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OS2 Discussion Forum Volume 9212 Issue 01 - Part III
OS/2 Discussion Forum 921201 - Part III
***************************************
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Date: Thu, 29 Oct 92 08:33:30 CST
Reply-To: "IBM OS/2 Unedited Discussion List" <OS2-L@FRORS12.BITNET>
From: "Ronald E. Lacey" <rel@DIAMOND.TAMU.EDU>
Subject: WordPerfect for OS/2.
I called the folks in Utah about two weeks ago and their response was the beta
version sometime in early '93. No committment to a specific date.
Ronald E. Lacey
Department of Agricultural Engineering
Texas A & M University
College Station, TX 77843-2117
OFFICE 409-845-3967
FAX 409-845-3932
rel@diamond.tamu.edu
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Date: Thu, 29 Oct 92 20:02:49 NFT
Reply-To: "IBM OS/2 Unedited Discussion List" <OS2-L@FRORS12.BITNET>
From: Diego <labdg@EMORYU1.CC.EMORY.EDU>
Subject: Re: *NEW* Service Pack for OS/2 2.00 GA
It sure IS the new service pack and it works GREAT (once you get past 1 or
2 install bugs). RUN, don't walk, to your favorite IBM rep, friend with
pack, or ftp site and GET THIS ITEM NOW!
Hats of to IBM for giving us more of what OS/2 SHOULD be (even if it
SHOULD have had it in the original release).
-P.S. Tseng 4000 drivers are v/g with a few small bugs, but the even run
win-os2 in seamless at high-res.
-Regards,
-Diego Gallina (labdg@unix.cc.emory.edu)
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Date: Fri, 30 Oct 92 17:54:18 CST
Reply-To: "IBM OS/2 Unedited Discussion List" <OS2-L@FRORS12.BITNET>
From: DMISJRC@UMVMA.BITNET
Subject: RE: Disabling Startup progs
The following comes from the new README file from the Service Pak (and
also applies to pre-service pak systems):
o If you want to prevent programs from
automatically starting when the computer is
restarted (for example, programs located in
the Startup folder or programs that were
running at the time the computer was shut
down), do the following:
1. Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart the
computer.
2. When the mouse pointer appears, press
Ctrl+Shift+F1.
3. Hold the keys for approximately 15
seconds, or until the desktop icons
appear. (If the hard disk light stops
during this time, your computer might be
suspended. Release the keys quickly, and
then resume holding the keys until the
desktop icons appear.)
Also, the new README documents the RESTARTOBJECTS command, which you can
use to keep programs that were open at shutdown from restarting:
o If you want a customized system startup, you
can update your CONFIG.SYS file with the
following statements:
- SET RESTARTOBJECTS =
YES Default. Start
all objects that
were running at
shutdown and all
objects in the
Startup folder.
NO Do not start any
applications
that were running
at shutdown. Do
not start the
objects in the
Startup folder.
STARTUPFOLDERSONLY Start objects
only in the
Startup folder.
REBOOTONLY Start objects
only if the OS/2
Workplace Shell
is starting after
resetting with
Ctrl+Alt+Del or
turning on the
computer. This
parameter can be
used with one of
the other
parameters (for
example, YES).
Hope This helps!
Jim.
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Date: Tue, 3 Nov 92 16:31:51 CET
Reply-To: "IBM OS/2 Unedited Discussion List" <OS2-L@FRORS12.BITNET>
From: Rachid Tebbal <A6054OS2@HASARA11.BITNET>
Subject: RIM versus LAN CID
Can anyone tell me what the main differences are between "Remote Installation
and Maintenance" (RIM) with Response files and "LAN Configuration Installation
Utility" (CID) shipped with NTS/2?
I do have the Redbook about RIM (it only mentiones OS/2 Base), but have little
knowledge about CID.
I want to use one or both methods with products like:
- Extended Services, Lan Server, CSD or Service Paks, other IBM software
and third party applications.
This concerns upgrades but also new products.
