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Warp 3... Engage !
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Warp 3The following are my opinions only, so please treat them as
such.
I remember the day I dialed the 800 number to
order the Beta 2 copy of OS/2
Warp. It was offered on either CD-ROMs or diskettes. I was
especially interested in the latter because it came in 28 high quality
1.44 MB diskettes. I figured, for $14.95 (shipped to my door) that was
a pretty good deal for diskettes. Testing OS/2 was the last thing on
my mind. The diskettes arrived and the package sat unopened by my
computer for a few days. Gosh, the saying about the cat and its
curiosity is so true. In time, I found myself trying to install that
thing on my computer. The sparse instructions said to insert the disk
marked Installation into drive A: and turn the computer on. I did
that and it chugged along. It asked for the next disk, I inserted that
and it chugged along. Then the next disk and the one after that and
the one after that . . . and . . . then . . . BAM !!! For the first
time in my life, I was looking at the fangs of an OS/2 error message.
Yuck, UGLY! It was a SYSXXXX (X=a number) and some Greek. What the
dickens does it mean? The enclosed few pages of documents said nothing
about this SYSwhatever. Eighteen hours, hundreds of phone calls, gallons
of coffee, pounds of aspirin and many healthy doses of nicotine later
my computer was running OS/2 Warp. So now that I conquered the beast,
I could deinstall it and reformat those diskettes in peace. Little did I
know that I had just embarked on a journey into the guts of a 32 bit
multitasking, multithreading, multihookeedoo operating system for the
Intel platform. My mission? To boldly go where no moron has gone before
(apologies to ST TNG).
I started playing with Warp and
reading up on it. It had a really attractive and comprehensive online
tutorial and I checked that out. Things were quite similar to the
Windows environment I was so accustomed to but at the same time so
(for the lack of a better term) different. The GUI was nice. I
especially liked the default color scheme of the teal background with
purple titlebars. The right mouse button had a purpose, it did things.
And goodness, this thing was so customizable. If I didn t like the way
something worked, I could change it to the way I wanted it, easily.
Didn t like the default fonts? No problem. Open the Font Palette, drag a
font to the place I wanted the new font to display and drop it. Didn t
like a color ? Open either the Mixed or the Solid Color Palette, drag
my color of choice and drop it. It was smart enough to configure itself
to the new settings and remember it. OS/2 gives an icon to everything.
You just bang on the icon and it works. They call it an object. You
can drag an object anywhere you want it to be. In a folder, on the
desktop (they call this the Workplace Shell, WPS in short), to the
shredder, to the printer, to the fax, you name it.
The concept of drag-and-drop can really spoil you. For example,
I configured the spell-checker of the word processor as an object.
When I want to check the spelling on the document I am working on, I don
t select the function from the menu. Instead, I just drag the icon of
the document and drop it on the Spell-Checker. I am instantly back to
the editing mode while the document is being checked for spelling
mistakes, in a totally different thread. Every time it finds a
misspelled word, it pops up a window in the foreground with the
offending word and a list of possible correct words, waiting for my
response. Compare this to DOS. I would be waiting for the computer to
finish checking the document twiddling my thumbs. The same thing
applies to printing, saving to disk, importing/exporting,
repaginating, checking grammar, search/replace, you name it. The focus
returns to you the master almost immediately. Be aware, that I am
talking about native OS/2 software here, the ones designed to take
advantage of these features of the OS.
I got really attached to the long file names. Now I can name my
file First, final and only draft of the article on OS/2 Warp for
Benchmarks which includes mixed cases and spaces in the name. Compare
this to the 8.3 DOS convention I was living with from the day I
started working on computers. (Of course, this naming convention is
not new, UNIX and Apple/Macintosh users have used this from way back
when.) When I do a DIR on my data subdirectory from a command prompt,
I know which file is what. I don t need to remember what is in the
file OS2D1BNC.MW2. The file-names can be 255 characters long, long
enough for a brief summary of the contents. If I open up the icon view
of the subdirectory (represented by a folder on the WPS) I see my
beloved long filename there too.
