OS/2 2.0 on the Gateway 2000

By Jackson Desmukes.

Good evening,

I would like to pass on my installation experience with the GATEWAY2000, and the ATI Ultra Pro Graphics card in combination with OS/2 2.0.

I have the GATEWAY2000, 4DX2-66V. The graphics card is the ATI Ultra Pro, local bus graphics card.

The OS/2 installation procedure is "LOOKING" for a VGA card equivalent to the IBM 8514 graphics adapter. The ATI Ultra Pro graphics card, as shipped from the GATEWAY2000 factory is operating at a much higher performance level than the 8514 graphics card operates at.

The OS/2 installation works in two parts. The first part of the installation is the basic operating system installation. The second part of the installation, boots the installed OS/2 base and proceeds to allow further software installation and customization. The factory settings for the ATI Ultra Pro graphics card will work with the base OS/2 install. However, when OS/2 proceeds to boot itself for the second part of the OS/2 installation, all visuals will collapse into edge to edge screen noise. The second part of the installation is looking for an 8514 compatible VGA card. After talking with the GATEWAY2000 and IBM support reps, I finally hit on the sequence of events that will allow OS/2 to be installed on this combination of hardware.

1.- Prepare a bootable DOS floppy. You will need it. My Gateway2000 system came with DOS-6 and the 'A' drive is a 3.5 inch drive. I formatted a 3.5 inch floppy with the "/S" option, and copied command.com to the floppy, along with a modified DOS config.sys and autoexec.bat file.

2.- Insert the ATI Ultra Pro graphics diskette into drive 'A'. Switch to drive 'A'. Type 'Install'.
 * When the ATI menu comes up on the screen, the first item highlighted will be 'SET POWER-UP CONFIGURATION'
 * Press the 'ENTER' key to 'OPEN' this item. On the next menu, the first item highlighted will be 'MONITOR TYPE'
 * Press the 'ENTER' key to 'OPEN' this item. On the last menu, use the 'down' arrow key until the item 'VGA OR PS/2' is highlighted.
 * Press the 'ENTER' key to accept this item. Save the configuration and get out of the ATI application.

3.- Insert the OS/2 installation disk and follow the OS/2 installation procedures. OS/2 will eventually boot itself and you can complete the second part of the installation. When the second part of the installation has completed, OS/2 will try to boot itself again to bring up the 'INSTALLED' OS/2 system. The hard drive will cycle for a few seconds, the screen will go to white and every thing will stop.

4.- Insert your bootable floppy into the 'A' drive and reboot. After DOS has come up, insert the ATI Ultra Pro graphics diskette into the 'A' drive. Switch to drive 'A'. Work down through the menus as described in step two. Pick the CrystalScan 1024 x 768 option and save the settings.

5.- After you have exited the ATI setup, reboot your machine. OS/2 should come up and be ready for use.

Hopes this helps.

Jackson Desmukes.