OS/2 Warp Monthly Newsletter. Volume 4 - September 1995
OS/2 WARP MONTHLY NEWSLETTER
VOLUME 4: SEPTEMBER, 1995
Welcome to the OS/2 Warp Monthly Newsletter
This issue of the OS/2 Warp Monthly Newsletter focuses on the time-honored September ritual of going back to school. Students around the world mourn the close of summer while getting their books, supplies and clothes prepared to start the school year. For me, September is a nostalgic time. At the risk of sounding like an old geezer, I will say that things sure have changed since my years in school.
When I took my first computer course in college, I learned FORTRAN, typed my programs on keypunch machines and patiently waited my turn for the computer operator to load my card deck into the IBM 1140. This was hardly state-of-the-art for the late 1970's but I went to a small, liberal arts college where computer classes were somewhat of an afterthought, even for us math majors. To get to the state-of-the-art computer at a nearby engineering school, I used a teletype machine that accessed a powerful DEC machine (at least it seemed powerful at the time). By the time I graduated, the computer lab was stocked with about 10 Apple IIs and more and more students were signing up for computer classes (even a few Philosophy and Sociology majors). It's hard to believe that 10 personal computers, an IBM 1140 and a few DEC-connected teletype terminals handled the computing needs of an entire campus of 1000 students. It's amazing to think that now a personal computer is as critical a supply as a typewriter was when I was in school.
After reading over the above paragraph, I realize that I do sound like an old geezer. Come to think of it, even the term 'old geezer' is one typically used by old geezers.
Anyway, in this issue of the newsletter, several of our sections reflect our back-to-school theme. Maxine Senn-Yuen had some fun with the theme and looked at college and university web sites, but only those that also offer an OS/2 page. We also offer more than our usual fare of technical articles. For example, Jerome Yuzyk takes an in-depth look at OS/2's High Performance File System and we offer some tips on using OS/2 LAN Server in a heterogeneous environment. In addition we cover two Beta offerings, one from Hilgraeve for bulletin board Sysops and one from IBM for game developers. Speaking of games, did you know that the TD-Gammon game included in the IBM Family FunPak is based on a neural network? So we even looked at the technical side of one of our game offerings.
I hope you enjoy this issue| Thanks for your continued support.
Jeri Dube
IBM Call Coordinator/2 and DirectTalk/2
by Maxine Senn-Yuen
IBM is the industry leader in Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) and Interactive Voice Response (IVR) solutions. CTI and IVR are technologies which allow you to link your telephone system to your computers. These technologies can improve your customer service by allowing you to expand your hours of operation and making response times faster. IBM's CallPath and DirectTalk family of voice processing products enable companies to enhance productivity and service quality while reducing the costs of providing that service.
An Integrated Voice/Data Solution for OS/2 Users
DirectTalk/2 is an IVR product which lets businesses provide an automated response to customers 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Its complementary product, CallPath CallCoordinator/2, is a CTI product for integrating voice and data technologies. Both products have APIs which allow users to program customized business applications to meet their specific needs.
When combined, Call Coordinator/2 and DirectTalk/2 provide a fully integrated CTI/IVR system. In such a system, DirectTalk/2 serves as a front-end to your voice/data system and handles the routine calls which make up the majority of incoming calls to a typical business. For example, it allows customers to:
- inquire about business hours and services
- check rates and prices
- schedule appointments
- place orders
- verify schedules
- confirm account balances
- leave voice messages.
If necessary, DirectTalk/2 can also transfer the call and its associated data (such as the customer's account number and payment history) to Call Coordinator/2. Call Coordinator/2 will then direct the call and its data to the appropriate agent for further processing or action.
It's noteworthy to mention that IBM offers a CallPath DirectTalk/2 Pack. The Pack contains all the hardware, software and applications you need to plan, develop, execute and maintain your voice or data solution. In short, it makes your voice processing system easier to implement.
How CallCoordinator/2 and DirectTalk/2 Work in the Real World
IBM CallPath products produce excellent results when implemented. For example, food processing giant Nabisco uses DirectTalk/2 to help with employee scheduling. When Nabisco employees can't make it to work, they call into the IVR system and are prompted to enter their clock number and social security number either through their telephone keypad or voice recognition. When the system has verified their identity, the employees choose an appropriate absence code from a menu that includes illness, death in the family, accident and so on. The process is completed after they key in their expected return date to work.
Nabisco supervisors access this information on-line in order to create work schedules. The system lets the supervisors view staffing prior to the start of the shift, determine who will be absent, and schedule the necessary coverage. As a result, the company has streamlined its workforce, and saved clerical labor costs with the elimination of manual record-keeping.
OS/2 Makes it Possible
CallPath OS/2 products achieve these results by tapping the underlying power of OS/2. Computer telephony applications need to deal with information quickly, in real time. The phone rings, and the agent must answer the call while retrieving information from their database. OS/2's multitasking and multithreading capabilities make it possible to develop applications that can handle these real-time events. With OS/2's multitasking and multithreading, DirectTalk/2 can control 48 telephone lines simultaneously. They also enable CallPath products to run multiple voice applications at the same time on the same computer.
For more information about IBM CallPath/DirectTalk products, visit http://www.raleigh.ibm.com/cti/ctiover.html
Review: PMJPEG
by Maxine Senn-Yuen
PMJPEG is an image viewer and converter created and offered as shareware by brothers Norm and Ken Yee of Pixel Vision Software. It is a native 32-bit PM application that operates quite well even with limited system resources.
PMJPEG can display images in a variety of file formats including JPEG, TIFF, GIF, Targa, PCX, Windows BMP, OS/2 BMP, or PPM. It can export images into all of these formats as well. Its support of GIF and JPEG images makes PMJPEG an excellent viewer for images downloaded from the Internet. You can display your graphic to fill the entire screen, its actual size or scaled to whatever size you want. You can also print the image properly proportioned to fit on the size paper you're using, or to fill the whole page regardless of the original size.
This software is more than just a fancy image viewer. It can also perform some pretty sophisticated graphic functions, such as:
- Hue, saturation and brightness adjustment
- Color to grayscale conversion
- Image negative conversion
- Contrast enhancement, and
- Gamma correction.
If words like "dithering" mean nothing to you, then you probably won't ever use all of PMJPEG's graphic enhancement capabilities. But it's nice to know they're there.
Graphics manipulation is another key feature in PMJPEG. This software allows you to rotate, flip and crop images to suit your needs. This is handy for viewing oversized images that can't fit on your screen. It's also great for editing Insignificant Others out of your favorite photos. You can then create slideshows of your best pictures, and display them in forward, reverse, or random order. You can capture a window, the client area of a window, or any portion of the desktop and save it in any of the file formats listed above using PMJPEG. Many of the graphics that appear in this newsletter were captured or converted using this software.
To download the latest version of PMJPEG, go to ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/PV/PVS/pmjpg173.zip. The shareware registration fee is $25.
Product Tips
Using OS/2 LAN Server in a Heterogeneous Environment
OS/2 LAN Server 4.0 is an easy-to-install and easy-to-administer network operating system for LANs of every size. Since its debut in September 1994, the product has earned accolades for its reliability, usability, stability and performance from customers and the press. Another reason for LAN Server's acclaim is its ability to support a complete range of clients, including OS/2, DOS, Windows and Macintosh. This capability is best illustrated by an example.
Consider a hypothetical Department Resource Sharing Environment in which users casually share files and printers in a workgroup setting. In the real world, this environment frequently exists in small businesses, or in a department within a large corporation. LAN Server 4.0 Entry is the ideal network operating system for this environment because it enables users to print anywhere on the LAN and share files between workstations. It also saves money because the server machine can double as a workstation at the same time. And because LAN Server products handle mixed clients with ease, LAN administrators will experience few headaches when setting up this environment.
- Installing Macintosh Clients
For Macintosh users to access OS/2 LAN Server resources, OS/2 LAN Server for Macintosh (LSM) is required. LSM is a separate product from OS/2 LAN Server, and is compatible with OS/2 LAN Server 2.0, 3.0 and 4.0. In order for LSM to work with OS/2 LAN Server 4.0, you will also need the LSMMOD9 fixpack which is part of the LSMACFIX package available from IBM Support.
You don't need to install additional products on the Macintosh workstation. You only need to install LSM on the OS/2 LAN Server 4.0 and then apply the LSMMOD9 fixes. Here are the installation steps:
- Insert the LSM diskette in the drive, and type A:\LSMINST
- Extra care is advised when you get to the "LAN Adapter Selection" menu. Many new Token-Ring and Ethernet cards are not represented on this panel because they have come to market since
LSM was released. The safest way to get this item correct is to do the following:
- Select "Other" to get the panel where you can key in a value.
- Using an editor or browser, look at \IBM\PROTOCOL.INI
- Find the NETBEUI_nif stanza. Find the "Bindings = " line in this stanza.
- Key in the value found in step 5 in the LSM "Other" entry panel.
- After the installation program has completed, do not reboot the machine. Instead, stop the server by entering NET STOP SERVER /Y
- Put the LSMMOD9 CSD in the drive and make this drive your current drive. Execute the command A:\LSMREPL C D where C is the drive on which LAN Server 4.0 and LSM are installed, and D
is the OS/2 boot drive.
- Reboot your machine
You will then need to configure the software on your Macintosh. For example, if you're using Ethernet:
- Go to the Macintosh Main panel. Press and hold the mouse button over the Apple symbol until a menu appears.
- Select the Control Panels option from the menu.
- Open the Network window from the Control Panels Window.
- Choose your network option. In our case, it would be "EtherTalk."
OS/2 LAN Server for Macintosh is now installed, and you can access the server from your Macintosh computer.
- Hints and Tips on Macintosh Clients
After LSM is installed, any Macintosh workstation can access the OS/2 LAN Server through the Macintosh Chooser. The Mac user can log in and select shared file volumes from the same set that an OS/2 user sees with NET VIEW \\Server.
LSM supports Macintosh long file names. If a Macintosh filename does not meet the restrictions of the OS/2 file system in use (HPFS or FAT), the name is "translated" before the file is stored on OS/2. The Macintosh users will always see the file with its original full name. You can also log on to OS/2 LAN Server 4.0 using a long Macintosh user name of up to 31 characters. LSM can be configured with up to 31 characters of the Macintosh user name as an alias for an eight-character user ID on OS/2 LAN Server.
A Macintosh user logging on to LSM uses the same password as defined to LAN Server. LSM supports clear text and encrypted passwords using the methods built into the Macintosh client. If a Macintosh user changes his or her password from the Mac, the change is also effective for that ID used on an OS/2, DOS or Windows client.
- Installing Windows for Workgroups Clients
You don't need any additional software besides LAN Server 4.0 to integrate Windows for Workgroups clients. Simply install Windows for Workgroups on your client machine, and make the following changes:
- Open the Control Panel window in the Main program group.
- Open the Microsoft Windows Network window and change the Workgroups field to a valid OS/2 LAN Server 4.0 domain name
- Click the Startup button. In the Startup Settings panel, mark the Log On to Windows NT or LAN Manager Domain option. Fill in the Domain Name field with the LAN Server domain you used in step 2.
You can now access the OS/2 LAN Server 4.0 from the Windows for Workgroups client as a regular user.