Regards,
Rachid Tebbal
Department of Information Systems
University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
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Date: Mon, 30 Nov 92 10:45:27 CST
Reply-To: "IBM OS/2 Unedited Discussion List" <OS2-L@FRORS12.BITNET>
From: PPARKER@TWSUVM.UC.TWSU.EDU
Subject: Re: packing programs
>Date: Sun, 29 Nov 92 20:00:47 CET
>From: Henrik Nielsen <henihn@UTS.UNI-C.DK>
>Hi,
>Do you know of any programs that are able to pack and unpack files in
>directory-names that are more than eight charecters under HPFS.
>pkzip and pkunzip apparently is not able to do that.
Zip and Unzip from the Info-Zip Project versions 1.9 and 5.0 have native
OS/2 versions (e.g., ftp-os2.nmsu.edu in pub/os2/2.0/archivers (?)) that
directly handle HPFS completely. Note that the default is to unzip *with*
directory structure (if any), the opposite of PKUNZIP.
% Phillip E. Parker
% __ 2 Math. Dept. Bitnet: pparker@twsuvm
% |__) Wichita St. Univ. Internet: pparker@twsuvm.uc.twsu.edu
% | Wichita KS 67260-0033 Fax: 1-316-689-3748
% USA
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Date: Sun, 29 Nov 92 02:48:49 CST
Reply-To: "IBM OS/2 Unedited Discussion List" <OS2-L@FRORS12.BITNET>
From: Brett Person <person@PLAINS.NODAK.EDU>
Subject: Re: new ftp sites and Trickle subscriptions
> Former sites reported as inactive for OS/2 as of 27 Nov 92
>
> novell.com 130.57.4.1 pub/os2
> reported to have abandoned os/2: newest may 92
Hmmm. does this mean that Novell abandoned OS/2 altogether? Hope not.
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Date: Sat, 5 Dec 92 09:22:23 -0500
Reply-To: "IBM OS/2 Unedited Discussion List" <OS2-L@FRORS12.BITNET>
From: John Jacob <jpjacob@ACS.BU.EDU>
Subject: os/2 monthlies
>Could someone comment on OS/2 Monthly vs. Inside OS/2?
>Thanks.
>Clark
I sent in a check several months ago to os/2 Monthly and have received
no response. I'd heard (on this list?) there was some re-structuring
going on there.
More interesting, perhaps, is volume 0, number 0 of Os/2 Professional,
which I received a few days ago. According to the editorial, 30,000
copies were handed out at Comdex, and the rest have been mailed to
IBMs registered user list. Fortune 500 companies are also targeted.
What's so interesting about this magazine is how little there seems to
be to write about Os/2. The section "Bytes & Pieces," News and trivialities,
contains news about os/2 shareware, IBM's I.V. League, and a credit card
system for national health care. Health care? There's an article by William
Zachmann titled "Os/2 vs. the Media" which more or less reiterates his
already well known position and the already well known story of IBM and
Microsoft's collaboration and split.Then there is a long piece on
"Computer Warfare," which discusses new technologies in the age of
Desert Storm. While fascinating, this is a remarkably shallow article,
speaking of wars like Desert Storm as the beginning of an era of non-lethal
technologies. Right. For example: "Why should the U.S. go into a country
and bomb it into the stone age when, a month later, the bill for re-building
that same country is likely to be borne by the United States?" In the
future, the author proposes, we may just zap our enemies' networks with
radio/magnet waves, thus utterly decimating them.
Etc. The magazine is published bi-monthly by IF Computer Media. Requests to:
Os/2 Professional, 6129 Executive Blvd., Rockville, Md., 20850. Fax:
(301) 770-2327. According to the blurb, copies will be mailed to business
addresses only, and to registered users of Os/2.
John
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Feed from the Usenet (UUCP/Internet) comp.os.os2.* newsgroups :
------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: sip1@ellis.uchicago.edu (Timothy F. Sipples)
Subject: Re: REXX COMPILER FOR OS/2
Date: 22 Oct 92 22:51:44 GMT
Organization: Dept. of Econ., Univ. of Chicago
In article <1992Oct22.123157.13686@watson.ibm.com>
cnadler@vnet.ibm.com (Cliff Nadler) writes:
>>Does anybody know if there exists a REXX compiler for OS/2?