Most
of you are familiar with FAT - File Allocation Table. This is a scheme
of formatting the hard and floppy disks. OS/2 will install and run
quite nicely on a FAT formatted hard disk. You will, however, find that
OS/2 s own HPFS (High Performance File System) to be far superior than
FAT. HPFS allows the Long Filenames, is much more resistant to
fragmentation of files, stores files more efficiently, and is quite a
bit faster than FAT. You can install and run all your DOS/Windows
software on a HPFS partition. (The DOS/Win software will have to
adhere to the 8.3 file naming convention, though). Note that only hard
drives can be formatted HPFS (I hear that the new ZIP drive by Iomega
can also use HPFS if you lock the disks). Floppy disks are,
unfortunately, still FAT.
OS/2 Warp 3
comes in different packages. (Note, this is version 3, not 3.0. With
this release, IBM went to great lengths to avoid the stigma of n.x
nomenclature of software distribution. The next version, I m assuming,
will be Warp 4.) The box with the red spine does not have the Windows
code but the box with the blue spine does. The red uses your existing
Windows code to provide support for Windows software. Since IBM has to
pay Microsoft a royalty on each copy of the Windows code it sells with
OS/2, the price is quite a bit more for the blue box (also known as
the Full-Pack). There is also an upgrade version of the Full-Pack, which
upgrades the OS/2 code from version 2.1x to 3, but uses (migrates) the
Windows code from OS/2 2.1x. This version is sold at the same price
as the red. The Windows code used in the Full-Packs (known as Win/OS2)
is almost the same as the code found in MS Windows 3.1x sold by
Microsoft. The only difference is that IBM decided to compile the
source using their own compiler, giving the resulting code a 10%
performance boost. IBM, however, did not clean the Windows code of its
shortcomings. By the time you read this, Warp Connect will be out.
This will add support for all the networking features missing in the
red and blue Warp (TCP/IP, LAN Server, LANtastic, Windows for
Workgroups, Windows/NT, Novell Netware, etc.). The Warp Connect will
primarily be aimed at organizations that operate in a networked
environment. This too, I hear, will have two flavors, one with the
Windows code and the other without. The one with the Win/OS2 code is
supposed to come out first. (Warp for the PowerPC is in beta at the time
I am writing this. Knowing IBM, they will release the PowerPC
computers before they finish work on Warp PPC, giving Win/NT a clear
head start. Sigh).
Warp is backward compatible with most DOS
and Windows software. IBM decided on this backward compatibility with
last decade s software so that both ISV s (Independent Software Vendors,
the people that write and sell software) and users alike will have
ample time to catch-up with native OS/2 software. I say, compatible
with most software because you will find a small number of packages
that don t run under Warp at all or don t run well. Some DOS games
make direct calls to parts of the computer and Warp, a protected mode
operating system, will simply not allow that. Some Windows software that
make use of undocumented hooks to the Windows code will also not run
or run well under Warp. If you absolutely have to run these games and
software, you can always boot to DOS via Boot Manager or Dual
Boot and run them there.
There is a misconception that you need DOS and
Windows already installed in your computer to install OS/2 Warp, in
other words, Warp is an add-on shell or utility of some sort. I don t
blame these folks for thinking like that at all. Look at the front
lower right hand corner of the red Warp box. Right by Version 3" it
says Enhances Your Existing DOS and Windows." Excuse me? As Bubba
User, who doesn t know the difference between an archaic 16-bit
real-mode single-tasking operating system and the purdy graphical
shell that sits on top of it, how on earth am I supposed to know that
OS/2 Warp is a full fledged operating system on its own merit? Trust
IBM Marketing to package Warp like this. Well let me tell you, Warp can
be installed in a brand new computer that doesn t have anything in its
hard drive at all. Warp includes DOS support by default. Say you
installed the red pack on your new computer. You will be able to run
all native OS/2 software right away. If you installed DOS support, you
have the capability of running almost all DOS software. If you want to
run Windows software, you will have to install the Windows support. If
you installed the red pack, you will need the Windows code sold by
Microsoft. If you installed the blue pack, Windows support (in the
form of Win/OS2) is already included.
Like other advanced operating systems, OS/2 includes
the capability to allow the user to select the environment she wants
to boot to. Warp includes two such utilities. By default, Warp installs
Dual Boot. This allows the user to boot into either DOS or OS/2
depending on the environment she was in the last time she shut down
the computer. Dual Boot, as the name implies, allows only two OSs to
reside on your system and on the same partition of your hard drive.
