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Messages - Fahrvenugen

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16
Applications / Re: ArcaOS panic
« on: May 27, 2020, 11:40:25 pm »
Yes, it is probably something with vsio causing the crash.  I'd boot to a command prompt and REM it out.

Also I'm not sure if you're using the original SIO or SIO2K (s2kv202 on hobbes).  The sio2k allows for a lot more virtual or real serial ports, if I recall you can set up as many as 256 serial ports with sio2k (either real or virtual) and turn all of those ports into telnet ports via vmodem.  It is tricky to get it set up and working, you'll have to use a configuration file for this, but it can be done.  I can recall years ago setting up a test Maximus BBS system with the potential for something like 25 incoming connections. 


17
Off Topic discussions / Re: COBOL revived
« on: April 12, 2020, 12:09:51 am »
Pete, you never know, you just might be able to dial into that mainframe in New Jersey to help them out.  Time to dust off the old 300 baud Hayes!


18
Applications / Re: DOS VDM and Win-OS2 Fans ?
« on: March 22, 2020, 11:06:26 pm »
I think seamless all depends on the hardware and resolution that you have.  I have one machine it works fine on and another that seamless does not work (both running SNAP).  I admit that it never occurred to me that one might be a different resolution then the other, I'll have to check that.

For me the Windows apps that I find myself using most include Wordperfect 6.1 for Windows (with the WPS add-on extensions) and Pagemaker 5.

For must-have, the 2 things I generally always install in WinOS/2 are Win32s version 1.25a (the latest one to work with OS/2) and the Video for Windows runtime update.  While I admit that not a lot uses the Win32s stuff, I do find that there are a lot of video files that won't play without the VFW runtime.

For DOS, I think my most creative use is at an FM radio transmitter site to generate RDS data.  At one site I have an old RDS-ISA card used to generate RDS data.  Its "remote" capability consisted of communications over a serial port with DOS software to make it work.  When it is run on a straight bare bones DOS machine it is also very picky about CPU speeds, the hardware it runs on, and system timing.  I wanted to give it the capability of having its dynamic text updated over a network connection.  So with the help of OS/2 (Warp 3 Connect to be precise), Ray Gwinn's SIO driver, and some REXX scripting I was able to make a system that grabbed my needed data via REXX and then bounce it through to the DOS serial port as RDS radiotext data.  It works like a charm.  It also ran fine on the first machine (an old P3 with an ISA port and Warp 3) that I tried it on, despite the fact that the manufacturer of that card told me I'd probably have trouble making it work on anything faster then a 486 (when I was given the card it came from a 386).  It has been rock-solid stable for about 8 years now.

19
General Discussion / Re: OS/2 Article on Ars Technica
« on: December 02, 2019, 04:23:23 pm »
Ian,

I also did a lot of Windows 95 and 98 support back in the day, lots of trying to figure out issues that didn't work as expected, random crashes, and more.

OS/2, especially Warp 3 - sometimes would be a challenge to get it initially installed and running.  Once up and running (and after at least Fixpak 5 had been installed) it was solid. I can recall being asked one time how OS/2 was working for me.  My reply was something along the lines of "It works, it is still working.  By the way I have not rebooted due to a crash yet" (note that I did reboot due to having both Warp and Windows available via Boot Manager).

Of course I will qualify the above with the note that Fixpak 17 was a bit of a exception, while it introduced some significant features (such as the initial SIQ fix) it also caused some instabilities that had to be worked around.  Fortunately those issues were fixed in a subsequent fixpak.


20
General Discussion / Re: OS/2 Article on Ars Technica
« on: November 29, 2019, 11:15:26 pm »
Not a bad article, mostly accurate but a few things I'd disagree with.  In particular

I'd strongly disagree with the claim that Windows 95 was faster, smoother, and crashed less then Warp on the same hardware.  I recall having Windows 95 and Warp 3 on the same system with boot manager and I found the opposite to be true - Warp (running on HPFS) ran smoother and almost never crashed, yet Windows 95 would frequently give me a BSOD and / or make me wait for things to happen.  But I will also point out that both systems were picky about hardware drivers.   When I had issues with Warp crashing I'd frequently find it was related to a bad driver.  I recall I had an ATI video card and an ESS-chipset sound card - both of which would be troublesome if using the stock drivers that came with OS/2.  Using the updated drivers from ATI and ESS fixed many problems (not to mention using drivers such as SIO for the serial port) .   But to be fair the stock drivers that came with Win95 for this hardware didn't work well either until the manufacturer's updated drivers were installed.  And Microsoft's stock serial port driver in Wind95 didn't work very well either.  In retrospect both OSes had issues in this area.