- Hints and Tips on Windows for Workgroups Clients
After logging on to Windows for Workgroups, a Domain Logon window will appear. This is where you can log on to the OS/2 LAN Server domain if you choose. It's important to remember that you will need to have an identical user ID on the OS/2 LAN Server to log on there. If your user ID is not registered with LAN server, you may still be able to access some of the server's resources using GUEST account privileges.
You should also be aware that Windows for Workgroups doesn't understand the LAN Server alias concept. This means that when you connect to a LAN Server resource, you must use the resource's Universal Naming Convention (UNC) name ›\\servername\netname (sharename)!, and not its alias name. Using UNC names, a sample NET USE command in a logon script would read: NET USE X: \\SERVER1\APPS
If you have proper access permission, you can use shared file and printer resources on the LAN Server domain using either NET USE or the Windows for Workgroup's File Manager/Printer Manager. However, if you use the Printer Manager facility, you will also have to install the appropriate printer driver locally.
These are just two examples of OS/2 LAN Server's interoperability with heterogeneous clients. For more detailed information on installing, using and administering LAN Server in a variety of environments, order the Redbook "Inside OS/2 LAN Server 4.0" from your local IBM branch office. In the U.S. you can order the Redbook (publication number GG24-4428-00) by calling 1-800-879-2755.
For more information on OS/2 LAN Server products, visit http://www.austin.ibm.com/pspinfo/lansrvr.html
Making IBM Works Work For You
by Maxine Senn-Yuen
IBM Works is a complete, integrated set of productivity and office automation applications included in the BonusPak for OS/2 Warp. It includes a word processor, spreadsheet, database, charting tool, report writer and personal information manager (PIM). IBM Works is easy to use, yet powerful enough for the most demanding corporate and small business users. The key to tapping its power is to invest a little time in learning some of its many shortcuts and time-saving features.
- Customize, Customize, Customize
The quickest way to become more productive with IBM Works is to create and use templates. Templates are standardized versions of frequently-used documents, such as letterhead stationary. If you use a template as the basis for a document, whatever changes you make will be saved to a completely new document while the template remains intact.
Creating templates for your IBM Works documents is simple. Any document can be changed to a template in four simple steps:
- Drag the document to your desktop
- Open the document's settings
- Choose the tab titled General Page
- Click the template check box
The document's icon will then change to a template icon, which vaguely resembles a yellow sticky pad. To use your template, simply drag the icon to your desktop and double-click to open.
One of the most useful templates to have is letterhead. If you create a letterhead template, you will always have formatted, pre-printed stationary at your fingertips. To create a custom letterhead, open a new document and type in your name (or company name), address and phone number. You may also want to include a fax number, e-mail address and whatever other information you think is appropriate. Choose a font and color which reflects your personal style or corporate image. It's customary to use a different typeface for the company name than for the address or body. If you want something a little more flamboyant than 18-point Helvetica Bold, then I recommend ITC Avant Garde Gothic Bold Italic or Zapf Chancery Bold for the company name.
If you'd like to include a logo or graphic on your letterhead, then choose Import Picture under the File menu. Size and position your graphic the way you like by dragging it with the mouse. To change the way the text wraps around your graphic, double-click on the graphic with the right mouse button. Then choose the More button and select your text-wrap preference. Finally, make your letterhead a template by following the four steps outlined above.
To see how your complete letterhead will look when printed, simply click the magnifying glass button on the scrollbar.
You may also want to create a matching envelope for your letterhead. To do so, simply make a copy of the letterhead you just created, and change the Page Setup to Other. Make your page size 9.5" by 4.5" for a standard number 10 business envelope or adjust for whatever size envelope you use. Then change the page orientation to Landscape. Depending on the font size and graphic you used in your letterhead, you may also need to adjust the font sizes and layout a bit. Don't forget to make your envelope a template.
IBM Works comes with a great selection of ready-to-use templates, including templates for memos, fax cover sheets, sales forecasts, invoices, corporate balance sheets and more.
- Complete Graphics Capability
With IBM Works, you can create documents and pictures using as many different colors as your monitor and video card support. You can also create your own graphics without having to switch to another application. IBM Works includes a complete set of drawing tools in each of its applications. Simply choose Draw Palette from the View menu, and a floating palette with all your drawing tools will appear on your screen. You can anchor the toolbar in a fixed spot by clicking on the thumbtack icon in the right corner. The drawing tools allow you to express your artistic impulses without being limited by your application's capabilities.
If you prefer to use commercial clipart instead of drawing your own, IBM Works can import pictures in BMP, GIF, MAC, PCX, TIFF and other popular formats. To import a picture select File from the menu bar and then Import Picture. Choose the graphic format you wish to import and then select the file name from the dialog box.
- Drag-and-Drop Printing, Faxing and Merging
IBM Works also supports a host of drag-and-drop functions. You can drag and drop your documents to the printer object, fax object or shredder to perform the corresponding task. You can also drag-and-drop between IBM Works applications. For example, to embed a spreadsheet with quarterly sales results in a memo to your sales reps, simply highlight the relevant cells in your spreadsheet and drag them to your memo. To link the information pasted in your memo so that changes made in the source spreadsheet are reflected in the memo, simply press the CTRL+SHIFT keys while you drag-and-drop the spreadsheet information.
You can also use drag-and-drop to perform mail-merges. Just drag individual names or entire contact lists from the Phone Book to an open document or document icon containing merge fields. They then become "attached" to that document. When you're ready to print your document, drag it to the printer object. IBM Works will automatically do a mail merge as it prints.
Similarly, if your contact lists have fax numbers, IBM Works will automatically find them (by looking for the words "fax" or "facsimile") and create a fax distribution list for the document. To fax the document to everyone on that list, simply drag it to your fax object. Creating a fax distribution list has never been easier|
- Compatible with Other Applications
IBM Works allows you to use files created by a wide variety of word processors, spreadsheets and database applications. It supports Word, WordPerfect, AmiPro, Excel, Lotus, and DBase IV file formats. To import a file in any of these formats, select Open under the File menu. Select the type of file you wish to open and enter its name in the space provided or find the file in the dialog box. To export a file into these formats, select Save As. Choose the file type you wish to save it as, then enter the file name and save your document.
The same principles apply to importing data into the Personal Information Manager (PIM) Phone Book. The Windows Cardfile, Lotus Organizer and most other PIMs allow users to save their data in CSV format. To import any CSV file into the Phone Book, first import your file into the IBM Works database by using the Import Data option from the File menu. Then save your file in .DBF format as PHONE.DBF or whatever name you choose. Simply copy the PHONE.DBF file to your Phone Book data sub-directory located under the main IBM Works directory, and you're all set to use that information in the Phone Book.
These are just a few tips to get you started. Remember, much of IBM Works' appeal comes from how intuitive it is to use. So don't be afraid to experiment with it for yourself. You'll probably discover that with a little practice, IBM Works can help you be a lot more productive.
OS/2 Warp on the Road
by Jerome Yuzyk
In this issue I planned to talk about OS/2 Warp on the Canadian Prairies, specifically some OS/2 users in Alberta, the western-most Prairie province, and also my home. But, this is summer. If you've ever lived through a northern winter, you'll understand that when summer comes, we go - outside. When summer high temperatures are 60 degrees (Celsius) higher than winter highs and the sky is still sort of blue at 10 p.m., we make the most of what we've got while we can. We'll catch up with what's going on in the next issue when everyone's got their annual sunburns peeled off and is starting to think about getting back to work. For this issue we'll have a look at how I take OS/2 Warp on the road over five cities in three provinces.
Taking OS/2 Warp on the Road
First a few basics: I carry an IBM ThinkPad 750Cs with 12M RAM, 540M disk, and PCMCIA modem and Ethernet cards. For software I run OS/2 Warp Connect with the BonusPak and LAN Server Requester. I connect to an IBM VM account, a BESTeam Notes server, IBM Advantis for any Internet SLIP work, and various BBS-like sites. My position involves showing people what OS/2 can do, so I have quite a bit of software loaded for the inevitable "Will it run ...?" questions.
Since my laptop and my desktop machine are essentially the same (486DX-33) I saw no reason why I couldn't treat the laptop as a small desktop machine. Therefore I've set it up to duplicate most of what I do with my desktop: write words, crunch numbers, manage lists, draw pictures, and talk to other machines.
As with all the other OS/2 machines I run, my laptop stays on all the time. OS/2's handling of my machine's Suspend/Resume and Hibernation functions means that I simply close the lid, pack it into my knapsack and cart it away. When I get a call that requires me to look up something on the machine, I pull off to the side of the road, take out the laptop, open the lid and I'm right where I was when I packed up.
OS/2 Warp allows you to make adjustments in order to cope with the limitations of a laptop in the following four areas:
1. Not Enough Screen Space
Most laptops have only a 640x480 screen This can be a little too cozy if you want to keep more than a few windows or folders open. There are two things you can do to solve this problem: a) make things a little smaller or b) avoid having to open too many windows to get things done.
Wherever possible use a System VIO font. These fonts are designed to be legible at a wide range of sizes, especially the smallest. If your eyesight is not perfect, tip the odds in your favor by adjusting the lighting in your work environment to less lighting.
Use the "Small" icon size for your Desktop and folders. This will allow you to pack more icons into the limited space. I created my own Desktop scheme in the Scheme Palette to make my window borders thinner and my colors brighter. Almost any patterned background bitmap will make text on a laptop harder to read, so I use my standby "eye-saver" green for the Desktop, and a very light beige for folders.
Don't be afraid to rename Desktop objects to use shorter names so they fit together better on your small screen. "OS/2 System" is a bit redundant when your "System" folder is on an OS/2 Desktop.
I put most of the functions I need on the Toolbar, and a few of the most common in my Desktop menu. The Toolbar buttons open major collections of objects, and the drawers contain references to often-used programs. I name text-mode sessions with characters that are close to my Enter key (like "|" and "\") so that I can use Ctrl-Esc to pick sessions easily.
There are some utilities that let you segregate one or more open windows to their own Desktop. Your Desktop becomes one of nine (3-wide by 3-high), and generally your Desktop objects (Icons, Toolbar, Clock) will follow you from Desktop to Desktop. Object Desktop, PC2, FileBar and ExtDesk are good examples.
2. RAM and Hard Disk
The usual trade-offs apply to laptops as for any other system. See "OS/2 Warp on a Shoestring" in Volume 2 (http://www.austin.ibm.com/pspinfo/mnlvolume2.html) of this newsletter for some ideas. Since laptop memory is more expensive than memory for desktop machines it's even more likely that you'll have less than the ideal amount. This makes dynamic file compression is even more useful on a laptop since it will probably have about half as much disk space as a comparably-priced desktop system. Of course, OS/2 Warp's terrific memory management makes the most out of whatever memory you have.
3. Multiple Connections
This is the toughest hurdle to overcome if you have to move around a lot and connect to a lot of different things. If you only need to connect to one place, then it may be enough to just have "Home" and "Road" versions of things like dialing directories. If you need to maintain an Internet presence on the road then there's no better way than through IBM Advantis.