>No, and you probably won't see one as OS/2 pre-interprets your source into an
>extended attribute on the file, then executes this "interpreted" code. You
>won't get too much of a performance enhancement by true compiling, and you
>would have to match compielr levels with the user's DLL levels (a horrible
>mess - one of the reasons why there isn't a C run-time DLL included in OS/2 -
>ther are others).
True. However, there is a converter called REXXTACY. As you might
expect, it will take REXX code and convert it to C source code, which
you can then compile with most C compilers (like GCC/2, EMX/GCC, or C
Set/2). Check ftp-os2.nmsu.edu via anonymous ftp.
There's also Quercus's Personal REXX for OS/2. I think it is an
interpreter, but it adds a lot to OS/2's own REXX.
--
Timothy F. Sipples | The OS/2 FREQ. ASKED QUESTIONS LIST 2.0f is avail.
sip1@ellis.uchicago.edu | from 128.123.35.151, anonymous ftp, in /pub/os2/all
Dept. of Econ., Univ. | /faq, or from LISTSERV@BLEKUL11.BITNET (send "HELP")
of Chicago, 60637 | [For the Internet, vote Clinton-GORE this year.]
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From: brian@jaguar.cs.utah.edu (Brian Sturgill)
Subject: My trip report from the OS/2 developer's conference.
Organization: University of Utah CS Dept
Date: Mon, 26 Oct 92 03:04:23 GMT
[Followups are redirected to comp.os.os2.advocacy only, as they'll
undoubtedly migrate toward being appropriate only there.]
Well I'm back from the OS/2 2.0 Developer's Conference in "wonderful" New
York City. (Miss me? :-))
Below is my trip report from this conference.
CONFERENCE OVERVIEW
The conference was Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday (October 19-21, 1992).
It was structured as an opening half-day session, with the rest of the
conference broken into elective 1 hour 15 minute sessions along 6
parallel tracks. Many of the sessions were repeated as many as 4 times
so it was easy to see the ones that interested you. John Soyring
announced in the opening session that 900-1000 were "participating in
this conference", but that's a bit misleading... "participating" was
obviously not the same as "attending" as there were only 888 seats (24
rows of 37 seats), and the seats were not filled. I would estimate
800-850 "attending", which is good as they had earlier been hoping for
800. (For the skeptical, I counted the crowd at the NT Dev. Conf.
too... their numbers checked out (in fact I would have estimated it as
larger than they claimed, though it's hard for a single individual to
count 4,600 people).
Also at the conference was a "Help Lab", a set of PS/2's running various
IBM OS/2 products, manned by IBM experts in those products.
SUNDAY NIGHT
Much to my surprise, I receive a fruit basket and a card from the
Conference Director apologizing for the loss of my registration and
thanking me for my "persistence" in registering again. Now how can
you be mad at people that treat you like that?
OPENING SESSION
The opening session was introduced by Mark Goldstein, Manager, Software
Developer Support. He gave an overview of the conference, and then introduced
John Soyring, Director, IBM Software Development Programs.
John Soyring's remarks were geared toward presenting OS/2 2.0 as the
"developer platform of choice". He then proceeded to push things
like the fact you can boot more than one version of DOS under OS/2, etc...
well known facts to most of the crowd reading this, so I won't repeat it.
It was not without "marketing digs", for example:
"DOS as we designed it ..."
"... popular extenders like Quarterdeck and Windows"
"One way it [OS/2] increases pleasure is you don't have to
use Windows or DOS."
Soyring used the OS/2 help system to give the presentation, though most
all other presentations seemed to be given using Lotus FreeLance.
He mentioned that OS/2 could be used for "Host-based" programming...
I assume "host-based" means mainframe... I still have trouble
with IBM terminology, but the interesting thing was that he listed VAX
before IBM machines in listing examples of "hosts".
This sort of small overture to the non-IBM world prevailed throughout
the conference... and while I believe it was "planned", I also believe
that it has been taken to heart (by the Personal Systems people anyway).
Soyring added that "9 C++ compilers are under development for OS/2" and
that "more than 1,000 companies have committed to delivering applications
for OS/2 during 1992." "The System Object Model is being updated to
meet the Object Management Groups' CORBA spec." SOM will be on AIX.