In my view the biggest benefit that Windows 95 had was Microsoft's bundling agreements and the per-processor license agreements which eventually became the subject of antitrust actions.  Microsoft presented Win95 as the upgrade path to Dos/Win3.1 while leveraging their OEM contracts to lock vendors into paying for licenses for every computer shipped, even computers shipped with someone else's OS (or no OS at all).  Then to kill additional competition they offered MS Office license add-ons for low costs that other software vendors couldn't compete with.  This more then anything is what killed other OSes from gaining any foothold in the x86 market. 

I'd also disagree with the claim that early versions of NT were stable and fault tolerant and did everything advertised, that isn't what I recall of my early experiences with NT.  I'd suggest that NT didn't really become the product it needed to be with regards to stability and usability until NT version 4, and even that didn't start to shine until after a service pack or two.  Although I will give props to NT 3.5 which was almost there.  Of course this is one of those things which could be debated.

I'd agree that the failure of the PPC and the PPC port of OS/2 did significant damage to OS/2.  IBM put a ton of money into that project and it was a huge failure.

Overall not a bad overview of the history.


21
Setup & Installation / Re: Trying to solve server crash
« on: November 18, 2019, 09:38:03 pm »
Ben,

If it has been running for a while with XFolder without problems, then it is unlikely to be an issue there.  Over the years with OS/2 I've generally found that OS and software problems normally turn up fairly quickly, they don't normally just show up after a long time of stability.  But if that was the last major change made then certainly remove it and see if the problem fixes itself.

One thing to check though - make sure you've got free space on your drives, especially the one that the swap file is on.

Also - you mentioned this is running as a server.  Check log file sizes on any server software that you're running.  I recall once I had a situation where a MySQL server started crashing - eventually I figured out that the log that MySQL kept had become too big.  After deleting the log file (and I think I tweaked the configuration file to limit the log size or something) the stability came back.

You could also try running checkini on the system - just in case it is something wrong with the ini files.  Before you do this make a backup of your files just in case  something goes wrong.

And as previously mentioned, make sure that logdaem.exe and errlog.dll are not corrupted.

Just checking a few things, logdaem.exe is part of the first failure support technology diagnostic stuff, you could try REMing it out of your config.sys and see if the problem goes away.  I admit that after some googling I'm not finding a lot on logdaem.exe, but there is one article  suggesting it isn't really needed for everyday use and to try REMing it out.

I still am not willing to rule out power supply and / or hardware issues.  FFST could be picking up a hardware problem and throwing the error with logdaem catching it for display/logging.  I've also found that a lot of times when a system is completely locked up (3 finger salute, mouse, keyboard, all don't work) and the problem just starts happening after years of stability, those are the situations where I've often found a hardware issue to explain it.

Not sure if any of this will help.


22
Setup & Installation / Re: Trying to solve server crash
« on: November 15, 2019, 05:01:49 pm »
Only you know how old your system is and if you've used the cheapest parts or ones with better quality. F.i. if you're running a 2 years old Lenovo or HP standard system probability of failing power supply (capacitors) is much lower as when you're running a 15 years old server build up from the cheapest components available at ebay or alibaba.

Hi,

I'm not trying to cause a big debate here, but just about 2 months ago I had to replace a bunch of failing capacitors on a 4 year old HP enterprise-grade sever.  I also just took some 5 year old HP desktop machines out of service which have capacitors showing signs of failure.

Poor quality capacitors are still a problem.

23
Setup & Installation / Re: Trying to solve server crash
« on: November 13, 2019, 09:19:33 pm »
Also when you're looking inside the system, have a look at the capacitors on the motherboard.  If any are showing signs of bulging or leaking, this is a good indication for the cause of a crash.  If this is the case then spend some money on new capacitors and replace them (or find someone who's good with a soldering iron and see if they'll replace them for you).