The other one is called Boot Manager, which allows more than two OSs
to cohabit on your computer and gives you a menu at boot time to pick
the environment you want to boot into. Boot Manager installs in its
own 1MB partition. With Boot Manager you can have a partition for DOS,
one for OS/2 Warp, one for Linux, one for Windows NT, and so on. Boot
Manager is slightly more difficult to install and configure than Dual
Boot, but is a whole lot more flexible.
The concept of multitasking and multi-threading originated in the
mainframe environment. Multitasking, as the name implies, is
performing two or more tasks at the same time. There are two kinds of
multitasking, cooperative and preemptive. Under cooperative
multitasking, each program is supposed to give up the control of the
CPU after a certain amount of time. This is fine when you are running
only well written applications. But in the real world, it is seldom
the case. One misbehaving program can thus grab hold of the CPU and not
let go of it, causing all other active programs to stop running.
Microsoft Windows 3.1x and Macintosh System 7 use co-operative
multitasking. Under preemptive multitasking, the operating system
controls which program will get how much CPU time and when. Modern
operating systems like OS/2, different flavors of UNIX, NEXTSTEP, etc.
implement preemptive multitasking.
Multithreading is the
concept of spawning child-processes under a parent-process, which will
be treated as another independent task by the operating system. Let me
give an example. I m working on my 1000 plus page document (Titled
One surefire way to win big in Lotto - a loser s perspective ) on my
native OS/2 word processor. I need to print this document on my
printer, fax a copy of it to my publisher in Timbuktu, and save it on
my hard drive. I start the save and it opens up a thread of its own,
returning the control of the program to me in no time. I select print
to printer, and it opens up two different threads (one to spool the
document and the other to print it out), returning the control again to
me in no time. Then I select print to fax (Note: the fax is configured
as a printer and uses LPT3 on my machine) and it activates the fax
software on yet another thread. I select the fax number of my
publisher and press the send button. I am back to my word processor
instantly. Now my word processor is saving the file, printing it, and
faxing it, all in individual and independent threads. This is
multithreading.
I can now open my Drive A object and
format the stack of diskettes that has been sitting on my desk for a few
days. As I am formatting the disks in the background (mind you,
without slowing down any other programs running on my machine), I
remember that I need to back up my system. So I insert a blank tape in
the attached tape drive and thump on the icon for GTAR (This is a port
of GNU TAR, a UNIX program). The tape backup starts in the background
and I hear the tape drive going through it s see-saw motion. Now that
my computer is taking care of business in the background, I decide to
check out Galactic Civilizations, a 32 bit OS/2 game. This is
multitasking. While playing a round of GalCiv I am thinking, WOW this
preemptive multitasking is so cool, why did I not start this two years
ago?
What do you do when one of your active
programs Trap under Warp (Windows users: read GPF)? Most of the time,
you just kill that program and chug along. (There are many ways to kill
a program, but that is a topic for another time.) I have yet to find a
released version of an OS/2 program to Trap on me (I m not talking
about beta stuff, but the real ones that you pick up the phone and call
Indelible Blue or OS/2 Express and have delivered to your door in two
business days). But it happens to me every time I run a certain word
processing program on my machine (hey, no names here, I m just trying to
avoid a civil war on this campus, okay). So now that I know that I ll
have to use this un-kosher bloatware for a few more weeks, I just run it
under its own VM (Virtual Machine). As far as that WP is concerned, it
thinks it is the only program running on the computer. I have set its
auto-save feature to activate every five minutes. So when it dies (and
yes it dies), all I lose is a max of five minutes worth of work. And
since it was running under OS/2 in a separate session, I just kill
that VM and restart it again. Misbehaving DOS and Windows software can
be run (you will have to configure it, though) in separate sessions,
so when one goes down it leaves the rest of the system unscathed. In
my DOS days, I d have to do the three finger salute (you know, the
popular vay routine) whensomething died. Warp recovers gracefully from
a crash. Crash protection under OS/2 is far from flawless, but it is
the best I ve seen on a PC so far.
The box of OS/2 Warp lists the following as hardware requirements:
Note to the
unwary. The above is the minimum requirement to load Warp on a computer.