Next came Lois Dimpfel, Director Personal Systems Programming Center,
Boca Raton. I found this part of the session annoying as the
concepts of iterative development and non-preemptive vs. preemptive
multitasking were explained in detail. I _hope_ the crowd was
already familiar with this... but maybe I'm wrong.
She also had quite a few statements I felt were inaccurate or otherwise
inappropriate, especially for a technical crowd:
The iterative development in OS/2 provided a "10X quality
improvement" and a "6 to 9 times productivity" improvement.
[I would definitely not brag about OS/2 2.0's "quality"...
not that it's all that bad, but it's definitely not great.
No evidence was presented with these rather unbelievable
figures.]
"The product went out at very high quality."
It was "well received by the press."
"OS/2 runs on 4 megs systems" (Everybody laughed.)
She blushes, then she explained that it
is "targeted at 4".
Not to imply that all was bad, there was a lot of useful info too:
"1+ million copies shipped and going strong"
(Implied that there are about 1.5 million out now.)
(2 million shipped (projected) by the end of this year.)
"Pre-loaded on over 30 OEM's." (mainly European)
"80% of the installed base of systems is non-IBM users."
"50% of the tech support calls come from people with
'non-logoed' systems." [Someone made a joke about people
calling in with motherboards mounted on plywood.]
Talked about tech support volume problems: 1500/calls per
day. At one point backlogged to 8,000 calls. This
is said to be fixed now. It's clear that fixing this
was and is a big priority. [I even plan to try a bug
report through normal channels again!]
1992 Enhancements
32-bit multi-media
Improved performances (still not really ready for 4 megs though)
32-bit GRE service pack released electronically that day.
Hi-res drivers (XGA, 1 SVGA 1024x768x256)
ATI and Western Digitial drivers in progress.
Windows 3.1 support.
Additional printer support.
Laptop/Notebook support. (Advanced power management, PCMIA).
Service Pack with no 32-bit GRE.
Pushing to have NLS versions ship concurrent with US versions.
Over half the OS/2 copies have been delivered outside the US.
Delivering Pen for DOS, Pen for OS/2 "this fall".
OS/2 will be the "high volume" os that IBM will deliver...
it will move onto RISC.
WPS for DOS to be delivered for machines with less than 4
megs.
Beta program for OS/2 on Mach 3.0 will begin in 1993.
Now things got confusing again. Every time I've heard IBM try to explain
OS/2 vs. AIX vs. Taligent, things only seem to get more confused.
AIX, AIX/PC "for high-end".
OS/2 and AIX will share many things.
DCE, DME, OLTP
Distributed Object Management
LAN , Communications
Database
Systems Management
User Interface (WPS first on DOS, then on AIX).
"DO NOT WAIT ON TALIGENT!" Taligent is a totally new OS
that is just being defined. "Taligent will be new -- a long
while before it will be stable". In the interim use OS/2.
[This is odd as I remember a recent MacWeek quoting Taligent saying
that they plan a developers pre-release for late 1993... I would think
this hard to do if Taligent is only just now being designed.]
Using tools (presumably SOM ones) you can write apps for both
OS/2 and Taligent.
In the future you can move your apps to Taligent if you choose.
[But it was clear one would need a rewrite to do so if you were
not using some unspecified "tool" now.]
[This next is close to a quote.]
Taligent gives a lot of opportunity to capture OO technology on
OS/2 and eventually you might want to move your apps -- written
to these object interfaces -- to Taligent.
"Taligent will not be here tomorrow."
She then finished saying something about a comprehensive strategy... but
I'm not sure what she meant.
Next was Paul Gianganra, Senior Programmer of Advanced Development.
He's the lead designer for "Portable OS/2".
This is the OS/2 on Mach 3.0 project... no details not already known
in c.o.o.a were given, so I'll skip the details. One thing is clear --
portable OS/2 is only just now being designed.
Some misc notes:
OS/2 on RS/6000.
Multiple operating system personalities OS/2 & AIX.
Need to "restructure Mach"
Prototype work in progress with Mach 3.0
More object technology.
A question from the floor asked about the performance implications of Mach.
