[® Previous] - [Feedback]
Feedback from January 6

Creative Labs

[Creative Labs ceasing OS/2 support] is possibly the worst news I have heard since OS/2 v2.0 was released. Not so much because I have any Creative Labs products (I don't), but because of the trend this shows. Creative Labs is the largest producer of sounds cards and, nowadays those are a must. Not being able to use one with OS/2 could be devastating to OS/2's future. Not to mention the large number of CD-ROM Drives they sell.

When WordPerfect left OS/2 I didn't care. WordPerfect was never a very good wordprocessor. DeScribe wasn't either. Not surprising they aren't around. Even OS/2 Magazine was going downhill before it went defunct. But Creative Labs is doing VERY WELL and hardware support has always been difficult to come by for OS/2. It was finally starting to look good around the Warp 3 launch. Things were rolling, then IBM backed away from the home market with Warp 4. I can see the logic in this marketing strategy, but alas, why not do what MS does and market a "lite" version (Win95) for home and a Pro (WinNT) for business and powerusers?

I always look forward to reading your magazine each month. Great reviews and articles. But it is the optimism presented here that I love. Any light you can shed on this? A silver lining perhaps?

Lance Parsons


- Unfortunately no. Except the fact that we have all enjoyed resonable support from Creative Labs until now. The fact that they won't support OS/2 in the future does not mean that we have to stop using our trusty SB 16's and AWE32's now.

- editor


Paranoid or a Little "Ho, ho, ho"?

Mark Ehlen's column, "The Second Coming of OS/2," offered this user a heartening dose of optimism. Being the lone user of a Merlin package in a fully-windowized office means a certain Eyore attitude is my constant temptation. Maybe it's time to turn over a new OS/2 leaf; you Windoze folks do your thing and I'll do mine.

And yet... as a user of OS/2, one finds oneself murming paranoid phrases about Bill Gates, Microsoft, and the Trilateral Commission. "It's all connected," I murmer half-coherently as I password every icon on my Desktop against Redlands Rampage. "Maybe Bill Gates has hypnotized Lou Gerstner via a superhigh frequency burst through Gerstner's Intel chip!" (After all, I mutter darkly to myself, we all know Intel uses mind control technology.)

A bit of sweat (or is that saliva?) hangs from my lower lip as I search the horizon in vain for any IBM or Lotus support. "What? You want the Smartsuite for OS/2? Ha, ha, ha, HA, ha!" The salesperson on the other end is obviously in a better mood than I am. "Why don't you ask for it in eight-bit CP/M code?! AhAHAha, ha." And so forth. Flecks of foam form at the corners of my mouth, yet rendered speechless, I can only slam the phone back into its cradle, lay my head on my desk, and weep at the folly of mankind.

Oh. But what's this? Netscape 2.02? Not just the beta, but a gold version, with Java, email, voice recognition, the whole thing?! Oh, my! And, wait, a beta (only a beta, but still!) of Wordpro '96, handed to me free on my Merlin OS/2 Application Sampler? And IT WORKS! (Type "deltree c:\amipro" and don't look back!) I tremble with puppy-like excitement. My operating system not only is elegant, multi-tasking, and cool... it has apps!

So merry Christmas and "ho, ho, ho!" you computerphobe Gates-lovers and devoid-of-imagination IBM / Lotus executives. I may be paranoid, but that doesn't mean I can't be happily paranoid.

Jon Trott


Reality Check

By way of an introduction, I was an OS/2 Engineer, (OSE), and more recently, a Warp Server engineer. I was also certified to teach a variety of OS/2 related classes. I haven't been working very much lately. In fact, I quit my job, started learning NT, and took another job someplace else.

I love the idea of what you're trying to do, but let's face it; IBM has done everything possible NOT to sell OS/2, NOT to promote OS/2, and NOT to make it easy for people to write applications.

All the things you mentioned in your story are true. It's a great product. But for those of us living everywhere else in the world besides San Francisco, finding this information took me a few minutes with my browser -- AND I WAS SPECIFICALLY LOOKING FOR IT.

I give up on OS/2. Why? Well, because I want to eat, and with the billions of dollars IBM has, they could spend a few million on promoting OS/2 warp 4 using effective means. What are effective means? Watch an NFL game any Sunday. Do you see any commercials for OS/2? No? How many do you see for Windows 95?