With a configuration like this you will be able to install Warp all
right, but you will not be able to run much software without jumping
through fire rings.
In my brief experience with OS/2
Warp, I have found that the amount of RAM in your system is more
important than the speed of the processor. I would suggest at least 8MB
of RAM. Warp starts to shine at 12MB and glow at 16MB and above. For
the processor (CPU), I would suggest at least a 386DX/33; if you have
a faster CPU, more power to you. Note that there isn t much difference
in the performance between an SX and a DX processor as far as Warp is
concerned. If you do a lot of numeric calculations or work with large
graphic files, a DX CPU or a numeric co-processor is highly recommended.
Otherwise, an SX processor will serve you just fine. The recommended
disk space of 35-55MB is only to install Warp. You will need more
space (the box says up to 30MB) to install some of the slick packages
from the included BonusPak. The CD-ROM is required only if you want to
install Warp from the CDs and want to use the CD-ROM for other things.
Remember, Warp also comes in 1.44 disks for people like me that don t
have a CD-ROM drive.
You
will hear a lot of people grumbling that Warp is hard to install and/or
doesn t install on their computer at all. Others will say that
something works fine under DOS but doesn t work under Warp. This is the
result of either one or all of the following.
For (a)
above, I suggest reading the manual. Things work differently under OS/2
than under DOS. Also OS/2 does a whole lot more than DOS. If you don t
know how to work it, reading the manual is one way to find out.
For (b), you will be better off enlisting the help of somebody
that knows hardware. DOS never cared if you share IRQs and DMAs
(please don t ask me to explain these I don t understand them much
myself) between your modem, mouse and sound card for instance, but
just try it with OS/2. It will have a cow. Under DOS, you can share
these things because two or more programs are quite unlikely to access
an equal number of devices that share the same interrupt at the same
time. Not quite so in a multitasking environment like OS/2, where you
are running two or more programs concurrently. Note that there is no
easy way of finding which component is using which IRQ in your
computer unless you open it up and compare the jumpers on the cards
against their manuals. You can use the MSD program that comes with DOS
to find out about the IRQs, but it will work only if you have a Plain
Jane setup. MSD is good for ferreting out certain things, but I
certainly don t use it for my IRQs anymore.
For (c), you
will have to understand that OS/2 pushes your hardware to the extent
that DOS never dreamt of. A lot of hardware manufacturers have been
getting by, by making stuff that does not quite conform to the specs
they were supposed to. If you want to test your hardware, install OS/2.
It ll tell you right away if your computer has kosher components or
not. One example is memory. A flawed SIMM module may work just fine
under DOS for years, but it ll promptly give you an error (one of those
ugly SYSxxxx errors) under OS/2 at bootup time. If you wanted to
detect this flaw under DOS, you d have to run some memory checking
program for a few days in a row. So if you want to run Warp (or any
advanced 32 bit OS for that matter), proper hardware is essential.
OS/2 uses a flat memory model, quite
unlike DOS. It uses a file called swapper.dat on your hard drive to
provide virtual memory. This is a dynamic file in that it changes its
size whenever it needs to. If you are running more programs than you
have physical memory for, OS/2 will actively page parts of the memory in
and out of this file. It will expand in size to accommodate the memory
requests of your active applications. When you exit some applications
and OS/2 does not need to provide as much memory, it will shrink the
size of swapper.dat . It almost acts like a living being. On memory
constrained systems (6MB or less RAM), swapper.dat gets quite a
workout depending on what applications you are running. Hence people
complain that OS/2 thrashes the hard drive. I ve taken a computer with
64MB of physical RAM through its paces, and believe me, it hardly
touched swapper.dat! OS/2 provides excellent memory management for
itself and any application you wish to run on it. Gone are the days of
a 64K limit and 16 bit memory addressing. With the 32 bit memory
model, programmers will be able to work much more easily with large data
structures.
Don t let anybody tell
you that Warp is 100% bug free. It certainly is not. Periodically, IBM
releases a set of bug-fixes that they call CSD (Corrective Services
Disk) or FixPak . These are available free or for a nominal charge,
depending on where and how you get them. They are available from IBM s
anonymous ftp site at:
software.watson.ibm.com in the /pub/os2/os2fixes directory.