4. Security and Reliability
Since laptops are made to be moved around they are exposed to theft more than any other computer system. There's nothing software can do to make your machine theft-proof, but your machine's power-on password feature is a first line of defense against unwanted eyes seeing your data after the machine is stolen. If you leave your machine running all the time (which is entirely possible with OS/2's laptop Suspend/Resume support), then the Desktop Lockup feature is a must. Finally, not only is the High Performance File System a good idea for system performance, but it's invisible to native DOS, which is likely to be used from a boot-floppy if thieves can't start your machine any other way.
Tools
Personal Information Management (PIM) tools are quite a personal choice. In my DOS/Windows days, I never found any that gave me just what I wanted without a lot of excess baggage I didn't. OS/2's IBM Works provides a set of independent-but-linkable tools that do the kind of jobs I've been looking for all these years. I can use the pieces I need without carrying baggage for them all. The Appointments and Phone Book tools are almost always loaded on my system because they do a very decent job of the two things I need most for the "people" side of my job: a calendar and a contacts list.
When I first installed OS/2 Warp, I wanted to keep my setup pretty basic. I had to show it around a lot and didn't want to deviate too far from the out-of-the-box setup. Although alternate menu programs and Desktop extensions are handy, they would hide what I needed to show and be too difficult to switch on and off regularly. Therefore I did not include them in my setup. Three widgets that I did add right away were the Clock, CRON2 and BIGBEN. CRON2 does only a few things on this machine, the most important being a nightly backup of important files to a separate repository on the disk. BIGBEN announces the time every hour by playing a four-tone string.
There are, however, several time-saver "widgets" that can make even more of a difference on a laptop-user's life. Programs like FileBar and PC2 are alternate menu facilities that requires fewer resources than the WorkPlace Shell. There are several task-switchers like TaskBar and QuickSwitch that let you move from program to program easily and configure the set of tasks you want to see. The Virtual Desktop managers like Object Desktop and PC2 let your little 640x480 screen act as 4 or 9 such screens so you can "spread" your work around rather than stacking it.
No discussion of laptops is complete without at least a mention of disk compression. Stacker and DCF/2 provide seamless FAT and HPFS compression for entire disks. ZipStor is a file system (like FAT and HPFS) that compresses files as they are used, where they are found.
My Desktop
I thought you might like to see the Desktop I've been talking about. Note that this is just a sample of everything I could fit. Usually my desktop is much more cluttered than this:
(GRAPHIC)
I leave my icons arranged across the top of the screen, automatically sorted by name. I renamed several standard Desktop folders, like "OS/2 System" and "IBM Information Highway," and moved some folders into others. Since the WorkPlace Shell is built from real Objects, a Desktop folder's name is only window-dressing anyway and shorter titles mean I can pack more together in one row.
Everything is fairly small: icons, Toolbar, Clock, and fonts. The folders use a 5-point System VIO font, while the command-line uses the 12x5 font size. Note the gap between the Toolbar and the Clock. Sometimes it's the only visible part of the Desktop.
On the Toolbar I categorize buttons by function, and use text instead of icons on the drawer buttons because small icons are often indistinguishable from each other. The "a" button, for example, opens up a folder called "Words" which contains any tools I have for working with words, while the "#" button is for "Numbers."
The Desktop menu has 8 of the most common functions I use (at the mouse pointer). Because my laptop has IBM's nifty TrackPoint mouse I can combine mouse-clicks with keystrokes very easily.
The "\Root" window is my main command-line window, and the "\" happens to be the key closest to my Enter key, so moving to this window involves a simple "Ctrl-Esc \ Enter combination." Since I use the command-line a lot, I make it 102 lines long with the "mode co80,102" command and stretch it vertically.
"Process Status PM2" is an IBM-internal process monitor that shows a tree of all running processes (visible or otherwise). It's also an alternate way to switch between (or stop) applications.
And finally, a little-known fact about PM windows:
When in the background, behind other windows, PM programs like the WebExplorer, the on-line Viewer or any other graphic window can be scrolled if you hold Ctrl while you move its scrollbar. For example, while writing this article I had the WebExplorer open in the background displaying my Desktop image (above), and in the foreground I wrote about the image in a text-editor. Since the image was a bit too wide and tall for my WebExplorer window, and was partly overlaid by my editor screen, I scrolled through the WebExplorer display behind my editing window by holding Ctrl while moving the WebExplorer scrollbar. This is incredibly useful when you need to keep an online document open (such as online documentation) while you work.
Developing OS/2 Warp Games Made Easy
by Lynette Mitchell and Herman Rodriguez
Did you know that more money is being spent on games than box office movies? And did you know that last year, sales of PCs surpassed those of TV sets? The volume of PC sales also has created an unprecedented demand for multimedia software, especially in the consumer market (that is, games and multimedia titles).
If you're a game developer, IBM wants to give you the tools you need to create for OS/2 Warp. Entertainment software developers, in particular, have had to fend for themselves - they view the support in an operating system such as OS/2 or Windows as an impediment to getting their job done. Graphics performance (a fundamental attribute in just about every successful game) is cited as the major reason for not developing on those platforms and for staying with DOS. But that was before the release of the Entertainment Toolkit for OS/2 Warp (Beta).
The Entertainment Toolkit for OS/2 Warp (Beta) enhances OS/2's multimedia support by providing unique features required by games and entertainment software developers. The components of this toolkit provide increased graphics performance, standard interfaces, enhanced audio support (real-time MIDI, Direct Audio), joystick support, 3D Graphics support, and networking support, thus making OS/2 a more attractive platform for game developers.
The underlying motif of the toolkit is to give access to hardware features previously accessible only by running on DOS. The toolkit also provides programming tutorials which demonstrate how to use its powerful tools.
The Toolkit contains the following:
OS/2 Warp Video: This component allows very fast access to the display subsystem in a device-independent way. The provided functions allow for high-performance blitting, stretching and full-screen video buffer control, in addition to hardware video control. The backbone of this improved support is full-screen DIVE, which provides the means to manage the display through a set of objects that represent the display hardware, the drawing surface and display buffer, and the association of palettes with a drawing surface as well as color conversion.
OS/2 Warp Audio: This component allows high-speed, direct control of the audio device (Direct Audio) in addition to improved MIDI support (real-time MIDI). OS/2 Warp Audio gives you access to the features provided by a real-time MIDI interface device driver through a collection of node instances and links known as a node network. This network directs the flow of MIDI data in the system, with optional manipulation and transformation of the data. The Direct Audio interface was created to provide a high-speed mechanism for applications that could not be accomplished with any currently existing OS/2 Multimedia interface. Performance is enhanced with this support by eliminating the Wave-Audio device and providing a mechanism for communicating directly with the Amp-Mixer device.
OS/2 Warp Input: Joystick support is included through a driver that includes a physical device driver for OS/2 applications and a virtual device driver for DOS applications. Calibration of the joystick is included to adjust the joystick position and button layout.
3D Support: Argonaut's BRender(tm) Blazing Rendering System for OS/2 Warp allows for the production of real-time 3D graphics. The toolkit contains the complete commercially available BRender development environment. BRender's 3D library is included for development purposes. The license to distribute must be arranged through Argonaut Technologies Limited. To BRender's renderer, the world is a tree called the Actor Hierarchy. The renderer accepts the root actor of a tree and traverses the entire tree to render the scene (that is, everything that can be seen in the scene, plus cameras and lights). Each actor contains all the information BRender needs to display it, or to calculate its contribution to the scene. If the actor represents an object, there is a description of its shape, color, and so on. If the actor represents a light, there is a pointer to its direction, angle of illumination, and so on.
OS/2 Warp Net: This component simplifies communications programming of a multiplayer game. A game that is OS/2 Warp Net-enabled can have multiple participants play against each other or even cooperate as a team. Multiple participation is not limited to individual players, so a participant can be several individual players that comprise a team. Multiple protocols are supported. However, for the summer 1995 Beta, only TCP/IP-based communication is included. Nonetheless, the programming interface hides the complexities of managing multiple protocols. OS/2 Warp Net does not dictate the message content of a communications packet. It provides communications support in a device-independent manner and manages system resources on behalf of users.
A Final Thought
The toolkit is available through the IBM Developer Connection for OS/2 subscription program (specifically, Volume 8 which is available in August 1995). We expect the next Beta (available in late 1995) to offer enhanced support and other features. Additional technology, tools, documentation, and support prior to that distribution will be available through the OS/2 Games Home Page on the World Wide Web (http://www.austin.ibm.com/os2games), as well as feedback to the developers. For more information on the IBM Developer Connection for OS/2, visit http://www.austin.ibm.com/developer/programs/DevCon.html.
This article was originally published in The Developer Connection News, August 1995.
Lynette Mitchell (Lynette_Mitchell@bocaraton.ibm.com) is an Advisory Programmer responsible for the strategy to deliver OS/2 technology and tools to entertainment software developers.
Herman Rodriguez (hermanr@ibm.vnet.com) is a Senior Programmer responsible for the architecture of the Developer Connection Entertainment Toolkit. His background includes extensive operating system and related tools development. Recently he was involved in the architecture and development of system software for the computer games market.
Entrepreneurs
Mark Halegua - Entrepreneur With His Hands Full
by Steve McNally
Mark Halegua is the owner/proprietor of FarSight Data Systems in Queens, NY. He's a Value-Added Remarketer/Consultant who uses OS/2 in both his business and personal life. In addition, he's the Chairman of the New York OS/2 Users Group (NYOS2UG) which is a Special Interest Group (SIG) of the New York Personal Computer Users Group (NYPC).
At the time I spoke with him, Mark was at his PC and had a phone book data base opened where he was getting the proper name and address to drag and drop into a document he was working on in his word processor where he was putting a deal together having just sold two Pentium systems complete with OS/2 Warp Connect to some guys he was expecting an e-mail from, so he needed to switch over to his Internet Access Kit to check, when he remembered someone else he needed to call, so he opened another database and found a few names of people he was inviting to the OS/2 Warp Application Developers Open House he's planning which is going to take place September 14, 1995, at 590 Madison Avenue in New York City.
I usually don't run on so much, but Mark Halegua's a busy man. OS/2 helps him to be as productive as he needs to be, and it cuts the time he needs to do it all by enabling him to truly multitask.
It was especially amusing to hear Mark say this because I had just run into a quote in the August 14, 1995, issue of InfoWorld.
"...Windows users insist that people don't really use multitasking when they work..."
But the columnist, Nicholas Petreley, went on to say;
"OS/2...users pointed out that the reason Windows users can't conceive of a world in which multitasking is useful is because they've never visited such a place long enough to find out."
(InfoWorld, August 14, 1995, page 96)
The same can be said for lots of things; computers, faxes, cellular communications. People can live in ignorance of superior technologies, or they can empower themselves by learning to use them. The mission of Mark Halegua's NYOS2UG, then, is to enlighten the masses to the power of OS/2. And he, as you can see, is working at it.
Since last October (with the release of OS/2 Warp), the user group meetings have increased dramatically in attendance. Mark now puts together several meetings per month which cover
specialized areas of interest for members. In September, for example, there will be a Database meeting on the 5th; a New User meeting on the 7th; people interested in OS/2 Communications will meet on the 11th; the 18th is the Developer meeting (this is in addition to the Open House Mark's putting together for the 19th); and the Main Meeting is the 27th.