"As we work with our prototype, we'll find out exactly
what that means. CMU is working on this now. By early
next year we'll hopefully understand these implications."
Q&A with Gianganra and Soyring.
Soyring: X-client support under OS/2 coming soon.
(My question from the floor.)
What is the future of the character mode API under OS/2?
Answer: It will not exist. Pure and simple they don't see it as
a useful thing and other than DosWrite and DosRead support for standard
I/O, they have no intentions of supporting it under portable OS/2. I
asked a followup, pointing out that DosRead and DosWrite will not allow
character at a time I/O, Gianganra said something like I could use the
ANSI "getch" (but getch is not ANSI, the ANSI getc or getchar does not
require character at a time and currently does not do that without the
aid of the character mode API). He also said I should use PM, I'm very
confused by this there are many apps best suited for character mode.
NT has this support, Unix has even better such support... I'm
concerned that OS/2 will not have this.
Question from the floor: Will OS/2 have Win32 and Win32s support?
Soyring: OS/2 will continue to support the most popular API's in the
industry, Win32 is not yet such an API.
ME AND MY MICROSOFT TEE-SHIRT
I wore a bright red Microsoft tee-shirt on the first day of the conference.
This caused considerably more comment than the OS/2 pin I wore on my name
badge at the NT conference. IBM people were very good natured about
it and usually it lead to interesting conversation (a stark contrast with
Microsoft people at the NT conference... several became quite uncooperative
when they saw my OS/2 pin). The reaction from the attendees was the
really interesting part... one guy was quite angry with Microsoft and
told me all about it, others were curious about NT and asked questions,
some thought I worked for Microsoft. It was fun. Wednesday I was still
hearing rumors about some guy running around with a Microsoft shirt on...
it's really fun to get to participate in gossip about yourself.
CONVERSATION WITH JOHN SOYRING
My Microsoft tee-shirt led to my most interesting conversations
of the conference, the first was with John Soyring; the second,
with a reporter from Computer Reseller News that was hanging out near
Soyring, presumably in hopes of picking up juicy tidbits -- I doubt
he was disappointed.
Soyring was talking with someone as I walked nearby, and my Microsoft
tee-shirt was pointed out. Soyring made a cute, polite remark about it
(I don't remember what it was). I said, "by the way, you probably know
who I am", and showed him my name badge (we had recently corresponded
about that letter I posted a couple of weeks ago). He saw the name and
said yes... in fact he had wanted to talk to me, and that he had
several of his people lined up to talk with me (which is true... a
couple had already contacted me).
It's funny, not only had he seen the postings of mine that I knew had
been directed to him, but apparently he's seen a number of my other
postings, including some of the tidbits ones. Anyway I was greatly
surprised. We then proceed to talk for several minutes, and for me, I
believe the information I got there made the whole trip more than
worthwhile. More than just information I got to understand a little
bit about someone that had just been a name up to that point. I
understand now why IBM people, even those that don't really deal
closely with him, speak so highly of him.
I doubt I can remember it all... I have a tendency to remember impressions
better than facts, but here's several that everybody will want to see:
(This was at a reception -- I didn't take notes.)
There are currently 250 OS/2 2.0 apps, not 160, The PC Week article I
posted recently was apparently presenting old info as new.
I asked him if he really believed OS/2 would have 1,000 apps by the end of
the year... he clearly believed that overly optimistic, I asked
about 500... he said yes. Thus I would not be surprised to find
OS/2 having 600-800 by the end of the year. Definitely better than
I expected. Apparently there's a fair bit of the apps held up waiting on
Mirrors (See MIRRORS section below).
Great news... unfortunately he was not really ready to announce this,
so I'll hedge a little.... some of the IBM'ers in the Help Lab said
similar things. In short, expect some of the currently expensive
add-ons for OS/2 to be integrated into the base package. Areas include
networking and multi-media... no real details were given... the details
will come out in a "month or so", so I expect that means at Comdex.
Multiple user setups, i.e. per user desktops. These exist now outside
the U.S., it's supposed to be here soon... unfortunately I've forgotten
the name of the package. Not as good as full users id's, but good
enough for the moment. C2 security will come for the low-end version
of OS/2.