They are also available on CompuServe and some other mainstream
online services. The recently released FixPak #5 corrects some 50 odd
bugs in the red Warp.
A word of warning to my
obsessive-compulsive friends. Always read the list of the bugs a CSD is
supposed to fix. If you find any that you have experienced on your
machine, apply the fix by all means. Don t just apply it for the heck
of it. If you do, you may be sorry later (trust me, I know) because the
fixpak may break something else that was working beautifully.
IBM made one smart move when it included the
BonusPak with OS/2 Warp. The rationale was that new users (converts
from other camps) would be able to hit the ground running with these
staples. I think this BonusPak is a mixed bundle. The overall value is
quite a bit more than what you paid for it. The following Bonuses
are included in this Pak.
This is a program launching template that is
new in Warp. It is a very customizable and attractive little tool. You
can drag and drop all of your frequently used programs on the Launchpad.
Then just click on the desired icon once (not even a double click) to
start the program. The Launchpad can be configured to float to the top,
to be in a horizontal or a vertical position, to start programs with
double-clicks, etc. It has drawers that you can use to put more icons
in. I just cannot imagine living without it.
One feature I like in Warp s WPS is
the options I have to manage the clutter on my desktop (screen). I can
minimize all my background programs to an icon on the bottom of the
desktop, just like the way Windows 3.1x does. I can also configure it
to make all minimized programs go to the Minimized Window Viewer, a la
Macintosh. This is another window that keeps all the minimized program
icons. If you want to restore any minimized program, you go in the
viewer and doubleclick on the desired icon. The one I like best is the
hide feature. If I minimize a program, it just disappears from the
desktop. I normally have anywhere between seven to ten programs
running at the same time, so I prefer not to have all my background
programs clutter my desktop. If I want any back, I either chord the
mouse on the desktop (chord = to click both the right and the left
mouse buttons simultaneously) or hit [cntrl-esc] to bring the Window
List and can easily pick my program from there.
I would
like IBM to make WPS into a virtual desktop on the next release of
Warp. With a virtual desktop, you are not limited to what you see on
the screen. But the screen becomes a scope of a viewer and you can
scroll left, right, up, and down. Your screen becomes liberated and you
are free to put all your programs in different quadrants in space.
There are some shareware programs that have this feature and they work
moderately well. Another package called Object Desktop (by StarDock
Systems) is in beta as I write this. This has the virtual work area I
m talking about. The Object Desktop will give the WPS a really slick
look and add a lot more functionality.
Where do you go for native OS/2 software? You will find OS/2
stuff at many of the large software stores. There are some places that
specialize in OS/2 software exclusively. You can also check out the
increasingly rich repository of freeware and shareware programs on the
anonymous ftp sites and BBSs. The following are some of my favorites.
Software Houses:
FTP Sites:
The following two are the main OS/2 archive sites on planet Earth.
There are many more ftp sites around the world that mirror the above
two for the most part. Whatever is uploaded in these minor sites
quickly shows up on the two major ones. The best thing to do is to
download the index file from the root directory to find what they have
there. If you find anything interesting, just go back and grab it.
Please remember to register any shareware stuff that you like and use on
a regular basis.
I've found quite
a few places on the World Wide Web that offer information on OS/2. Some
of the places I like are
(Note: The World Wide Web is very dynamic. Some of the
URL s above may change from time to time.)
The internals of Warp are said to be
quite similar to the internals of UNIX. Both are 32 bit preemptive
multitasking multithreading environments. There have been a lot of
ports of software from the UNIX environment. I am using the port of
GNU TAR, an archiving package on my computer. The resulting port is a
command line OS/2 software that I use to backup/restore from an
attached SCSI tape drive and/or diskettes. The source code of most 32
bit software is supposed to be transportable between operating systems.
If an ISV writes software for Windows 95 or NT, for example, that can
be easily ported to OS/2 and vice versa. This should facilitate the
(decreasingly) anemic native OS/2 applications market.
The market for suites for OS/2 is
quite lucrative at this point. The lite suite made by Footprint is
included with Warp as IBM Works
(IBM made a deal with them). Then there is the SmartSuite for OS/2 by
Lotus. And that is all you can get right now.
