still works.
But I'd rather not shread that historical writer, or the cewl CD. Is there an ISO of these CDs around? Would ease the process.. ; ) - Atleast for volume 1, which I do now officially own. (I'd be happy when it would finally arrive.. grrr)

50
Marketplace / Re: ebay Stuff
« on: March 04, 2020, 10:05:54 am »
Bought it. :D - Thought it is THAT obscure, I need to have a look.
Should be arriving soon. Let's decide if or if not to put it into the archive after a short content check. : ]

51
Marketplace / Re: ebay Stuff
« on: March 03, 2020, 01:16:28 pm »
*gg* the [ ] around the Click me link were intentional. Usually I do these as they should "simulate" a button.

Mhm.. okay.. so better only try these CDs in an normal CD/DVD drive. : ]

52
Marketplace / Re: ebay Stuff
« on: March 03, 2020, 10:54:06 am »
Japanese indeed! : ) - Would be a nice collectable. *__*
I definitely need more space to store all these... :>

Btw.. anybody know what THIS is?
Front:
Internal:

- Click

Question is also... due to the weird form "factor" of that CD.... is it safe to put that into a production drive? ; )

Moderator's Note: Fixed hyperlink

53
; ) The ticket contains URLs proving that AdBlock Plus is collecting user data for their telemetry functionality. Lewis initially didn't believe me, but after posting an Adblock-internal chatlog, we came to the conclusion to rather recommend UBlock Origin over Adblock Plus in MOZ_INFO.HTML, shipped with ArcaOS.

54
Ivan, careful: AdblockPlus has a telemetry feature. Might be selling data to 3rd parties.. See Mantis ticket #0002397 @ ArcaNoae

55
Applications / Re: Is the Arca Noae update service worth it?
« on: February 23, 2020, 03:41:50 pm »
Sure getting a problem solved for oneself is nice, but what about the other users?

Opening a ticket in Arcanoae's Mantis will make sure the problem is being solved for you AND all the other users.

...as I will demonstrate on an example.
When I looked around for bugs and odd behaviour in ArcaOS, I found quite a few things (users of the testing mail list know my reports). As for instance Win-OS/2 had a problem that hard drives > 2 GB were seen as 0 Bytes free. - But only in Win-OS/2!

I've asked in forums how to solve this, and got a proprietary tool recommended, which needs to be loaded in Autoexec.bat. From that moment on, all the actual free hard drive was displayed nicely, ALSO in Win-OS/2's File Manager.
Knowing this, I did open a Mantis ticket at ArcaNoae. Recommended putting that functionality in from the start. - Outcome: Next release version had this functionality included. No user needs this proprietary software anymore, being loaded in Autoexec.bat. - Cool. :D

Without the ticket, others would still stumble over that bug, need to ask how to solve it (or find my post).
Of course I wouldn't be able to open such a ticket without the paid subscription. So infact I am paying to report their bugs. Weird, isn't it? But not only does membership help bringing OS/2 a bit further into our current time by paying the annual fee, but also actively helps solving problems for others too, by opening tickets and therefore bringing bugs to ArcaNoae's attention.

56
General Discussion / Re: Future death of the personal computer?
« on: February 21, 2020, 11:06:41 pm »
Exactly.. cloud makes you pay to access your stuff.
Some cloud services are free to use, but then of course it might be taken away/offline all of sudden, once the hoster is no longer in business or willing to grant you access. - Does not even need to be your fault. - It`s enough to come from the wrong IP range.. like in my case some days ago.

Some brickheads at spamhaus thought that blocking my provider`s full IP range was a good idea, in order to block out the bad guys. Unfortuantely they blocked not only the bad guys apparently.. ;o

So.. what *I* do not like about the cloud is, that you might loose access to your data all of sudden. You do not have control. Only seems like it. Next day the data can be inaccessible for unforseeable reasons.. atleast for a limited time.

And of course in case of an application cloud.. they make you pay to access the stuff, you need... which is often more expensive than simply continuing to use the offline software version as long as it is supported.

Most offline software is still patched nicely for years and years. So why use the cloud version? Well.. 1) you always use the newest version and 2) no need to care about licenses, since your cloud management tool will also take care of this... you book x users for y hours/days..
And it might be cheaper to rent the software, cloud wise, for a short period of time versus buying the full offline product.
That goes, of course, only if you plan to use it for a short time..

