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eComStation or Warp 4 for cheap

Started by fun500, 2009.03.20, 23:55:02

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fun500

I have an IBM Personal Computer 350, with video drivers for OS/2 on floppy. I would like to run OS/2 on it and probably other various hardware I own.
Does eComStation require more hardware than Warp 4 for background tasks?
Is there anywhere I can get eComStation for less than $220? Or should I use WARP 4?

The Blue Warper

If you've got an OS/2 Warp license, then you can purchase the upgrade to eComStation, which is cheaper than the full license version.  You get the same product, just with a different licensing entitlement.

Here you'll find some retailers:
http://www.ecomstation.com/where_purchase.phtml
http://www.ecomstation.biz/home.html

Hope this helps a bit.

fun500


Pete

Hi fun500

You may get lucky and find a copy of Warp - maybe even eCS - on ebay.

I have no idea what or how old the hardware involved is (IBM Personal Computer 350) so a bit difficult to guess whether Warp4 will suffice for your purposes - I suspect Warp4 will need a few updates applied though.

If you find that Warp4 does not "do the job" then would be a good time to look into upgrading to eCS.

Regards

Pete

fun500

It is maxed out with a 200Mhz P200MMX CPU, and all the ram I have for it, 64MB. What holds me back from getting eComStation is the price, $220?? Linux is free, Id rather use it, but I could see maybe $50 to try a different OS.

Pete

Hi

Warp4 + updates (fixpack 15? + device driver pack 3? + any odd updates) should work fine on that system. The trouble is finding a copy... which leads me back to you probably need to keep an eye on ebay.

I don't play with linux much these days and was surprised when reading some reviews of recent linux distros that a lot of them seem to need 128Mb RAM to be a useful system ie more than 1 app at a time. That seems to indicate you need to be careful about which linux you choose for older hardware with limited RAM.

Regards

Pete

fun500

Personally, I'm an OS guy, I've tried every OS I can get my hands on. And you are right, Linux really needs at least 128MB, to be useful (well unless your crazy and want to use DSL :P) On my everyday machine, I run Mac OS X. But I have a Desktop with Ubuntu Linux that I also use daily. Does eComStation still support Win3.1 apps and DOS apps running with OS/2 apps? This is something that would attract me to OS/2.

I am thinking id rather use eComStation because floppies are out of date and unreliable, which if nothing else would make install easier.

How much RAM does your OS/2 system have?

DougB

QuoteIt is maxed out with a 200Mhz P200MMX CPU, and all the ram I have for it, 64MB.

I have a PC350, that I have run warp4 on (it happens to have Win98 on it, at the moment, for various reasons).Warp 4 will run nicely in 64 MB, although more is always better. EComStation might have trouble installing with only 64 MB, because it creates a memory disk to boot from, when it does the install, which takes some room in memory. If you leave out a few of the fancy things, it will run fine in 64 MB, although trying to run some of the larger programs (Firefox 3.x comes to  mind), may cause some heavy paging activity, which slows things down, considerably.

QuoteHow much RAM does your OS/2 system have?

My new systems have 2 GiB of RAM. I have a memory monitor, that shows that I never actually use more than about 500 meg, unless I load up a virtual PC (using eCS 2.0 RC6a). I have managed to find enough memory, by scrounging from old systems, to get all of my systems up to, at least 128 MB, and that does make a significant difference (even for Win98). I would suggest, however, that you would want, at least, 128 MB, for warp4, or 192 MB for eCS, to use them effectively. Memory (up to about 500 MB) makes more difference, than anything else, for all operating systems (well, WinVista needs, at least 1 GiB, or it will run like molasses on a cold day). Check with friends, and relatives. Many people have older systems taking up storage space, and they tend to have useful parts, like hard disks, and memory sticks, that will, often be useful, in older systems.

QuoteDoes eComStation still support Win3.1 apps and DOS apps running with OS/2 apps?

Well, yes, and no. A PC350, running warp4, or eCS, will probably run DOS, and Win31, programs better than a machine running the real thing (you can run multiple DOS/Win31 programs, along with multiple OS/2 apps, although with only 64 MB of memory, that may not work too good). However, recently, with the new, high powered, multiple processor, machines, some problems have shown up. Sometimes those things work, and other times, they don't. There is, however, a cross platform program, called DOSBOX, that seems to work fine, and will run DOS programs (especially OLD games). I have never tried to get that to run Win31 though.

Hope this helps...

fun500

The IBM PC350 has 4 EDO RAM slots and a slot for an uncommon SDRAM format. EDO RAM in my experience is in low Pentiums and lower systems. So its hard to find it bigger amounts, my system came with 32MB, and I have quite a selection of hardware (30 systems presonally, last I counted), and I have the 4 biggest EDO Sticks I own.

