In response to the letter which states: "it is unfair to expect IBMAV to recognize viruses created by Dr. Solomon's," I wish to point out that Dr. Solomon's labs DID NOT create this virus. They however did find it and have since added protection, which is something that IBM didn't. In response to IBM, they might not be memory resident but they CAN cause damage and you didn't detect them period.
I don't wish to cause alarm to users of IBMAV as I have said these viruses have never been found in the "field" (where you and I would encounter them). However they do exist, and most of the AV people have probably gotten a copy so they could protect from them; IBM didn't.
I have tried all of the video cards under OS/2. (I evaluate them for clients.) I wonder if anyone will review the Hercules Dynamite 128. That card installs far easier then the Matrox and is $165 for a 4M. Razor sharp video. With all the problems we OS/2 folks have getting video to work right I think it would be nice to have a central repository of info on compatibility problems. Any ideas?
I just read the article about the Matrox card. The author says, that there is little support for graphic cards for OS/2. I must agree. But all OS/2 users should consider to buy, besides the Matrox Cards, ELSA cards from Germany. Although they are not cheap, like the Matrox's, I am fully satisfied with these cards.
At home I have an older WINNER 1000TRIO, 2MB Dram, and at work we recently bought 5 ELSA 2000PRO/X (S3 Vision968) 4MB Vram.
DIVE, EnDive, all resolutions, colors and refresh rates are supported under OS/2. With the 2000PRO/X up to 1600x1280x65000 with more than 75Hz (if your monitor can handle it).
Till now we always bought, ATI cards (we have used OS/2 since Version 1.3 back in 1991). But driver support for these cards is not as good as before.
So look at the ELSA cards. They are worth it.
I downloaded the latest Matrox Millenuium drivers from the Matrox page and loaded them without any problem into Warp4. They were a significant improvement over the drivers which came on the Matrox CDROM.
TIP --Misc Hangs At Workplace Shell Start-Up - "Blue Screen Hang"
I run OS/2 Warp 4 (under boot manager, w/ other OSs) on a Toshiba 420 Satellite Pro. I've taken the WarpCenter out of config.sys, and put it in the startup folder, and I have the PCMCIA support program in the start up folder as well. This seems to have cured the Blue Screen Hang for me.
You might be amused to notice that the page "http://www.microsoft.com/industry/bank/ibmpr.htm" has been removed from MS's web site! Do you have another way to find that page? I continually have to deal with "But OS/2's dead right", and it's much easier to to counteract this FUD with hard, 3rd party evidence. That particular page was excellent, especially for being on the Microsoft Web server!
It would be worth-while to maintain a set of links about this sort of information, especially if they are from third parties. Whenever I try to counter the FUD by suggesting that someone might look on an IBM web server, I get: "yeah, but IBM would say that! How impartial is it?", despite the fact that many of those articles are impartial. It seems that "spin-doctoring" is now a part of our life :-(
Please carry on with the excellent magazine!
It appears that Microsoft has indeed yanked the page. Strange how it stayed there since July of last year, then amazingly disappeared just a few short days after I publicized it in my rant. However I've managed to track down a copy of the same article that someone posted to their own page. It's at http://www.tstonramp.com/~freiheit/ibmpr.htm -- no longer carrying the weight of a microsoft.com address at the beginning though unfortunately.
Don't blame Microsoft though, it's only good business policy to remove damaging propaganda when exposed ;-)
"By now, you would think IBM would have followed Microsoft's lead and made the Warp 4 installation a bit friendlier. Granted, including the boot discs in the box is a bit nicer than making them yourself (which was the procedure in the past). But I'm sure most users would prefer just inserting the new CD, clicking the CD object, finding SETUP.EXE, and going from there. Or perhaps I'm just being picky. At least the installation procedure itself worked flawlessly for me."How is OS/2 supposed to boot from nothing? With the vast array of IDE (and more importantly, SCSI) drives and drivers out there, how is OS/2 supposed to start at all unless the kernel loads and loads some drivers for these devices?