I took the above information from this very cool NYOS2UG newsletter. The NYOS2UG's newsletter is created and mail merged using the IBM Works word processor. The mailing list is stored and updated using the IBM Works Data Filer application. In addition, the Fax app
included with the BonusPak is used to fax drafts to the editor. They do this to show off the power of their favorite OS - and these are just the applications that come with OS/2 Warp|
Mark Halegua can be reached at (718)497-2952. He welcomes everyone to come and sit in on a NYOS2UG meeting, or to call him if you want some additional information about any of the many things with which he's involved.
ELECTRONIC 'SCAPES
Warp'd Colleges on the Web
by Maxine Senn-Yuen
They say you can't judge a book by its covers, but in many cases you can judge the quality of a college by its Web page. University administrators have discovered that the World Wide Web is a wonderful recruiting and public relations tool that attracts some of the most inquisitive young minds around.
A good college Web site allows visitors (including potential students) to get a first-hand flavor of the school without going there in person. You can usually get information on admissions and financial aid, the school's history, curriculum and academic programs, student groups, campus life, faculty research and libraries. Some sites even provide online campus tours. It's no coincidence, then, that the best institutions of higher learning in the world tend to be very web-savvy. And in my opinion, it's also no coincidence that these colleges usually have very active OS/2 user groups. So without further ado, here is a small sample of my favorite OS/2-related college sites on the Web:
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (http://web.mit.edu) is a good place to start. MIT maintains a comprehensive OS/2 page with links to every OS/2-related site imaginable at http://www.mit.edu:8001/activities/os2/os2world.html. You can also find general OS/2 information including an HTML version of Frequently Asked Questions at http://www.mit.edu:8001/activities/os2/user.html.
The California Institute of Technology (http://www.caltech.edu) is often called "the MIT of the West," and it too features an excellent OS/2 support page with extensive links at http://www.ccsf.caltech.edu/~kasturi/os2.html. Of course, it's hard to be a trendsetter in California, so naturally UC-Berkeley's (http://www.berkeley.edu) OS/2 users can rely on their own page at http://warp.eecs.berkeley.edu/os2.
The University of Texas (http://www.utexas.edu) has a very active OS/2 Web page at http://wwwhost.cc.utexas.edu/ftp/student/os2users. The students who maintain this site are fairly zealous OS/2 advocates, and are pros at disseminating the latest OS/2 news with great rapidity. At UT's Southwestern Medical Center you'll also find Dr. Lewis Waber's personal guide to installing and administering OS/2 (http://lwaber.swmed.edu/os2/index.htm). If you have a question about installing OS/2, you'll probably find the answer here.
The Lonestar state is also home to Texas A&M University (http://www.tamu.edu) and its very vocal OS/2 support group at http://leona.tamu.edu/os2. The highlight of this site is an online version of "Maroon & Blue," an OS/2 newsletter full of timely news tidbits.
Staying in the Southwestern United States, the University of New Mexico (http://www.nmsu.edu) brings us the world-famous Hobbes site at ftp://hobbes.nmsu.edu/os2/. If you need shareware or freeware for OS/2, try this site. The Hobbes site is so popular that you may have difficulty logging on. In that case, you can probably find what you need through the Hobbes Virtual Mirror (http://www.columbia.edu/~chs11/hvm.html) at Columbia University (http://www.columbia.edu).
At North Dakota State University you'll find The Internet Relay Chat OS/2 Homepage (http://venus.ee.ndsu.nodak.edu/os2/index.htm). If you're looking for an original OS/2 Anthem sung to the tune of "The Flintstones," check out this site.
Ohio State University (http://www.ohio-state.edu), another university in the American heartland, also features a lively OS/2 user page at http://hagar.biosci.ohio-state.edu/os2.htm. Ohio State's Web network is very extensive, and you can find details on every aspect of the University online.
If you prefer to stick with Ivy League schools, then check out the OS/2 user groups at Cornell (gopher://gopher1.cit.cornell.edu/00/.cit_files/MTOS2). The OS/2 presence is also very strong within the Digitas Club (http://www.digitas.org) and Computer Society at Harvard (http://www.harvard.edu).
Moving overseas, the University of Warwick in the United Kingdom maintains a complete OS/2 user page at http://www.warwick.ac.uk/~phueg/os2/. Most OS/2 sites of interest to European users can be accessed from this page.
One of the more interesting OS/2 university sites is located at the University of TromsŒ (http://www.service.uit.no/homepage-english.uit.no.html) in Norway. This is the northernmost university in the world, and provides an excellent starting page for OS/2 Scandinavian users. You can also visit the Northern Lights Planetarium from this site.
Finally, if you want a change of pace, visit the IBM Kiosk for Education (IKE) at http://ike.engr.washington.edu/ike.html. IKE is a higher education information service managed by the University of Washington in partnership with IBM. It contains information on educational discounts and academic success stories for a variety of IBM hardware and software products.
Electronic 'Scapes: Learning Aids on the 'Net
by Collin Summers
It's Fall again. Time to return to school. Time to hit the books and stop surfing the Internet, right? Wrong| The Internet is actually a great educational resource, full of reference material and learning aids for all ages.
AskERIC (http://ericir.syr.edu/) is a great place to start for educational material for Kindergarten through grade 12. It is a vast warehouse of lessons on every topic imaginable. Because it has ties to edutainment experts like The Learning Channel and The Discovery Channel, the content here is very lively and engrossing.
Ever wanted to plan your own education? Then check out LearnWorld (http://www.webcom.com/~larkin/LW/LWWelcomePage.html). You tell LearnWorld the subject you want to learn more about and it builds your curriculum for you. You can then learn at your own pace, within the structure of a formal curriculum.
A good library is always a must for a proper education, and the Internet gives you access to a variety of fine academic and government libraries. You can locate most of them through the Yahoos - Libraries listing (http://www.yahoo.com/Reference/Libraries/). Many of the libraries listed here allow you to search their online catalogs by subject, keyword and author.
And what do you look for at a library? Books, of course. A plethora of books are available on the net. Project Gutenberg (http://jg.cso.uiuc.edu/PG/welcome.html) is a terrific resource which contains thousands of books online. You can read books from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer to The Wonderful World of OZ online, print them, or download them and save them for later reading.
For a more eclectic selection of reading material, visit the On-line Books Page. Their index lists more than 850 English works in text and HTML format, all free for personal use. This site also occasionally features special exhibits like Banned Books On-Line and A Celebration of Women Writers.
A great way to learn about other cultures and other peoples is through a penpal. The Pen Pal Page (http://www.xs4all.nl/~jwbos/floris/ppe.htm) allows you to get a penpal of any age and from any corner of the globe. A good penpal can be an enriching life experience, and prove that not all learning takes place in a classroom.
Quotations are always useful for academic papers and business presentations, and the Internet abounds with quotes for every occasion. Some good quotes can be found at http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/quotes.html. Or for those memorable (and not-so-memorable) little quotes from the movies, try the Quote Searcher (http://www.cm.cf.ac.uk/M/search_quotes.pl). For a page full of contemporary and humorous quotes check out Some Quotes I Like (http://pen.k12.va.us/~cfifer/quotes.shtml).
The Internet is truly an international medium. This is reflected by the variety of foreign language dictionaries available. Where else can you get such easy access to an up-to-date English - Estonian Dictionary (http://www.ibs.ee/dict/)? For a list of some other dictionaries visit http://www.yahoo.com/Reference/Dictionaries/. You'll also find links to thesauruses, acronym guides and technical dictionaries at this site. If all you need is a standard American English Dictionary, then you will find the perennial favorite Webster's Dictionary (with a hypertext interface) at http://c.gp.cs.cmu.edu.5103/prog/webster.
There's a very interesting (and mostly accurate) all-volunteer Encyclopedia on the net called Global Encyclopedia (http://www.halcyon.com/jensen/encyclopedia/welcome.html). You can even contribute your own articles to this resource if you wish.
One last little reference gem is NetPages (http://www.aldea.com/). NetPages works just like your trusty telephone directory, but lists Internet URLs instead of phone numbers.
Well, that's enough learning for one day
USER POWER
Back to School with OS/2 Warp
by Stacey Miller
It's back to school time| And, I figured that there isn't a better way to showcase some power users of OS/2 Warp than by talking to some folks at the university level. Their responses varied widely. I heard everything from "running the research library" to "handling the payroll" to "performing manufacturing research." This article will take you to the University of Texas - Arlington, where the folks at the Automation & Robotics Research Institute are using OS/2 Warp, with a PlantWorks front end, to perform manufacturing research in search of rapid application development.
Brian Hoff, an Assistant Professor in the Industrial Manufacturing Systems Department at UTA, uses OS/2 Warp at the University's Automation & Robotics Institute. The institute's mission is to come up with the best ways for manufacturing companies to be more competitive in the global marketplace. This means that they are looking for ways to lower the price of goods to the customer, create shorter development to delivery cycles, obtain better performance, and produce quality, reliable goods. In other words, they are helping manufacturing companies to perform their jobs better, faster, and cheaper.
Funded by research grants, companies, and the university itself, the institute is staffed by an integrated team of institute staff, university professors, and students from several engineering and business departments. These students run a 3-node network - with the nodes being IBM OS/2 Warp, IBM DAE (Distributed Application Environment), and IBM PlantWorks. These nodes control three robots (or manipulators) that are connected by a pallet conveyor.
What's unique about this system is that it is dynamically reconfigurable. That is, during their research, the students can actually strip the system of all its process tooling, change the configuration, and restart the process. It is not uncommon for this system to be taken down, reconfigured, and restarted several times a day. This ability to dynamically reconfigure systems allows the institute to support a high mix, low volume assembly line. In fact, the goal of the institute is to support the assembly of products that fit in a one-foot cube and weigh less than ten pounds.
Setting up a manufacturing plant is very expensive. Historically, the life-cycle of a manufactured product was seven years or more, with sales volumes from the hundreds of thousands to the several million. When this was the case, the investment in the plant floor was worthwhile. But now that the manufacturing life cycle has become shorter, perhaps not much longer than six months, this investment needs to be protected. One of the ways to do this is to be able to dynamically reconfigure the plant floor operation. This can help companies save hundreds of thousands of dollars. That is, the ability to retool the plant floor operations to perform different processes helps these companies to produce low-volume, short-term goods.
So, Why OS/2 Warp?
When I asked Brian why the institute decided to go with OS/2, he gave me some very compelling reasons. Two of these were the stability and preemptive multitasking of OS/2. OS/2 has been around since 1987, making it a stable, proven operating system. Because manufacturing companies typically run "mission critical applications," the system simply cannot "crash." If a manufacturing line were to go down, it could cost a company hundreds or even thousands of dollars. OS/2 has proven itself to be a rock-solid, stable, dependable operating system. In addition, the preemptive, multitasking capabilities of OS/2 make it practically a prerequisite to the event-driven manufacturing processes. Because the event-driven manufacturing systems require an operating system that you can preempt to avoid mixed signals, miscellaneous commands, etc. These capabilities make OS/2 a very strong operating system for a real-time shop floor environment.