I was hoping OS/2 would be a little more memory friendly, perhaps like Win3.1, except with more modern web apps.

DougB

You can fill all of the memory slots, even though the docs sort of indicate that you can't. You can also use larger than supported memory modules, although it will not use more than what is supported, on each module.

OS/2 is a lot more memory friendly than Win31, or any other version of windows, but the applications that you will, probably, want to use (like Firefox), have grown so large, that they won't fit in 64 meg, which means that they need to page in, and out, of memory to disk. That, of course, is system overhead, and, if it has to do that often enough, the system spends more time doing that, than running the program (a phenomenon known as "thrashing"). In fact Firefox 3.07 says it needs 512 meg of RAM, but it will actually run in much less, as long as you avoid the fancy web sites, and don't use plugins, or addons (I use it, in my old laptop, which only recently got bumped from 192 meg, to 256 meg). Recently, I saw that someone had tried the old Web Explorer (I think that is what it was called), that comes with warp4, and it still works, for limited browsing. That will run fine, in 64 meg, but it is not capable of viewing most of the new web sites, and, it will spend time paging in and out, which slows it down.

Bottom line is, that it isn't the OS that is the problem, it is the applications that require more memory, than what you have.

cyber

Ahem,  IBM's WebExplorer sucks, it is much better surf with Netscape 2.02 and 4.07 (or 4.7). Anyway both of them are free and with small memory need.  Also, If You find 64Mb not enough, You can try with any of shell raplacement available on Hobbes.  It will give You much more memory on start, altought You will lose some of GUI funtionality.  But hey Pi on 200 MHz with 64 Mb I have work enough fast for everything except for watching movies. :)

DougB

I think you are thinking of the Mozilla derivative, which was only slightly better than the real Mozilla, for a short while. I was referring to the old browser, that comes with warp 4, known as WebEx, but properly named WebExplorer. That existed, at about the time that Netscape was just getting started, and worked very well (still does, for simple text based web sites, with nothing fancy like CSS, or JAVA). In any case, anything older than about Firefox 1.0 is not going to be a pleasant experience on the web, today.

A shell replacement might buy you a few meg, but it isn't going to help enough to overcome the main problem, that the programs that are wanted, are way too big for 64 meg. They will, likely, work, but not well. 128 meg would work a lot better, but it is still too small for many programs to actually work satisfactorily. 192 meg seems to be usable, with a few restrictions, like avoiding large, fancy, web sites. Memory will make more difference to the way that any machine works, up to about 512 meg, then some other things, like disk speed, and disk cache size, take over. An old Pentium 200 Mhz machine has lots of power to do a credible job, but if you end up constantly paging to/from disk, it will not perform very well. Memory is the key, to avoiding that problem.

cyber

Quote from: DougB on 2009.03.23, 04:14:58
I think you are thinking of the Mozilla derivative, which was only slightly better than the real Mozilla, for a short while. I was referring to the old browser, that comes with warp 4, known as WebEx, but properly named WebExplorer. That existed, at about the time that Netscape was just getting started, and worked very well (still does, for simple text based web sites, with nothing fancy like CSS, or JAVA). In any case, anything older than about Firefox 1.0 is not going to be a pleasant experience on the web, today.

  Netscape Communicator was precedor of Mozzila, and Netscape Navigator was built few years before communicator. :)  They both are old, but can open much more pages than WebExplorer without drastic memory and speed needs.

Quote from: DougB on 2009.03.23, 04:14:58
A shell replacement might buy you a few meg, but it isn't going to help enough to overcome the main problem, that the programs that are wanted, are way too big for 64 meg. They will, likely, work, but not well. 128 meg would work a lot better, but it is still too small for many programs to actually work satisfactorily. 192 meg seems to be usable, with a few restrictions, like avoiding large, fancy, web sites. Memory will make more difference to the way that any machine works, up to about 512 meg, then some other things, like disk speed, and disk cache size, take over. An old Pentium 200 Mhz machine has lots of power to do a credible job, but if you end up constantly paging to/from disk, it will not perform very well. Memory is the key, to avoiding that problem.

  I mostly agree with You about memory dependencies, but I've personaly used FireFox up to 2.0.0.5 (FF optimised for /2 is even better, but I've have problems to got some plugins to work) with 128Mb RAM on W4 without any swap file.  Just stay in up to 5 tabs, and there is no problem problem with memory for several days. Then just restart FF and 80Mb will be free. :)