24
Applications / Re: Polarbar Mailer
« on: October 03, 2019, 09:12:26 pm »
I admit that I wish the source for PostRoad Mailer had been made available.  It was my preferred email app back in the day and I'd love to see the source become available for updating.

Does anyone know if Dan Porter is still around and if he'd be willing to open the source (presuming he still has it)?  I recall at one point he was open to the idea.  At this point I have no idea if he even still has the source code.

25
Hi,

It is probably a combination of 2 things.

First, if you have one of the original shipping releases of Warp 3 red spine (floppy version), the original release shipped with bad IDE and CD drivers that didn't work properly.  I recall a few days of frustration when I first got Warp 3 back in the day, until I called IBM and they pointed me in the direction of the fix.  You'll need to create updated install disks (with tweaked config.sys) using files from the warpinst.exe package.

Second, I think it is correct that Virtualbox may not support the XDF format.  You might be able to get around this - I recall back in the day there was an article I read somewhere about how to create a Warp 3 installation CD if you had the floppy XDF version - if I recall it involved extracting the disks to a hard disk and then burning a CD, then using the 2 boot floppies to get to the point where Warp recognized the CD and you could then run the install from the CD.  Don't ask me where this article might be found - it was a long time ago.  If I were to try and do this now I'd likely just start with one my copies of Warp that came on a CD rather then trying to mess with the floppies.

On another note, I still have a Warp 3 (red spine) install running in a production capacity.  For several reasons it is still probably my favourite release.



26
Setup & Installation / Re: Warp 3 with WINOS2
« on: September 10, 2019, 11:44:33 pm »
Hi,

If you have Windows 3.1 disks (or the install disks on a CD) it is not all that difficult to make it work after an OS/2 Warp3 red spine install.

First get Warp 3 running on (preferably) an HPFS partition. Install with a standard VGA video driver, do NOT install any video beyond standard VGA or you will have issues (don't worry - you can install a better driver later once you get it up and running)

Second, grab the wsetup utility from Hobbes:

http://hobbes.nmsu.edu/download/pub/windows/wsetup14.zip

Wsetup will essentially extract all the needed Windows 3.1 files into the appropriate folders on your hard disk.  It runs in a DOS box.  You'll need to tell it where your Windows 3.1 source files are and I think it asks where you want to have it installed on your hard disk (although I admit that it has been a while since I have run this).

Once it has extracted the needed Windows 3.1 source files to your hard disk, exit your dos box and run Selective Install.  You should then have the option to install the WinOS/2 stuff.  Select that option and let Selective Install do its thing - you'll probably need your Windows 3.1 install disks again as it'll probably ask for them.

Next reboot - after reboot you should be able to get into a full screen WinOS/2 session.  Once there in Program Manager (you won't initially see any icons) create the icons - from Program Manager chose File --> Run --> type SETUP /p

That should create your icons in program manager, go ahead and start something up and see if it works.

Exit out of your WinOS/2 session and now you should be able to run the "migrate programs" (or whatever that app is called that searches for stuff and creates icons on your desktop), this should create seamless WinOS/2 icons on your desktop.  Also go ahead and try a seamless session.  It should work.

At this point you'll want to install some updates - Fixpak 40 for Warp 3, after Fixpak 40 you should be able to get SNAP (or another video driver) working (and it'll probably work with WinOS/2), you can also install Win32s version 1.25, plus the Video for Windows update.  Note that Win32s does require a later fixpak.  Be sure to reboot after a fixpak install and / or video driver install.  Also if I recall correctly if you install Win32s 1.25 it won't work properly until after you reboot - it relies on a driver that gets loaded upon boot.






27
Events / Re: Do not forget: Spock (Leonard Nimoy) introduced OS/2 Warp
« on: August 30, 2019, 04:35:05 pm »
Why didn't IBM ship OS/2 with its own computer models? 

As has been pointed out by a few people here, IBM most definitely did ship its own computer models with OS/2.  I can recall press releases from when Warp 3 came out talking about how there was a policy at IBM to offer OS/2 pre-loaded on any of its PC's that it sold.  There was also the selection system where OS/2 along with DOS - Windows was on IBM systems and you could pick the one you wanted upon boot/setup (and if you'd picked one you could later switch, but that option was not always clear in the documentation - many people thought that once they'd picked Dos-Windows they could not then go to OS/2).