Recently, Brian put a second system in on UTA's Main Campus using OS/2 Warp Connect. Now, in addition to the stability, coupled with the preemptive multitasking of OS/2, the institute can take advantage of the built in connectivity of IBM Peer for OS/2, IBM LAN Requester, Novell NetWare Client for OS/2, TCP/IP and IBM LAN Distance Remote. OS/2 Warp Connect gives the manufacturing companies built-in communications for the development of client server applications. Client server is particularly important in the manufacturing sector in order to distribute intelligence and control throughout scalable systems.
In addition, the built-in multimedia capabilities of OS/2 Warp Connect allow the manufacturing engineering students to provide new ways of communicating with the plant floor operators. For example, they can now integrate audio and video in their work instructions on the plant floor.
Add on top of this the capabilities of application development toolsets such as DAE (Distributed Application Environment), PlantWorks, and Paperless. These distributed application toolsets use the connectivity capabilities of the OS/2 Warp Connect product to more efficiently perform their communications tasks. This combination of an operating system with built-in connectivity, coupled with the distributed application toolsets, also does something very important for manufacturing companies. It allows them to concentrate on what's important to them -Manufacturing Products. The unique set of products - OS/2 Warp Connect coupled with the distributed application toolsets - insulates the manufacturing engineer from the intricacies of the application layers. It now becomes a simple task to quickly put together a new user interface or a flow diagram changing the logic of the system. No longer do manufacturers need to spend their time reengineering or reprogramming their systems; they can now concentrate on running their business.
Summary
Brian was very enthusiastic when talking about his projects at the Automation & Robotics Research Institute, particularly the manufacturing research for rapid application development and the ability to be able to lower cost and time to market. His goal is to promote this technology and support the implementation of it in manufacturing companies. He was also very enthusiastic about the stability and special features of OS/2 Warp Connect that make it a perfect fit for the manufacturing environment.
Depending on OS/2 Warp Connect, relying on its stability and multitasking features, and gaining the advantage of built-in connectivity, Brian and his students are some of the true power users of OS/2 Warp Connect.
Features
TD-Gammon: From Neural Network to OS/2 Game
by Jeri Dube
When most people think of IBM Research, they tend to think of fractals, scanning tunneling electron microscopes or high temperature superconductivity. Games are not usually one of the thoughts that come to mind. However, the TD-Gammon game included in the IBM Family FunPak for OS/2 Warp was developed by IBM Research.
By virtue of being created at such an auspicious place, you would think that this version of backgammon is quite special. Well, to be quite honest and not so humble, it is| TD-Gammon is the most advanced computer version of backgammon. It can play at the most advanced levels. If the system were a human, it would be rated as a World Class Master.
TD-Gammon was developed by IBM Research Staff Member, Gerry Tesauro. Gerry is not a game developer, rather he is a theoretical physicist who has been working in the area of neural networks and artificial intelligence for several years. He did not initially intend to develop an OS/2 game for the Family FunPak. All he wanted to develop was a basic research project to study learning algorithms that would enable a computer to teach itself a task.
Gerry chose backgammon as the task because it appeared to be a good domain in which a neural network might work well. At this point you may be wondering now that I've mentioned it twice, what is a neural network? Well, in short, it's a model of interconnected neurons (also known as nodes) that was inspired by the logical neurons in the human nervous system. Each connection between neurons has a particular weight value associated with it.
In the case of backgammon, the state of the backgammon board is fed into input neurons that have connections to hidden neurons (or units). These hidden neurons in turn connect to an output layer that holds the value of the state (that is, the chances of winning from that particular state). The computation between the input neurons and the hidden neurons is a weighted linear summation of all the input neurons. The result of the summation is put through a thresholding function. This function compresses the value to lie within a certain range of probabilities. (In case it ever comes up in conversation, the function is known as a squashing function.) The squashing function is a non-linear function. The non-linearity allows a system to learn more complex functions.
To use this model to teach a system backgammon, all the initial weights between the neurons are randomly set. The neural network starts from the opening backgammon position and plays both sides until one of the sides wins. The outcome of the game is used as a reward signal for reinforcement learning. That is, the neural network takes the outcome of the game and adjusts the weights accordingly. The adjustments improve the network's ability to evaluate board states for subsequent plays of the game.
This learning process is repeated hundreds and thousands of times. Using an RS/6000 computer, the learning actually took about two weeks. Gerry and his colleagues were amazed at how well the neural network learned to play backgammon. The system kept getting better and better until it reached the world class master status. Actually, the neural network could improve its play even more with further training and a larger network.
Although playing backgammon on a computer that plays as well as a world class master seems somewhat awe-inspiring, you can work up to it. The game comes with five skill settings, where each higher setting uses an increasing larger and more complex neural network as its underlying engine. If you want to use TD-Gammon to improve your backgammon skills, it is quite good as a learning device. Not only do you get feedback from the results of your playing but the system is quite supportive of you. It gives a modest, 'I win' message when you lose and a hearty 'Congratulations, you win|', when the computer loses.
To embody this expert backgammon-playing neural network into an OS/2 game, IBM Research hired Keith Weiner, a professional PC game developer, to add a front end written for OS/2's presentation manager. TD-Gammon is fully 32-bit and takes full advantage of OS/2 Warp's multi-threading capabilities. Like all presentation manager programs, TD-Gammon comes with a settings notebook where you can set things such as the background color and the animation speed.
Given the success of the TD-Gammon game, I asked Gerry what his next neural network game would be. He told me that researchers have used other games such as Chess, Othello, and Go with varying degrees of success to study neural network learning. None have been as successful as backgammon. Gerry theorizes that the stochastic element of backgammon (i.e. throwing the dice) is what makes backgammon so useful in modeling the self-learning process. With that in mind, Gerry's next venture into self-learning is with financial time series analysis. If that project is as successful at learning as the backgammon game, then I'm really looking forward to that program.
For more information on Gerry's work, you may want to read his article "Temporal Difference Learning and TD-Gammon" published in Communications of the ACM, volume 38, number 3, pp. 58-68 (March 1995).
Lose FAT: Check out a High Performance File System
by Jerome Yuzyk
If you're a typical computer user in the PC world, you probably haven't heard of or been concerned with File Systems. The one you've used with DOS was just, well, there. You read and write files from and to disks, never giving a thought to how those files are handled. But inside every operating system there is a component that manages the large database that you create on your machine: Directories full of files (of various types).
Two File Systems in One Box|
OS/2 Warp comes with two File Systems: FAT (File Allocation Table) and HPFS (High Performance File System). The FAT system was created way back when PCs only had one (very low-density) floppy-disk drive. When hard-disks were introduced to the PC world (around DOS 2.0), FAT was enhanced to allow directories and sub-directories. This capability let you group files into separate collections. And that's about as far as FAT progressed.
OS/2 Warp provides a performance-enhanced version of FAT that lets you can maintain your old installation seamlessly and still use OS/2's WorkPlace Shell interface. But with today's larger hard-disks and Object-Oriented interfaces FAT is really starting to show its age. Unfortunately, there's little that can be done to overcome its initial design limitations (though some are still trying).
OS/2's Easy Install method automatically selects the FAT system because that's what most computers still use. However, since version 1.2, OS/2 has shipped with an alternate, more-modern file system called HPFS. The designers of HPFS saw several fundamental limitations in the way FAT operated that limited its use for networking and large hard-disks. To overcome these limitations, they set out to create a completely new system rather than try to twist FAT into shape for the '90s.
The easiest way to explain something as esoteric as a file system is to look at What You Pay versus What You Get. To explain What You Get we'll look at what you've been using all these years (FAT) versus HPFS.
What's the Cost?
Every copy of OS/2 Warp ships with HPFS, so it involves no extra cost. To install HPFS, you need to use Advanced Install which will give you the option to format your drive with HPFS. And here's the only real cost: up until very lately (see Tools, below), converting an existing FAT installation to HPFS means performing a Backup-Format-Restore. This process makes using HPFS more than a trivial matter.
Since HPFS is essentially a file system "driver" like you would have for a CD-ROM or printer, it requires a certain amount of RAM. The RAM cost is about 300k. If you have only 4MB of RAM, forget about HPFS.
Another "cost" is that native ("real") DOS cannot see HPFS partitions. This implies it cannot be used for a Dual Boot installation unless you can organize your files so that the DOS side doesn't need files from the OS/2 side. There are shareware utilities (Amos and HPFSread come to mind) that let DOS read HPFS partitions (and write to them in the registered versions).
There's also a temporary slight cost in Personal Insecurity with a "new" (and very important) way of configuring your machine. When I first got OS/2 in 1992, I installed it as a Dual-Boot system with FAT because that's what I understood from my DOS days. I had a handy set of tools to
cope with any problems. After a while I converted to a Boot Manager setup with a few HPFS partitions. Once I saw HPFS was easy to install and worked great I became hooked on its benefits. Now I do HPFS-only installations whenever possible.
If you're a new OS/2 user, you may be a little too intimidated to convert to HPFS. But if you've just bought a brand-new machine and/or a large hard-disk, keep on reading to see what you would be missing. If you have multiple hard-disk partitions you may want to experiment with formatting one or more to HPFS. If you're just getting OS/2 Warp on a brand-new machine then you might want to take the leap right from the start.
What are the Benefits?
There are a handful of benefits that will matter most to Regular Folks and another handful for Technical Folks. It becomes hard to categorize benefits by function because they often have effects on more than one part of OS/2's operation. Without writing a vast treatise I've tried to collect them into what matters most:
File and Path Names
Since 1989, HPFS has offered support for long file names. That's l-o-n-g file names, 254 characters long. That's a lot of space for a name. You will probably never use all that space, however, because you'd end up with a file name as long as this paragraph|
The point is that you could. Most people don't get carried away with this. But as you get used to being away from DOS's 8.3 world you begin to find inventive uses for this space, especially when combined with OS/2's Folders. You can name a letter "Happy Birthday Note to Grandma" or a database "1995 Christmas Cards." Any HPFS-aware program (just about any for OS/2) will quite happily use it. Since DOS programs come from the 8.3 dark ages, they will be blind to these names, though.
More File Information
HPFS introduced the notion of Extended Attributes (EAs) as a way of storing information about a file near the file. DOS FAT files can have up to six attributes (Read-Only, Archive, System and Hidden, Directory and Volume). Under OS/2 (and now Windows 95) the FAT system has been squeezed to offer 64k of raw space that can be used to store other "attributes" like a file's name and icon, its type (independent of its extension), search keywords, a history of its life and whatever else an application designer wants to do with it.
However, FAT is still fundamentally limited in what it can store about a file (no matter who twists it this way and that). Therefore the OS/2 FAT uses some of what little room is left to point to a database of EAs. This database is in a file in the root directory of every partition called "EA DATA. SF". Unfortunately no matter how well this is done there is a link that needs to be maintained for every file on the partition, and plenty of room for Murphy's Laws to creep in. HPFS stores a file's EA information as part of a structure called its FNODE. This limits any possible corruption to one file rather than a "file of other files' data."
Speed
Now that people are buying hard-disks with acres of space, the way FAT stores its file information becomes a performance limitation. Since FAT was initially designed for floppy-disks it uses a simple list of file (or directory) names and locations, listed roughly in the order they were created. Finding a file involves searching this list for a name (from the top of the list every time), getting its first piece (a "cluster," itself made up of smaller pieces called "sectors"), and then tracking down the rest of the file from where each cluster says the next cluster is.