But then again..
using cloud services always means taking the risk of ....
1) taking part in telemetry (or even data) collection or harvesting
2) being locked out when you are no longer wanted
3) being locked out in case of hard/software problems at the provider or the hoster
4) paying more than you might need to..

Of course running everything offline means, that YOU are also in charge of backing up everything yourself! Also the cloud hosted stuff mostly is highly available.. if one location fails, you can be sure the cloud switches access to another location, where everything is also duplicated to.
To have the same infrastructure in the same high availability can quickly get expensive..

So.. cloud is both.. good and bad thing at the same time..

57
Games / Re: DTA (DTAudio) and DOS Sound Blaster audio
« on: February 17, 2020, 11:46:53 am »
I think the problem is the missing "bridge" on the OS/2 side.

Just an assumption:
On the (virtual) DOS side, VSB translates from SB16 to... what? This then needs to be forwarded to an existing OS/2 driver.. like uniaud or something native to communicate with the actual sound chip.
As long as there is no such "bridge" from VSB (in a virtual DOS session) to Uniaud (or the likes), there might not be any sound being delivered to the actual sound chip.

58
Programming / Re: Manipulating a PM window from another program
« on: February 17, 2020, 11:34:39 am »
Unfortunately I cannot help on topic, but a side note: Please keep the shortcuts (close, minimise, maximise) in mind. Removing the buttons alone might not be enough.
I'm not that far into developing on OS/2 to know, but could be that if the buttons are gone, the shortcuts won't work either? - Not sure. - Just as a reminder..

59
Article Discussions / Re: Greatest keyboard of all time?
« on: February 15, 2020, 11:45:19 pm »
As of keyboards, I always found the Logitech G15 (first generation) and G19 VERY useful. It provides a small display for status, has live macro recording, offers lots and lots of macro keys, even in three presets.
Macros can either recorded or scripted via software. Even delays between key presses can be recorded.

Same goes for the G19, which is a macro keypad. - Same features as the G15, just that the G19 only has macro keys, and is an addon to regular keyboards.

Unfortunately the only USEFUL drivers for the Logitech G15 exist only for Windows.
Linux has rudimentary support for the G15 display, but nothing to record or script macros via these macro keys. :/
OS/2 not even has this rudimentary support. To OS/2 this is only a regular keyboard with no advanced functions at all...
So.. only Windows can use the full potential of this keyboard.

Logitech G19 support in other OSes than Windows is even worse... it is not supported at all in Linux or OS/2.

Maybe that would be something for a driver wishlist....

60
Article Discussions / Re: Community Ideas BrainStorm for 2020
« on: February 15, 2020, 11:32:12 pm »
True indeed. ; ) Getting hardware connected is hard enough on today`s hardware (in the lack of hardware connectors... like RS232 or Centronics connectors onboard (or even hard to get find expansion cards for PCIexpress).. but connecting these hardware into a virtual machine can be quite a challenge.

First of all the hardware itself needs to be connectable via bare metal, then needs to be forward`ble into such a virtual machine.. and that in a way the virtualised software can understand the input.

Currently our electrican has the problem that his old printer died.. physically. Now he could of course virtualise his computer and try to get a new USB printer and ``somehow`` via USB forward connect this new printer into a virtual machine... then somehow translate and inject this in the virtual LPT1... but WHO could possibly do such a thing... not an electican. And I also do not know how to solve this.

Or of course he could try to remain on bare metal.. and get a used old school printer (maybe even the same model as his old one)... but as time goes on, even these might show first sings of failure.. atleast this is not a solution that works forever, as the Centronics port already died many years ago.. and hardware makers do not implement that stuff anymore.. nor drivers for his old DOS 6.22/Win 3.1 machine.
So I thought, he could maybe change to ArcaOS, since OS/ 2 has better DOS than DOS, and a Windows 3.1 also! :D  -But  still.. not sure how DOS software would talk to today`s USB printers in ArcaOS... so maybe(?) also not a solution for him..

So.. maybe brainstorming for what`s needed in 2020... are translation drivers (wrappers?) to translate between the old and the new world.. sound cards, printers, scanners, etcetc..
For retro gaming I`d wish for something for OS/2 DOS sessions to (software based) fake an SB 16 or AWE32 (used to be ISA cards) and translate the stuff to the actual installed audio driver which connects to the actual sound chip. Luckily Lewis said, such a thing is already in development... atleast for audio..

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