John Najem


John Soyring's Video Speech

Chris Wenham's capsulization of Mr. Soyring's latest Warp announcement is notable for his lack of comment on the offering. All OS/2 users have seen the ISVs dropping away like flies recently as Big Blue shuts out the "kitchen top" PC users and developers in favor of those closer to their Network Computing vision. I sincerely hope that by the time this vision becomes a reality there will still be a big enough OS/2 critical mass left to justify their current lack of support for the Warp users who may deign to frolic in multimedia, etc. IBM's plans for OS/2 may be crystallizing - the question remains whether they are willing to lose, coldly and callously, the "bottom" end of their market in the march to its realization.

Jack Bowling


I read your review about Warp's future (oh... I mean, Soyring's review, of course! ;) ), and here is what I think about that.

1st: As usual, IBM doesn't make any points on single (home) users. All I see is connected to large corporate users.

2nd: Some software and hardware producers are going to drop OS/2 support (Creative Labs, for example - take a look at their WWW site), because of Merlin's awful Multimedia.

3rd: Merlin is too unstable to be taken seriously. Comparing to Warp-3 with FixPaks it just can not be used for serious applications.

4th: Merlin's multitasking is a weird! "Foreground Priority Boost" is main problem I ever seen in OS/2 since v2.0. If we have any CPU-hungry application in foreground, all background applications with the same priority almost stops.

5th: Sometimes after TRAPs, while CHKDSK is working, I loose some files, which were not ever opened for read or write! CHKDSK says that it has "removed corrupted file".

6th: There are some bugs in Merlin have I seen in OS/2 v2.1 (loosing icons in minimised VIO programs, for example).

I like OS/2 but, for now, I have no choice, and I have to use Windows NT :(. I can not use OS/2 for my work (graphics, video, animation, sound processing) because of its bad multimedia, and almost total lack of software for this kind of work.

So it is not all so clear about OS/2's future, as I see it.

Dmitry Niqiforoff


- We sympathize with you Dmitry but do not have the same problems. We rarely experience a crash with Warp 4, and certainly not any more than we did with Warp 3. Also, we find the software availalbe for graphics, video and animation for OS/2 quite good.

- editor


Navigator/2 Plug-ins

Just reading through your Christmas Issue of OS/2 e-Zine!. As usual it's EXCELLENT reading. I especially liked the piece about Mr. Soyring and IBM's commitment to OS/2.

Now the reason I'm sending this e-mail, using Navigator e-mail I might add, is that I found a really cool site for a Navigator plug-in. It is a DSMI (Digital Sound & Music Interface) for OS/2 and plays all forms of audio format files. To check is out got to:

http://www.polsci.wvu.edu/Henry/Madbrain/

I think the owner of the site is a guy named Julien Pierre. He's got some other pretty cool stuff there as well.

David Torres


Process Commander and C-A-D Commander

In the review of Process Commander it was mentioned that at one time, even Ctrl-Alt-Del did nothing. This is logical, as the PC keyboard driver transfers the normal c-a-d behaviour to the key combination Ctrl-Alt-Esc. That allows PC to activate on c-a-d.

Reinout van Schouwen


- An excellent point. Thanks for the correction.

- editor


Thanks so much for the reviews of Perez's and Stardocks process killer utilities.

How about an article putting the two applications head to head, comparing their features and performance? Personally I'm hesitant about purchasing any more Stardock software, given the instability and bugs I've had with ObjDesktop and GalCiv. So the ProcCommander -- and twice the price of CAD Commander -- seems a bit of a risk to me. But if it offers substantially more for the money (IOW, more than double the performance/features/reliability of CAD Commander, given the price differential), then perhaps it's a good buy.

So, could any of your contributors come up with a reasonable test of the Perez and Stardock apps that could help your readers decide which is the better buy? I think it would be appreciated.

Charles Henrich


- A good suggestion -- one echoed by many of our readers. We aplogize that time constraints kept us from doing a head-to-head comparison of the two products.

- editor

 [® Previous] - [Feedback]


This page is maintained by Falcon Networking. We welcome your suggestions.

Copyright © 1997 - Falcon Networking