This is no problem for a hard-disk with a couple hundred files. But when you collect a couple thousand files, the time to find any one of them increases dramatically. It's quite common for a hard disk to have several thousand files. My (OS/2 Warp Connect) C:\OS2 directory tree has 2889 files and my installation of Lotus SmartSuite has another 738. Typically, each application you have brings another 100+ files onto your hard-disk. You can see they add up to quite a lengthy list.
HPFS uses a different arrangement, designed to minimize the number of times a disk needs to be searched (and thus get it to you faster). Rather than a flat list of directories and files HPFS uses a Binary Tree for directories, files and sectors. This kind of layout means that every time something is looked up, the number of things left to search is cut in half. The Tree looks roughly like that of a folder's Tree View.
This "divide and conquer" method extends all the way through HPFS, from directories you see to the way bytes are written to disk. It is an extremely powerful way to "think smarter" about organizing lots of things. Where FAT would have to look through a list of 7270 files and directories to find an image in D:\work\WWW|grabs\Pictures\LongNa04.gif, HPFS only needs to look at 35 directories. This reduction can be an amazing speed boost. Furthermore, HPFS directories are stored right in the middle of all your files, rather than scattered among them.
Another performance booster is the way HPFS pre-stores (or "caches") a little extra of everything it reads. It assumes that if you wanted some, you'll want more fairly soon. Most often it's right, and reads directly from memory which is a lot faster than from disk. Files are also cached differently depending on what they are and how frequently they have been requested in the past.
Finally, HPFS has a more intelligent way of managing space than FAT. FAT stores the address of free space areas as special entries in its single list. HPFS stores a "map" of free space that can be searched very quickly. FAT grabs exactly as much space as a file needs when it is created or needs to grow. HPFS grabs a little extra, even more if the program requesting the space knows how to ask, and "over-grows" a file temporarily until it is closed.
Efficiency
FAT stores files as clusters of bytes that worked well for slow (floppy) disks. In order to accommodate larger hard-disks, FAT uses a varying number of bytes to define a cluster. The clusters range anywhere from 512 to 32000 bytes, depending on the total size of the drive partition. For partitions in the 512M range, a cluster is 8000 bytes. A FAT file occupies at least one cluster no matter how much is actually in the file so the AUTOEXEC.BAT on your new 540M drive C: actually eats up 8k of disk even though it's probably only around 240 bytes. On your new 1G monster drive that would be a 16k chunk for that little file. Look at a list of some of your data files and see how many of them approach this size; then calculate how much space is wasted. And remember, as soon as a file spills over the size of one cluster, by even one byte, another cluster is added (not necessarily close by either).
HPFS was designed to manage nice bite-sized pieces quickly. HPFS hands out disk space in sectors of 512 bytes. Your AUTOEXEC.BAT would then waste only a half-sector (1/4k) rather than almost 8k. Wherever possible, these sectors are allocated so that there is room for more to be added nearby later. FAT allocates more space at the first place it is available. This leads files to become scattered in pieces across the disk. HPFS packs smaller pieces together tighter and more intelligently so that fragmentation is minimal. After three years of round-the-clock operation my desktop computer reports 2% fragmentation for nearly 10,000 files (540M).
Stability
I put this category last only because it's not "sexy." But, like your Mom may have told you once, "It's good for you." HPFS stability arises from the way all its pieces were designed and put together. Keeping files and their Extended Attributes close together (and away from all others) is a big step. With FAT-based EAs every program that touches a file's EAs indirectly touches every other file's EAs since they're all collected together.
HPFS also offers a Hot Fix feature that is usually only found on Network Operating Systems. This feature automatically and invisibly replaces damaged areas of disk with known good areas. A section of disk is reserved for the (hopefully very) infrequent occasions when a disk sector is found to be bad and the data a program is waiting to store needs to be put somewhere. The bad sector is marked as such, your file never notices anything happening and you only see a warning notice. Later, when you next start OS/2, the bad sector is marked permanently and the file that was affected is moved away from the bad sector.
And that just about wraps up the Top 9 reasons that HPFS is easily worth its (relatively) light cost. It was designed to manage a computing life that is starting to include us all: a multi-tasking environment using many files on large disks (and sometimes over networks).
As with any technology there are places it belongs and places it does not. HPFS does not belong on machines with less than 8M RAM, disk partitions less than 100M and machines that require Dual Boot (because of a DOS-only application). HPFS does belong on everything else and is a "free upgrade" included with OS/2 Warp.
More on HPFS
HPFS is an abstract layer of functions that listen to OS/2 for file-management requests, translate them and pass them onto the disk device driver. HPFS is installable just like a device-driver, which means that it can exist alongside other Installable File Systems (CD-ROM and a few other Installable File Systems like the Toronto Virtual File System and the ZipStream File System).
HPFS has an advantage when it comes to path lengths (when you refer to a file), letting you specify up to 259 bytes versus FAT's 64. With long file and directory names the space is needed.
There are actually two "flavors" of HPFS: the one that comes with OS/2 and HPFS386 which comes with IBM LAN Server Advanced. HPFS386 is a "heavy duty" version of HPFS designed for very-demanding environments like file and application servers. It has three major features that make it well worth its extra (dollar) cost.
1. HPFS386 talks to network adapters directly at Ring 0
Ring 0 is where all the fastest action happens, because it sits closet to your CPU (software-wise). Since your network adapter driver is already running here, having HPFS386 running here also is the only way to handle the demands of more than 60 users
reasonably.
2. HPFS386 uses Extended Attributes for network security All Access Control Profiles (permissions) are stored as EA entries, as are Directory Limits. Controlling security and space limitations from within the File System means these functions become a part of every file and directory rather than a "third party" (with to- and from-links that can be compromised), much more seamless and impenetrable. 3. HPFS386 supports open-ended disk-cache sizing "Regular" HPFS supports a maximum disk-cache size of 2M. HPFS386 has no such limit, sizing itself at boot-time to 60% of available RAM for machines with 20M RAM and over, and 20% if less. How's It Done? Formatting a partition for HPFS is as simple as adding the /FS:HPFS switch to the FORMAT command. Besides formatting, the FORMAT command will also place a line in your CONFIG.SYS to load the HPFS IFS driver (or modify the one it finds there). The new line is: IFS=C:\OS2\HPFS.IFS /CACHE:cachesize /CRECL:4 /AUTOCHECK:disklist Cachesize is the number of kilobytes of RAM to reserve for disk caching. More is not always better, because this RAM can only be used for caching at the expense of all other potential RAM users. The default cachesize is selected based on how much RAM you have, and is usually the best choice. There is an upper-limit of 2M for this cache. When you boot, HPFS does a "sanity check" of all drives before it lets OS/2 really get going. If it sees that a drive was not shut down properly, CHKDSK is run on all drives listed in disklist. /CRECL specifies the largest disk read that will be cached. It's usually not necessary to cache everything that's read from disk because there's an inverse relationship between the size of reads and the likelihood they'll need to be re-read anytime soon. Data from smaller reads is generally used more than that from larger reads. Boosting this number can improve performance if you have enough cache. Otherwise, the larger reads clear the cache too often. Tools There are few HPFS-specific tools around because there is little that needs to be done to HPFS partitions. HPFS was designed for big, full disks. Because of that, it's inherently well-tuned and very robust. CHKDSK has been enhanced to repair most HPFS problems that will crop up. If CHKDSK isn't enough, GammaTech Utilities include a repair utility that goes the extra distance. GammaTech also has a file defragmenter. PowerQuest makes a product called PartitionMagic that converts FAT partitions to HPFS without using the Backup-Format-Restore process. This makes it even easier for you to lose the FAT and gain all the benefits of HPFS. To Learn More About the only HPFS reference on the 'Net can be found in ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/os2/info/hpfs.zip. This article is a thorough description of how HPFS is designed, and will take a bit of time to digest.
OS/2: The Path to Higher Learning
by Nancy Ziegler
OS/2 is an important part of IBM's higher education software strategy and has spurred aggressive marketing programs targeted to all academic buyers: students, faculty and staff for use in instruction, research, administration and for personal applications.
In May, IBM announced the Academic Edition program that enabled IBM to sell products such as OS/2 Warp, DOS 7, and VisualAge C++ at a reduced price to students, faculty and staff through campus bookstores and distributors who cater to academia. Around the same time, IBM
formed a new distributor relationship with the National Association of College Stores Corp., who are selling the Academic Edition products along with other IBM business partners such as Ingram Micro, Indelible Blue and Central Data.
In June, OS/2 Warp, LAN Server, and a variety of database, application development, and management products were added to the Higher Education Software Consortium (HESC) via a new Desktop Software category. HESC was formed to encourage the use of information technology in academic instruction and research and allows members of the consortium to
purchase IBM software at discounts of 80% and greater. There are currently over 650 institutions who are members of the consortium.
In July, IBM formed an agreement with MarketSource Corp., one of the largest college marketing firms in the United States, to generate sales demand for OS/2 Warp in the US higher education community. MarketSource will focus its direct and indirect marketing programs on campus consumers as well as institutional buyers. Fifteen MarketSource personnel will be dedicated to direct marketing programs on over 3,000 higher education institutions. In addition, 150 Campus Advocates are being recruited at major universities to generate demand for
OS/2 Warp on their campuses. Integrated direct mail, telemarketing and seminars will also be used to reach out to bookstores and key departmental personnel.
In August, a limited offering was announced for the Desktop Software category of HESC opening the use of the software up to administrative use as well for a period of three years. The purpose of this offering is to increase exposure of IBM desktop products in the higher education marketplace. Details of the offer can be found on IBM Higher Education's Internet home page, IBM Kiosk for Education (IKE) at http://ike.engr.washington.edu/ike.html.
With the new school year underway, IBM is looking forward to a great year for OS/2 Warp in educational institutions in North America. IBM General Manager of higher education, Sean Rush, says "OS/2 Warp is a great platform for academic desktop applications. We have started
using new marketing programs and channels to expose our products to students and higher education institutions. We hope that our customers will compare our desktop products to the competition's and will see why OS/2 Warp has won seven major industry awards this year."
Breaking Down Barriers to Education With Person-to-Person
Young children often find a hospital stay lonely and frightening. Not only do they have to cope with injury or illness, they must also face separation from family and friends as well as missing school.
IBM Australia, the Victoria University of Technology (VUT), the Royal Children's Hospital School in Melbourne, Australia, and the Myer Foundation are running a joint project that attempts to change all that. The project, called Person to Person, allows long-term patients to join their classmates at school each day using computer technology. The Person-to-Person software, developed by IBM in England, allows the students and their teachers to send live video, audio and graphics over ordinary telephone lines back and forth to each other.
IBM's Person-to-Person for OS/2 is included in the BonusPak for OS/2 Warp. Using this revolutionary software, anyone can link PCs via modems, LANs, or ISDN quickly and easily. As soon as you have established an IBM Person-to-Person or OS/2 call, simply place your
data, files, graphics, images or application screens into the shared "chalkboard." Each party sees the same information at the same time and can annotate it in real time. You can also carry on a keyboard conversation.