But that
is about to change. Star Division of Germany is working on another suite
for OS/2 (to be called Star Office, maybe?). I ve only seen their Star
Writer/2, the word processor in the suite. Its demo is on Hobbes, if
you are interested. Rumor has it that a small startup company in
Hartford, Connecticut is working on another suite. If this is true,
they are being very tight-lipped about it.
A company
named Mount Baker Software is working on an accounting package that will
compete feature to feature with the industry leader Quicken (by Intuit).
Maybe it is time for Intuit to release a native OS/2 version of
Quicken.
On the word processor front, you have Ami Pro by Lotus, the word processing package in IBM Works, the orphaned WordPerfect, Clearlook, Describe, the up and coming Star Writer/2
and a few others not worth mentioning yet (I m writing this article on
one such package that s in beta. My lips are sealed, so can t say
anything about it yet.)
In the database front, you have
the lite database included with IBM Works, and the mighty DB2/2 by Big
Blue him/her/itself. In my Programmer s Paradise Summer 95 catalog, I
see ADABAS for OS/2 by Software AG. You also have OnCmd by Online Data,
IBM s Watcom SQL, and R:Base by Microrim. I m sure there are more that
I don t know of.
For spreadsheets, we have Lotus 1-2-3, Mesa/2 (Mesa/2 by Athena was
ported from NEXTSTEP) and the one included with IBM Works. I m sure
the suite from Star Division will include a spreadsheet package, but
don t have any information on it yet.
Take a good look at
the above sampling. What do you see? Yes, you are right, not a whole lot
of native OS/2 software. What else do you see? Ah hah!! You see the
opportunity to make oodles of money! The OS/2 marketplace is not
saturated like DOS/Windows. The installed user base is growing rapidly,
and they are clamoring for good software. If you know how to write
software, good stable ones that is, you can make some serious money
here. Wanna take the gamble?
I'm not much of a game enthusiast, but I really couldn t help
noticing the developments occurring in this arena. There aren t many
commercial games available for OS/2 yet, but watch out. By Christmas
this year, or even before that, we will have some that will take the
games market by a storm. Some of these games in development right now
are making real good use of OS/2 s multithreading, graphics and
multi-media capabilities. I m aware of two such games in the making by
StarDock Systems. One is called Avarice and the other Entrepreneur.
Knowing StarDock System s track record for producing quality software
and games, these two games will certainly vie for my wallet.
Among others that are already out there and worth mentioning is
SimCity Classic for OS/2. This was originally made by Maxis and is available in DOS, Windows, UNIX and the Macintosh
platform. The OS/2 version was a port from UNIX. Another game worth
mentioning is StarDock System s Galactic Civilizations. This is an
original OS/2 game. I don t know if it is (or will ever be) available in
other platforms.
There are quite a few shareware and
freeware games available under OS/2 also. The quality of these games
range from totally horrendous to dangerously addictive. Warp itself
comes with some card and board games. Then you have the likes of
Aquanaut, VPoker, Roids, HeliRescue and Trickle Down. Since my interest
in computer games is very feeble, I haven t taken much time to
evaluate these. Again, if you like and regularly use any of the
shareware offerings, please remember to register it with the author.
That way you not only encourage future developments and enhancements,
but also in most cases, receive upgrades and additional modules for
free. Besides, you have a clear conscience.
Installing OS/2 is not
for the faint of heart. You never know which included device driver will
work and which will not. If something doesn t work, you will have to
go hunting for the proper drivers and/or parameters, assuming you know
how and where to find them. You may end up with a smooth-as-silk
install or you may end up with the worst nightmare of your life. I had
to wrestle with it on my computer quite a bit the first time I
installed Warp. That was, however, a Beta copy loaded with high quality
bugs. When I installed the released version, I already knew the
pot-holes and was able to avoid them with no problem at all. In fact,
I installed Warp three or four times on my system because I either
wanted it on a different partition on my hard drive, or had to re-size
the partitions to keep SWAPPER.DAT in a specific place, or wanted to
reformat the partition from FAT to HPFS, or messed up my configuration
so bad that reinstalling was the cheapest way out. Installing Warp was
the best entertainment I never paid for.
Since then, I ve installed Warp in a
few other machines with mixed results. A few were quite, um, boring.