"Insert the new CD, click on setup..."? Aren't we assuming a lot when the program isn't even loaded? How do we get to the little icon in the first place?
All in all, not a well thought-out criticism.
One of your readers mentioned a program called "In Charge!" I thought I would try it but I haven't found it. Do you know where it is? Also, what other money management software is out there for OS/2?
In Charge! is published by Spitfire Software and can be purchased from Indelible Blue (www.indelible-blue.com/ib/).
You might also check out Check+ (also available from Indelible Blue. There is a demo of this on Hobbes: hobbes.nmsu.edu/os2/demos/chkplusd.zip) or E-Teller (which can be found at BMT Micro's web site: http://www.bmtmicro.com/catalog/eteller/).
- editor
It seems just when OS/2 is being recognized more outside the OS/2 community, some members (usually home-users) within the community are questioning the longevity of the OS. (It's been around for ten years folks! Its alive and kicking...)
The two biggest complaints are: Why can't we have the same amount of applications as the 'other side' does; and why don't more stores stock their shelves with OS/2 products?
The answer to both questions, in my opinion, is related. Although we have fewer applications, the one's we have are very good. As a home-user, I have: StarOffice Suite, Lotus WordPro, DeScribe, and the IBM Works Bonus Pack. These apps more than suit my purpose. Actually, I could get by with just having StarOffice, but my one time Microsoft-mentality has spoiled me into believing that more is better. And that's the problem. As home-users (or any user) we don't need quantity, quality is what matters. If it does what you want it to do, that is what matters. The Microsoft crowd is searching for that perfect application. That's why they have so many choices; each vendor would have you believe that they've made THE killer application. Hate to break this, but they haven't, and nor will they ever want to. If they did, they'd be out of business.
Think about this; your town probably has more GM dealerships than it does Mercedes dealerships (unless you live in Europe). And more people buy GM than Mercedes. Does that mean a GM product is better because it makes and sells the most models and has the most dealerships? Many of the GM cars/trucks are exactly the same (engine, chassis, etc.). They just have a different body, name, color, and pricing scheme. By offering consumers the 'choice' of basically the same technology, GM and other car manufacturers have hooked us into thinking that each year they come out with an improved model. If people are willing to buy re-cycled technology (Windows 95 a.k.a. Macintosh 1984!), why not sell it? The store will only stock products it is sure to sell. Since OS/2 products are well-built (and they are), people generally hang on to them for a longer periods of time. If you had a Mercedes wouldn't you hang on to it longer...
I know some of you are thinking that OS/2 is no Mercedes. But the quantity of a product is not an indicator of its quality either. That would make the McDonald's Happy Meal a delicacy.
The main reason in my opinion is why OS/2 does not have much software support is the fact that it supports Windows. This Win-OS2 is harmful to OS/2's future.
Here's the reason: If a program does not run well on the native platfrom (OS/2), the user can simply use a WIndows version. Since so many people are using Windows programs, software developers support Windows rather than Operating System 2. This Win-OS2 is what Microsoft is using to turn OS/2 into Windows NT. Finally, this keeps OS/2 from getting software, such as Apple's QuickDraw and NEWTEK's LightWave. As long as OS/2 has Win-OS2, OS/2 will be prevented from getting programs it needs to survive. OS/2 MUST not support Windows 95 and NT.
You said something about year 2000 and COBOL programmers in your rant. It reminded me that OS/2 can handle the RTC millennium rollover disaster and reboot with year 2000. Most computers running DOS/Windows/95 start up with Jan. 4, 1980 08:00 am. (approx. I do not remember the exact number). OS/2 is a system that was designed -- not hacked together. I know, I wrote a utility to correct the PC clock drift (ClockWrighT). Why do these people put up with bad quality for so long?
The reason is a classic case of little or bad information. The average person, when armed with facts, is capable of making good decisions. It's the job of any marketing team to make sure that their 'facts' are more prominent and widespread than competitive ones.
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