The manager of the Australian Centre for Computer Enhanced Learning (ACCEL), at the Victoria University, Mr. Lawry Mahon, observes that a normal school life is a central part of a child's existence and the Person to Person Program provides children with experience beyond hospital culture. "In a sense, they are released from the hospital culture. While children are sick or injured, they lose contact with their peers as well as losing personal confidence and self-esteem," Mr. Mahon said. "We hope for this project to turn this around. They can keep up with their peers as well as use innovative, emerging technology. Some kids display 'school refusal' if they have been away for a long time."
In addition to allowing hospitalized children to continue their schoolwork, the program has other advantages. The children can maintain contact with school friends through the video link.
Hospital staff can also instruct the children in the classroom about first aid.
"We see this greatly assisting and extending those students most in need of services" said Royal Children's' Hospital School Principal, Margaret White.
While the participants in the project are making great practical use of the technology, they are also being observed. University researchers are studying the short and long term effects of these new interactions on all the people involved. "So far the observations support the feelings we all had about the great value of the project," said Lawry Mahon. "The hardest part so far has been getting the equipment back from very eager, and healthy children."
The future of the program is bright. One similar project currently being investigated involves an Australian High School in Benalla, near the IBM Wangaratta Plant. Students studying Indonesian will link with an Indonesian school whose students are studying English.
With Person-to-Person for OS/2, distance and health are no longer barriers to education.
For more information on IBM Person-to-Person go to http://www.hursley.ibm.com/p2p. For additional information on this and the other fine applications in the BonusPak for OS/2 Warp, visit http://www.austin.ibm.com/pspinfo/bonuspak.html
Insights
Technology: Education's Essential Enabler
by Higher Education Industry Solution Unit, IBM North America
In many countries, the demand for higher education is exceeding the opportunity to deliver. For example, China plans to develop 100 world-class universities by the year 2000 to meets its education demands. Similar plans are underway in Turkey where 75 new higher education institutions are to be created over the next five years. Here in the US, California anticipates one-third more students in the next decade, which they need to accommodate without physical expansion of current facilities. In other instances, the demands are more subtle, where higher education must support social and economic development, and must provide the expertise to deliver this type of education. Higher education leaders are looking for new educational systems and new delivery mechanisms to address these demands.
Technology is one of the key enablers for these institutions. Technology promises the opportunity to create new educational enterprises that are hybrids of the best of our existing models with a vision of the 'virtual university', where education can be extended from existing campuses through distributed learning environments. Using distance learning techniques, campuses can be extended to accommodate the growing number of students and part-time learners. Server and communication technology are central to the evolution of an education-on-demand model. Capitalizing on declining telecommunications costs and affordable yet powerful workstations, the traditional campus setting can be augmented by a learning environment that is independent of time and place. This new technology-facilitated "distributed learning environment" is gaining endorsement among leading educators.
On the business angle, higher education institutions are being challenged to reduce operational costs. Many are looking for operation efficiencies and improved business processes to meet their funding challenges. There is also growing acknowledgment that higher education must improve service to their customers while they improve operations effectiveness. The opportunity for higher education is to find ways to capitalize on productivity gains enabled by information technology. Since the traditional higher education institution is based on pre-technology organizations, they must re-think both what they do and how they do it. Many institutions are concluding that they must transform their operations and that using process re-design on their administrative functions is an effective means.
The core business of higher education centers on the communication of knowledge. This occurs through collaborative work among colleagues and occurs through access to information allowing individuals to make informed decisions. This activity was the principle driving force behind the development of the Internet. The convergence of communications and computers is rapidly creating new opportunities for interactions among faculty, students and information. The traditional campus environment is being transformed through networked resources. The library, high performance information servers, class schedules and information will all be available across an expanding network that could even reach beyond national borders. This technology-based access to campus information and resources, independent of traditional time and place constraints, will enable the transformation of today's colleges and universities. Providing students, faculty and staff with the tools needed to participate in this environment is also key. Powerful personal workstations will enable communications and address the needs for student and faculty mobility in the future. Enhancing the campus technology infrastructure is fundamental to many university initiatives.
The transition from a focus on teaching, where the teacher-centered model prevails, to a concentration on learning itself, which may represent a radical change, is another challenge facing the industry today. Where the current learning process is passive, higher education is being compelled to create a learning infrastructure that focuses on the learner's needs. Through interactive curricula, students will develop improved learning skills and motivation. Technology will again be the enabler in this transition.
Higher education is an exciting market for information technology. It continues to be an industry that explores new possibilities for technology. The rapid advancement of networking technologies, client-server computing and overall computer usability in combination with the pressures facing universities today will reshape many aspects of higher education in the years to come. IBM views OS/2 WARP as a key solution in addressing the diverse and complex challenges facing higher education today.
SUPPORT
OS/2 Service and Support Resources on the Internet
There is a wide array of OS/2 service and support resources on the Internet. Here are just a few:
If you're looking for drivers, fixes, demos and tools for OS/2, go to ftp://service.boulder.ibm.com/ps/products/os2. If you're looking for the same for LAN Server products, visit ftp://service.boulder.ibm.com/ps/products/lan.
If all you need are some general tips and hints on any IBM Personal Software Product, go to ftp://service.boulder.ibm.com/ps/products. Choose the product you're interested in, and then select its /info/text subdirectory.
For specific information on a particular problem, you may want search the Authorized Problem Analysis Reports database at http://ps.boulder.ibm.com/pbin-usa-ps/pub_search.pl. This is a comprehensive technical service and support database which you can search using exact words, word stems or natural language queries. Chances are you will be able to find a solution to your problem from this source.
For detailed information on technical matters, try using a Redbook. Redbooks are "how to" books written by experienced IBM professionals. Customers who use them regularly tell us they save an average 1-2 days of labor per month. A list of available Redbooks can be found at http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/redbooks.
In the unlikely event that you need to report a bug, customers in the U.S. can use the handy form provided at ftp://service.boulder.ibm.com/ps/defect_submission.
The Latest Fixes and Drivers for OS/2
Two hot new OS/2 fixes are now available:
- PJ19409
PJ19409 fixes data corruption with systems configured with the RZ1000 PCIIDE chip. It provides a new IBM1S506 device driver that detects the RZ1000 and disables read-ahead only for the RZ1000. This driver can replace the IBM1S506 on all systems with IDE interfaces. A new IBMIDECD.FLT driver is included to synchronize with IBM1S506.ADD if your system uses this driver.
- WFWIN9
WFWIN9 corrects many of the problems when the OS/2 Warp install process cannot complete. The intent of the ZIP file is to UPGRADE your OS/2 Warp (family) Installation diskette and diskette 1 to the XR_W009 Fixpak level. Please apply Fixpak XR_W009 after your version of OS/2 Warp is installed.
One way to determine if you need a particular Fixpak is to search the Authorized Problem Analysis Reports database at http://ps.boulder.ibm.com/pbin-usa-ps/pub_search.pl. You can search this database for information on your specific problem. If you decide that you need a controlled Fixpak or driver to solve your problem, then you can download it directly from PCCBBS, OS2BBS and SDM. The two fixpaks listed above are both controlled releases. For information on downloading fixpaks, contact IBM Support.
If you need a public Fixpak, they are available from these sites all over the world:
CompuServe
Subscribers can download Fixpaks from the OS/2 Support Forum (GO OS2SUPPO).
IBM OS/2 BBS
Subscribers can download Fixpaks from the Software Download Library. U.S. customers who are not subscribers can call 1-800-547-1283 for more information.
Prodigy
Subscribers can download Fixpaks from the OS2CLUB in the DownLoad Library, IBM Files, Fixes area. Files are updated weekly and are available on Friday.
PCC BBS
Customers can call the IBM Personal Computer Company BBS in Raleigh NC, and download Fixpaks from the public area. You can access this BBS at 919-517-0001.
America Online
Subscribers can download Fixpaks from the OS/2 Area.
Customers with access to Internet services can download Fixpaks using the following methods:
Anonymous FTP to "ftp.software.ibm.com" (IP Address 198.17.57.66)
Fixpaks are located in the "/ps/products/os2/fixes" directory.
World Wide Web (WWW) access via:
IBM Home Page http://www.ibm.com
IBM Software Manufacturing Solutions http://service.boulder.ibm.com
Warped etc.
Beta Test HyperACCESS for OS/2
If you would like to help put the finishing touches on Hilgraeve's next communications software release, then you can participate in the public beta test of HyperACCESS for OS/2|
HyperACCESS for OS/2 is a complete communications program that was developed from the ground up for OS/2. It delivers the full benefits of the operating system's advanced 32-bit architecture, simple object-oriented user interface, and superior communications performance.
HyperACCESS for OS/2 expands the basic capabilities of HyperACCESS Lite, the easy-to-use terminal program that comes in the BonusPak for OS/2 Warp. HyperACCESS comes packed with exciting new graphical powers, a resource library listing 1000s of ready-to-call on-line systems, and instant-benefit utilities that let even novice users reap immediate rewards from going on-line.
Some of the many additional capabilities and benefits found in HyperACCESS for OS/2 include:
- User-definable buttons and keys
- Powerful macros and automation
- Additional terminal emulators
- Additional file transfer protocols
- Convenient Host Mode for answering calls
- On-line graphics display powers
- Network and LAN connectivity
- Huge library of on-line resources
- Free bundled on-line utilities
- Full documentation and support
HyperACCESS for OS/2 includes many exciting new capabilities not offered in HyperACCESS/5, a leading OS/2 communications program first introduced in 1989. These are:
- Full implementation of the OS/2 graphical user interface for an exciting new look and feel
- Faster, more reliable performance and multitasking from full exploitation of 32-bit architecture
- Easier installation and setup, with the largest modem selection list of any OS/2 program
- A feature called CommSense that eliminates the need for users to set communications details
- Automatic detection of available ports to find which your modem is connected to
- A huge library of 1000s of ready-to-call on-line resources
- Flexible phonebooks showing remote systems as icons that act like OS/2 desktop objects
- A nonvolatile backscroll buffer for reviewing text or mail previously received e-mail
- A message pad editor built right in for composing responses to e-mail messages
- Complete programmability with the REXX language or any external language
- Crash recovery through HyperProtocol lets you resume interrupted transfers
HyperACCESS for OS/2 files are available at the following sites:
- Hilgraeve BBS (313-243-5915)
- Hilgraeve CIS forum (GO HILGRAEVE)
- Hilgraeve Web page (http://www.hilgraeve.com)
- Hilgraeve Gopher (gopher.hilgraeve.com 9005)
- Hilgraeve FTP site (ftp://ftp.hilgraeve.com)(/pub/vendor/hilgraeve)
You can download the beta software from these sites, install the software, and report any problems you encounter that are not already listed in the README.TXT file. Because of the volume of reports, Hilgraeve will only respond if they need more information from you. As with any beta software, Hilgraeve assumes no risk of potential loss or damage to data arising from use of this beta software.
AdeptXBBS Ships with Major AdeptREXX Upgrade
AdeptSoft of Boca Raton, Florida, has announced that AdeptXBBS is being shipped as a commercial product and now includes AdeptREXX as a part of the $99.00 base package.
AdeptXBBS is an award winning OS/2, 32-bit, Internet friendly, multi-threaded, multi-user, multilingual, Presentation Manager BBS (bulletin board software) with a user interface that is totally customizable.
