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I'm sure that many OS/2 e-Zine! readers like myself got an interesting surprise recently when they got a Net-Minder update for Martin Warnett's Netscape/2 page, only to find that the update was Mr. Warnett's sudden total abandonment of OS/2 and the web page. This smells.
Martin Warnett was, until now, one of the most dedicated advocates we've ever had, and I can't bring myself to believe he just "decided" to abandon the OS/2 project all of a sudden. Frankly, his last message read to me like "resignation" announcements that say, "He's leaving to pursue other opportunities" without saying what they are -- there never are any. He didn't jump, he was pushed, and I look forward to hearing what those who are more in the know have to say about this sorry event.
First off, you seem to have the impression that Martin's abandoned OS/2 -- not so. Martin has been, is, and may always be, an 'OS/2 fanatic' -- his words. Not just an OS/2 advocate, but a honest-to-goodness 'fanatic'.
However, remember that Martin works for Netscape - Netscape is a company that is doing a whole bunch of wow-neato-interesting things with the Web and internet, and changing the face of information tech as we know it. Just because he decides to try something different, to expand his horizons, doesn't mean he's abandoning anything - it just means he's an explorer; he likes challenging himself in more than one way. As to no one mentioning exactly _what_ opportunities he's moving on to, well that's no surprise. Netscape has always been a rather close-mouthed company -- they have to be in order to compete in their market -- they're up against giants like Microsoft, remember. The longer they go without people knowing what they're making, the more amazing their final products appear. Don't worry, Martin IS going on to other work at Netscape -- he hasn't been fired, sacked, pushed, or anything else.
The fact that Martin can still be found in the OS/2 newsgroups answering questions should assure you, he _hasn't_ abandoned OS/2, and the Communicator project is in good hands with the rest of the team.
I see you provided a link to the Matrox Millennium page but I would suggest you give a link to this URL , because the Millennium link does not really porvide a link to OS/2 drivers. The URL that I am giving you is a direct link to the OS/2 drivers. The URL is http://www.matrox.com/mgaweb/ftp_mos2.htm. These drivers will support the Millennium and the Mystique.
Anthony Tubbs
In a previous feedback reply, you said:
Unfortunately, many OS/2 vendors already realize this. Stardock and others, I'm sure, has put a great deal of effort into having Ingram Micro carry their products. I suspect it is Ingram who is hesitant, not the OS/2 developers. Perhaps users should write to Ingram to tell them what kind of software we would prefer to buy.The support for OS/2 certainly requires supporting the distribution channel, not just encouraging developers to produce more software for it (which is fine)
Micro Central (I've no relation to them besides being their customer) has proved to be a quality source for OS/2 based applications. They carry Stardock, Softouch, SPG, Clear&Simple, TrueSpectra and most of the other great OS/2 companies along with a very wide fine selection of other SW and HW. The service they provide has been excellent so far. Of course, MC compares to Ingram Micro the same way Stardock compares to Microsoft.
Perhaps readers who whish to purchase OS/2 apps at their local retailer should encourage them to get Micro Central's catalog.
After reading the note (regarding Checkini and possible corruption of the Desktop/system), and response to David Tyndal, I can say almost with certainty, that he simply removed everything that Checkini presented to him as a possible error or missing reference in his inis.
How do I know? I did the same thing. Always set aside a good amount of time and make sure that you know exactly what you are removing from your ini files before you do so. Most of the time, checkini will present you with references to files that were temporary or which have been deleted, but I found that it sometimes presents you with references that are important to the function of the WPS. So my rule is to never remove a reference until I am certain what it is.
I certainly share your uneasy feeling at the direction Intel and others have taken with their new chip designs. The most disturbing aspect of this is the radical shift in thinking by the industry the direction represents. Where the thinking used to be:"optimize the software to the hardware", it is now reversed. It's discouraging to think how this could delay real advances in 32 bit (and ultimately 64 bit) technology.
Does the tail wag the dog or does the dog wag the tail? I think that the marketplace, and not Microsoft, dictated the fate of the Pentium Pro. At least Intel is willing to admit that users aren't quite ready to give up their investments of time and money in legacy applications just yet -- and attempt to respond accordingly.
With this being the case, why blame Wintel for trying to meet expressed consumer need. At least they are trying, which is certainly more than can be said for IBM. Furthermore, why even focus on Windows95, which is clearly a transitional product. In spite of its shortcomings, Win95 can in fact run the growing number of Win32 (i.e., WinNT) applications. It also gives Microsoft a widely used "test" platform for new features -- which, if popular, then appear in NT (reducing training time). It doesn't take a Ph.D. in rocket science to figure out what's going on here.
Meanwhile, what is IBM doing? I expected a flurry of OS/2 activity after the Lotus takeover -- it didn't happen. Then came the abandonment of the small business and consumer markets. Gates had nothing to do with those decisions, they came from Armonk. OS/2 is indeed a fine product but I just can't see the value of banging one's head against the wall. IBM has expressed its disinterest in all things non-corporate. Why beg for reconsideration?