For those who bought a desktop or laptop directly from IBM the sales representative would ask if you wanted OS/2 or Dos-Windows.

I think it is also worth pointing out that IBM did initially have some success marketing Warp 3 - even after Windows 95 had been released.  There was the TV campaign (the commercial with the Nuns is the one most people remember), but even more successful then that and often overlooked was the Just Add Warp campaign.  It came out just shortly after the release of Windows 95 and was promoted heavily.  If you called IBM they'd mail you the disks, or for those who were online you could download it (via FTP if on the internet or it was also available through the various services such as Compuserve and all the BBSes that were around in those days).

Just Add Warp was actually a decent campaign and won several awards.  It contained a Windows 3.1 app (which also ran under Win95) which would check your system's hardware and tell you if your system could run Warp.  Checking hard drive space, memory, CPU, graphics, sound, etc.  It had a OS/2 Warp demo showing the benefits of Warp.  It also had a number of help files which walked you through some of the benefits of OS/2 over running Windows, how to install OS/2 on the system containing Windows 95, how to remove Win95 from your system if you chose to do so, OS/2 tips and tricks, and more.

It also had a dual-boot app that - if you had Windows 95 and OS/2 installed on the same FAT partition it would put on each desktop the dual-boot app to allow you to boot to the other.  For those running OS/2 along side Windows 95 it also had a "long file name conversion utility" which would map Win95's long file names to OS/2 EA's - so that when you looked at a file's object in WPS you'd see the long file name.

For a brief time IBM claimed that the Just Add OS/2 Warp kit was its most requested and most downloaded software from IBM.  In January of 1996 IBM claimed that for the month of December OS/2 Warp 3 was the best selling software on the market - outselling boxed Windows 95 (not counting OEM installs) according to one of the organizations that monitored software sales.

Unfortunately it was not to last.  Microsoft had a huge foothold through the OEM installs.  At IBM with the failure of the PPC and PPC version of OS/2 IBM made significant cuts to their PSP division.  Upper management at IBM decided to focus OS/2 more on the business market and mostly abandoned the consumer market. 

28
Applications / Re: WordPerfect for Windows 6.1 OS/2 tools
« on: August 27, 2019, 04:18:45 pm »
These days I don't use FTP all that much, but I recall when I used Warp 3 there was one I had installed which once connected to a site it presented everything as if it was a folder / object.  You could just drag and drop the files you wanted or an entire folder to your system and it would grab everything in the background.  It worked great, especially if you wanted to create a mirror of entire FTP sites and such.

I agree that it is impressive that Corel has kept this content online and all in one place - especially when a pile of this stuff predates Corel owning the software (some of this stuff is Novell and some SSI).

29
Applications / Re: WordPerfect for Windows 6.1 OS/2 tools
« on: August 27, 2019, 05:59:46 am »
I just found the "official" location for the tools, direct from Corel.

ftp://ftp.corel.com/pub/WordPerfect/wpwin/61/os261.exe

That's for the US English version and WordPerfect 6.0a or 6.1.  They also have a copy of the patch for other language versions of WordPerfect for Windows 3.1, along with a variety of other patches and utilities at

ftp://ftp.corel.com/pub/WordPerfect/wpwin/61/




30
Applications / Re: WordPerfect for Windows 6.1 OS/2 tools
« on: August 26, 2019, 11:28:29 pm »
Hi,

The patch / OS/2 tools for Wordperfect 6.1 works fine on JFS or HPFS, the only issue is that it needs to use the 8.3 file names.  Of course this is no different from any Win3.x application.

Otherwise I recently installed it on ArcaOS and had no difficulty.

I agree that the quick launch app isn't needed any more and I would not bother with it.   Back in the day - when machines didn't have gigs of memory and it would take some time for Win3.1 apps to start up it was helpful.  But today for most systems starting a Win3.x app is extremely quick, so there isn't really a benefit to running quicklaunch.

Otherwise I quite appreciate the efforts that Novel put into making sure that WordPerfect 6.1 ran well under OS/2 and had a few extra enhancements that were otherwise not available.


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