"This commercial release of AdeptXBBS gives the System Operator (Sysop) control over his BBS in ways he has never imagined - all without being an experienced "C"/C++ programmer or learning a new BBS specific language to customize our BBS software. If you can write the standard batch file needed to run most BBSes, you can completely reprogram the look and feel of your AdeptXBBS system," says Steven Tower, President of AdeptSoft.
"We've added over 70 new AdeptREXX programming functions, including the ability to 'ask' the system for an available node, take it down, and use it to dialout or link two modems. We've also added over 50 new AdeptREXX functions for controlling the filebase," adds John Morris, AdeptSoft Senior VP, Software Engineering.
REXX is the default BATCH/PROGRAMMING language for IBM's DOS v7.0, OS/2, AIX, and IBM Mainframes. AdeptREXX enhances the base REXX language with over 150 BBS-specific functions, giving the Sysop almost 300 available REXX functions. Additionally there are thousands of pre-existing REXX programming modules available to the Sysop including complete database subsystems, control over OS/2's Workplace Shell and program management facilities.
AdeptXBBS includes support for visual REXX environments like VisProREXX and VXREXX. With VX-REXX, you can write multiple REXX programs that are called by individual nodes. This is useful for creating on-line games and utilities.
AdeptXBBS allows multi-threading of REXX programs, giving the Sysop the ability to start multiple, simultaneous REXX programs from within the same program... even passing data cleanly from one thread to another.
"AdeptXBBS won the 'Best OS/2 Product' at Cyber.Xpo.95 earlier this summer while it was still a beta product. This upgrade of AdeptREXX shows that after 2 1/2 years of development and a 7 month public shareware beta, AdeptXBBS is ready for prime time," said John Lawlor, CEO of AdeptSoft.
An AdeptXBBS demo version is available from the following FTP sites:
ftp://hobbes.nmsu.edu ftp://ftp.cdrom.com /os2/incoming ftp://adeptsoft.com
It is also available via Telnet from: 407-477-6310 or Telnet adeptsoft.com
Getting Started with OS/2 Warp
The new OS/2 Warp makes it easier to do more with your computer and your time, while other operating systems still keep you waiting. With OS/2 Warp, there's no need to wait any longer.
Order OS/2 Warp and LAN systems products today by contacting your IBM Authorized Reseller or call IBM directly.
Country Telephone number Argentina 319-6666 Australia 62-1-132426 Austria 43-1-21145-2500 Bangladesh 880-2-231-022 Belgium 02-225-3333 Brazil 0800-111426 Bulgaria 0035-92-731076 Canada 1-800-465-7999 Chile 800-203037 or 56-2-6332292 China 86-10-437-6677 Croatia 0038-51-624500 Czech Republic 00422/67106111 Denmark 45-45-93-45-45 Finland 358-0-4591 France 16-38-55-7055 Germany 49-1003-317131 Hong Kong 852-2825-7878 Hungary 00361/1654422 India 91-80-526-8344 Indonesia 62-21-523-8200 Italy 167-017001 Korea 822-781-6114 Malaysia 603-735-8828 Netherlands 030-383773 New Zealand 0800-801-809 Paraguay 595-21-444094 Philippines 63-2-892-3026 Poland 00482/6251010 Portugal 1-7915900 Singapore 65-320-1234 Slovakia 00427-786-403 Slovenia 0038-661-1252-154 South Africa 0800-126126 Spain 900-100-400 Sri Lanka 941-440-810 Sweden 08793-1000 Switzerland 01436-7478 Taiwan 886-2-776-7658 Thailand 66-2-273-4286 United Kingdom 01329-242728 United States 1-800-436-2255 Uruguay 598 2 923617
For Developers: The Developer Connection for OS/2 The Developer Connection Device Driver Kit (DDK) Order Numbers North and South America:
Brazil 0800-111205 (The Developer Connection for OS/2) (011) 866-3222 (fax - The Developer Connection for OS/2) 02-1-800-6120 (The Developer Connection DDK) Canada 1-800-561-5293 Mexico 91-800-00639 Mexico City 627-2444 United States 1-800-6DEVCON (633-8266) 1-303-330-7655 (fax)
In Asia Pacific: The Developer Connection can be ordered in Asia/Pacific countries. Please ensure that you dial the international access code applicable to your country before the listed phone number. Note that 61 is the country code for Australia.
61-2-354-7684 (phone) 61-2-354-7766 (fax)
In Europe: The Developer Connection can be ordered direct from the IBM Software and Publications Center (SPC) in Denmark if you live outside the US, Canada, Asia/Pacific, Brazil, or Mexico. Please ensure that you dial the international access code applicable to your country before dialing the appropriate phone number. This applies to both telephone and fax orders. Operators speaking the following languages are available. Note that 45 is the country code for Denmark.
Dutch 45-4-810-1400 Italian 45-4-810-1600 English 45-4-810-1500 Scandinavian 45-4-810-1300 French 45-4-810-1200 Spanish 45-4-810-1100 German 45-4-810-1000 45-4-814-2207 (fax)
Electronic Support for Developers is provided through CompuServe, OS/2 BBS, and the Internet. Obtain technical support or use the forums to exchange messages, ideas, comments, or concerns with The Developer Connection for OS/2 team or other members.
The dedicated Developer Connection section on CompuServe is located in the IBM OS/2 Developer Forum 2. To obtain access to this section, please send a note with your subscription number to the Developer Connection Administrator at CompuServe user id 73423,2767. You will receive notification or access to the Developer Connection q section within 2 business days.
To access the forum, type GO OS2DF2 at the | prompt; then, select the Developer Connection section.
For CompuServe membership information, call one of the following numbers:
From Germany: 0130 37 32 From the United Kingdom: 0800 289 378 From other countries in Europe: (+44) (+272) (255 111) From the U.S.: 1-800-524-3388 From elsewhere: 1-614-457-0802
Ask for Representative 239. You will receive a special introductory membership for IBM customers.
Staff Biographies
Vicci Conway is a Senior Marketing Communications Specialist with the Personal Software Products Division of IBM. In that capacity she is the Program Manager responsible for Worldwide OS/2 Electronic Information Strategy and Planning. Vicci has been with IBM for 14 years, has been on CompuServe for 8 years, enjoys reading, motorcycling and computers. She can be reached at Internet: vicci@vnet.ibm.com or at CompuServe: 76711,1123.
Jeri Dube has been working for IBM for 12 years now. She is currently working as a Senior Marketing Support Rep, putting together communication vehicles for OS/2 Warp and LAN Server. She swears this is the best job she has had in a long time. Outside of IBM, Jeri spends time with her family, scuba diving, and practicing Yoga. Her favorite quote is: " Humanity has advanced, when it has advanced not by being sober, cautious and responsible but by being playful, rebellious and immature."Tom Robbins, Still Life with Woodpecker. Contact Jeri at Internet:jdube@vnet.ibm.com.
Steve McNally develops promotions with Marketing Reps as the Editor for the IBM US Promotions and Price Actions Board. He spends his free time with his wife Kim and seven-month-old daughter, Olivia Hope, and tries to put in as much time as possible writing fiction of all shapes and sizes. A quote that came to mind while composing his bio was "It's like a sauna in here." Cosmo Kramer, in the sauna at a health club. He can be reached at Internet: smcnally@vnet.ibm.com.
Stacey Miller, an avid Phoenix Suns fan, spends her working hours as the Developer Connection and Device Driver Kit strategist for IBM. Prior to her current position, she was the first editor of the OS/2 Developer Connection Newsletter. (That's why we let her write for this newsletter.) Besides basketball, Stacey loves her dogs, her husband and trying not to fall off rollerblades. She can be reached at stacey-miller@bocaraton.ibm.com.
Maxine Senn-Yuen joined IBM's Worldwide Marketing Program as an Associate Program Administrator in 1995. Maxine is an incipient yuppie who enjoys golf and shopping at the Gap. She can be reached at msenn@vnet.ibm.com.
Collin Summers' company has been contracted by IBM to help in central Illinois with OS/2 LAN Server and all those other PC Software type stuff. Before IBM took up all his time, he did independent computer consulting in many areas, but focused on OS/2 work (Guess that's how he ended up working with IBM). Collin spends his free time, when there is some, tinkering around and looking for new and better ways to use computers. Of course, he only runs OS/2 and OS/2 LAN Server on his business' LAN. Collin is available at Internet: summers.vnet.ibm.com or 73422,3364@compuserve.com.
Jerome Yuzyk graduated from the U of Alberta in 1984 with a B.Sc. Psychology, specializing in Human and Machine Vision. In 1993 he set out on his own, forming BRIDGE Scientific Services. He consulted to various large and small business in the Edmonton area. Being an OS/2 user since 1992 in the midst of a sea of ignorance and misinformation Jerome started CAOS/2: Central Alberta OS/2 Users Group in August 1993. The group has grown to 100+ members since then. In October of 1994 he joined IBM Canada as a Retail Marketing Specialist, travelling the prairies talking to retailers, consultants and user groups about OS/2 Warp and OS/2 products in general. He also just started teaching OS/2 courses for IBM Education Services. When he's not doing any of that he's a hobby gardener and amateur landscape designer. And when not doing *that*, he takes apart various rooms in his house and (sometimes) puts them back together again.
Jerome can be reached at Internet: jerome@supernet.ab.ca.
Survey
We want to produce a quality newsletter that meets your needs. Please take a few minutes to answer the following questions and send your responses to: - FAX: 407-982-8888 - INTERNET ID: JDUBE @ VNET.IBM.COM - MAIL: Jeri Dube
IBM Personal Software Products 1000 51st Street Boca Raton, Fl 334
- IBM VNET: BCRVM1(WARPWIRE)
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OS/2 Warp and LAN Server Customer Reference Form
If you would like to share your experiences with OS/2 Warp or LAN Server, please fill out the following form and get it back to us. We are especially interested in entrepreneurs who use OS/2 Warp or LAN Server and people who use these products in unusual circumstances.
- FAX: 407-982-8888 - INTERNET ID: JDUBE @ VNET.IBM.COM - MAIL: Jeri Dube IBM Personal Software Products 1000 51st Street Boca Raton, Fl 33434
GENERAL INFORMATION: Name: City: State/Province: Country: Fax: Email Address: Street/P.O.Box: City: State/Province: ZIP/Postal Code: INDUSTRY: ____Communications ____Cross Industry ____Distribution ____Education ____Finance ____Government ____Health ____Insurance ____Manufacturing ____Petroleum ____Process ____Transportation ____Travel ____Utilities SIZE: Annual Revenue US$: ____< $5M ____$5 - 50M ____$51 - 100M ____$101 - 500M ____$501 - 999M ____$1 - 10B ____> $10B No. of Employees: ____Small <100 ____Medium 100-500 ____Large > 500 No. of Students if College/University: ____<5000 ____5000 -10000 ____>10000 BACKGROUND: (Briefly describe the business or situation where you used the products.) _________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________ NEED: (What problem/situation existed which caused you to seek a solution using OS/2 Warp and/or LAN Server?) _________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ DESCRIPTION OF SOLUTION: (Please provide a detailed description. Describe any mission critical applications. For a networking solution, include a description of the network.) _________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ BENEFITS: (Please describe business or personal benefits.) _________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________