Warp installed without much ado at all. On some others, I had to logon
to some card-manufacturer s BBS and download the latest drivers and
stuff, fiddled with the jumpers and dip-switches, cleaned the cobwebs
inside the case, etc. One installation left me totally baffled. Warp
couldn t agree with that hardware at all. Later, my friend told me
that IBM Support gave up on it too. He took the copy of Warp back to
Computer City for a full
refund. He is still running DOS/Windows quite happily. So the moral is,
if you are squeamish about wading through IRQ s, DMA s, COM ports,
device drivers, BBS s, etc., find somebody with the expertise and
patience who will be willing to do the dirty work for a six-pack of
beer. Or buy a computer with Warp pre-installed (see below).
IBM is finally getting
manufacturers to pre-install Warp on some of the new computers they
sell. This is excellent news for people buying new computers that want
to run OS/2 Warp, but don t want to go through the adventure of
installing it. New computers from companies like Dell,
Alaris, CompuAdd, Austin Direct,
IBM PC Company (about time!),
Toshiba, etc. are getting Warp
pre-installed either as an option or by default. Rumor has it that
AST, Compaq and Micron will also join the ranks. In Germany, Vobis and Escom, two major manufacturers, are exclusively
pre-installing Warp on ALL their computers.
The default settings of Warp at installation are not always
optimal. People try to blame this on IBM, but I don t agree with them.
The Warp engineers probably took the middle-of-the-road approach because
of the myriad of PCs warp will run on. No two PC s are alike. After a
short while, PC s tend to take on the personality of their owners. So
something that works great on my computer may not work the exact same
way on my identical twin brother s computer. Like OS/2, its users tend
to be very demanding. Hence you find them tweaking their CONFIG.SYS to
squeeze out that last drop. There are two great tools to make tweaking a
pleasurable experience. The first one is a freeware called
CFGINFOx.ZIP. Look for it on your favorite BBS or ftp site. The
second package from Clear & Simple is called Performance Plus. You can
use either or both of these packages to boost the performance of your
Warp machine.
Always remember to
Shut Down your system when there is a thunderstorm in your area. You
may also shut down your system after you are done working for the day.
I prefer to shut down my machine only on inclement weather and when I
am tweaking my system and have to reboot anyway. OS/2 uses a lot of
temporary files and caches your memory and hard drive etc. So before you
turn your computer off, please make sure you shut down your system.
This flushes the caches, closes all temporary files, brushes its teeth
and does other housecleaning stuff before it goes to sleep. This is the
way it was designed to work, don t try to defeat it. It can bite real
hard. If for some reason you have to power down without a proper shut
down, make sure you run CHKDSK with the /F parameter on all
partitions on all hard disks in your computer BEFORE it boots up (do
the ***and when the white blob comes up on the upper left corner). It
ll take ages for CHKDSK to finish and hopefully it will clean up the
mess left by open files, pointers and the like.
I really like Warp. I have been using it for
about a year now and am quite comfortable with it. I like the way it
allows me to work on my computer doing more than one thing at the same
time. I like its flexibility in accommodating my needs and am quite
happy with it.
Once we have more ISV s putting out some
quality native software, its acceptance will grow among the general
public. The looming release of Windows 95, hopefully, will be a strong
incentive for IBM to release a more polished version of Warp with more
neat features. IBM, however needs to motivate more hardware and
peripheral manufacturers to support Warp. It also needs to improve the
installation routine and some of the underlying weaknesses (like the
message queue a topic for another time). Bubba, the average user, will
not be inclined to put up with a user-unfriendly installation. He will
ditch Warp and go elsewhere, resulting in a lost sale for IBM. They
certainly have a good product on their hands hopefully they also have
the wisdom not to choke it with that red tape. Maybe IBM should send
it s OS/2 marketing team to Redmond, Washington for a training session
or two.
What s in it for you, you ask? Well, if you have
a kosher computer that will be able to handle the pressures of OS/2
Warp and your needs have outgrown the limitations of DOS/Windows, why
not give Warp a try? If it works for you, you will operate at a
higher level for sure. If it doesn t, you haven t lost anything. If you
are the programmer type and have some wild ideas, go ahead and write
that killer app. If it is a good one and you market it right, make
sure your bank has a vault large enough to hold all that money you will
be raking in
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