I would like to add a comment that IBM's debugger (both IPMD from C Set and ICSDEBUG from Visual Age C ) has this ability built-in as well. If you open the "Monitor Messages" window, you can spy on any messages you like going to or from any of the windows belonging to the application you are debugging.
Check out Hobbes, as there are several little hacks to set up FaxWorks Lite for auto-receive. /old/os2/comm/fwar2.zip and /old/os2/wpsutil/fwautor2.zip for example...
As I recall, SCSI has been around LONG before IDE raised its ugly head.
The other point that the "Need for Speed" column ignored (and the most telling, given the name of the column!) is the performance difference between the busses. For example, I have both a 2x SCSI CD-ROM and a 4x EIDE CD-ROM. According to one benchmark program, they rate the SAME. Why? Well, the CPU impact of the SCSI CD is 0% (the card is handling everything). But the EIDE CD's impact is 30%. That counterbalances the 2x transfer rate difference...
Recently, I had an occasion to backup all the EAs on an EIDE disk and restore them to a SCSI disk. While I don't have hard numbers, OD's Control Center showed about twice the CPU load on the backup as on the restore. Not scientific, but it follows from the comments above.
Having fought an endless battle with a AWE32 for a year, I was pleased to see it die a few days ago.
I replaced it with an ESS 1868 for a mere $53 CAN. Not only does it have superior sound and performance, but the Warp 4.0 drivers did a perfect installation.
It comes with a CD ROM that has all drivers and apps on it. Finally real Win-OS2 utilities to control volumes via a good mixer.
One tip...make sure that all the sc apps are set to run in Win 3.1 Enhanced Mode...not standard.
Smiling finally. BTW...Cl has reversed themselves and gone back to earlier drivers they claim actually work. Who knows? Who cares?
I enjoyed this article, but I must disagree with Mr. Hildinger on his evaluation of Diablo by Blizzard Entertainment.
Although Diablo is less complex than NetHack in the multiplayer mode, and the range of character choices is vastly inferior, it is perhaps equally complex in single-player mode (and really, multiplayer blows NetHack away with the inclusion of more than one character), and the real-time component of combat in Diablo (plus, of course, beautiful graphics) make it a good contender.
In my opinion, NetHack will appeal most to the people who played it before Windows was a twinkle in Gates' eye; Diablo is simply the newest version of roguelike games, the '90's installment if you will.
Mathew, in some ways I do agree with you. Diablo was an entertaining game with a lot of good eye candy. I think Diablo is more of a Gaunlet style arcade game with a few Hack-like qualities thrown in. While it was fun (for me) to play for a week or two, the single player mode was easily beaten with all of the characters and multiplayer grew tiresome after a few sessions. Multiplayer was especially unexciting due to the fact that it was so easy for people to cheat. Everyone in the world was walking around with level 500 characters with all the best weapons and all the money they wanted. What fun is that? At that point even Gaunlet is a better game. I was very glad that I was borrowing a friends CD and didn't waste $40 on Diablo. This is, of course, my opinion.
Imagine if your TV was like your Web browser (and they're trying to make it so). Now if you were to select a channel that had a particular show you wanted to see, and all you got was a screen that said you needed to download the latest Xyz plug-in to view this program, would you put up with it? Television, by virtue of it not being able to be extended, forces the programs to have better content, or at least content that caters to the minds of the viewers, but still content. Notice how when they run some shows that do add enhancements like the 3D glases, that you get nothing but an show of 3D tricks with less actual content.
We computer people put up with far, far too much, and we need to start showing that we want the ordinary operation of the hardware and software to be smooth so we can put our skills into the real work, rather than using them to show each other how clever we are making our computer crash less or how we've got a faster hard drive so that office suite loads faster, and it should help with all that swapping that happens when you load it.
We OS/2 users have taken a big step by making our choice of OS, but we need to get the apps on our hard drives. There's plenty of OS/2 vendors out there now. Buy from them. The large sales of existing OS/2 software would spur development more than begging some WinEyed developer to port their app. Besides, you'd have to wait for it, and when it arrived, it probably wouldn't be very good as a first attempt. If we make the OS/2 software market appear lucrative enough to them, they will spend the effort to make their program good enough to compete.
Amen brother. I am VERY interested to see what your reasons for giving up OS/2 are. (For comparison purposes.) I love the platform... but at home, it's gone. When the game(s) I love the most, namely QUAKE, are optimized and tweaked for Win95, when internet gaming can only be done from one platform (qspy)TEN, etc.,etc., when your ip stack isn't recognized cuz' it ain't Win95's stack, there is either sit in the dark, browsing netscape, running business apps, or cave in and use the other platform. I choose having fun.
Pretty good review, but you seem to have left out the one thing that, by itself, would make Deskman/2 worth having: Extended Drag & Drop. You don't have to remember which way your preferences are set or whether you're dragging between drives. Whenever you do a drag, it pops up a small window that lets you CHOOSE whether you want to Move, Copy or Shadow this object to the new location. If the object is an executable file you are given a fourth choice to create a program object at the new location.
I love this feature.
Also, I like Deskman/2 better than Object Desktop because it seems to slow down the system much less than OD does.
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