Soyring talked a lot more about the future of OS/2, unfortunately this
was at a reception, so I didn't have anything to take notes with. The
points that impressed me most were that it was clear that, while IBM
has not said much yet, that a real plan does exist, and better yet that
the Personal Systems part of IBM will start being more open about such
plans. OS/2 fans should look forward to a quite eventful COMDEX.
A fellow that turned out to be from the press prompted a question about
that I seemed to be coming around more toward OS/2, what had/would convince
me. My response: "when I get the things IBM was promising _in my hands_--
at least in a form that I was could believe could be made into a proper
product. I believe that Microsoft made a really smart move in putting out
the pre-release... it was clear from that release that they would deliver
a working product in the near future." Soyring's reaction to that statement
I found intriguing. He seemed to approve of it as an appropriate attitude.
I don't remember exactly what he said, but I am expecting a concerted
effort by IBM to put those promises in developer's hands ASAP... perhaps
in the form of developer pre-releases (in many ways the PDK given out
is a developer pre-release).
The group around Soyring had grown rather large by this point, and myself,
another ISV, and a guy from Computer Reseller News kind of broke off
into our own group. The CRN reporter was trying to understand how
ISV's felt about the conference. Somehow we got on the topic of
Mirrors, the other ISV had not been to the Mirrors session yet, but was
appalled at what I was reporting from the session. (See the section
on Mirrors below.) In the end I talked to the reporter about about
a dozen topics -- OS/2's DAP, why I was pleased with the changes, why
I was feeling optimistic after talking with Soyring, why I felt NT
had _the_ feature set for the '90s, Mirrors, what "thunking" was,
OS/2 vs. NT resource usage... I'll be interested in seeing what came
out of that.... alas, I don't get CRN.. if you do, I'd be very interested
in knowing what the next couple of issues have to say about the OS/2
developer's conference and OS/2 vs. NT.
One unusual turn... I got to listen to a reporter tell me about what he
felt from a non-programming reporter's point of view. Again I don't
have notes, but there were several interesting things... WPS... he
understood it reasonably well, but was not impressed... the complexity issue
for when you get beyond canned desktops. He seemed impressed in the
openness increase by IBM in the last year. People gave the trade
press a hard time about lack of OS/2 press when it came out, but I'm
beginning to believe it was more a lack of information coming out of
IBM -- in fact Soyring said something like that too... what ever the
case, it's being fixed now... Soyring listed half a dozen meetings
with the press in the next week he'd be at.
MIRRORS
Mirrors from Micrografix is a set of 32-bit DLL's and Libraries that
emulates Windows 3.0 under OS/2. OS/2 fanatics will be quite annoyed
with this next bit. Micrografix is touting this as a way for vendors
to maintain a single set of source code. I.E. rather than being
a migration tool, a permanent state of affairs.
It works like this... you compile your Windows code as _16-bit_ code,
and then link it via thunks to the 32-bit MIRRORS library, you can also
thunk calls to the OS/2 API. If this is not clear to you already, this
means that most apps will not perform significantly better than under
Windows 3.1 -- in fact it's possible performance could be worse.
For each call you have the overhead of thunking, API translation, and
16 to 32 bit value translation of such things as points on the
screen.
Now for the bad news.... here's a list of vendors using MIRRORS:
Micrographix (Draw and Designer -- Draw was released the day before
the conference.)
Corel (Draw)
Spinnaker (PFS: Works)
Zsoft (Publisher's Paintbrush)
Lotus (Most apps, including Ami Pro)
Borland
Interleaf
Assymetrix
Future plans including adding the API's for:
1Q93 or with the release of OS/2 2.0.1
Windows 3.1
Multimedia
Pen
Workgroup
International
Communications
Windows 3.1 help files -> IPF
Common dialogs
Windows Shell API -> WPS
Windows Drag and Drop -> WPS
Later
MAPI
Win32s
Win32
Actually once the Win32s support gets there, overhead will not be all
that bad. Still I got a hearty belly-laugh thinking back to all those
postings from OS/2 fanatics talking about OS/2 apps being better than
Windows NT apps because they would be totally rewritten to take full
advantage of the OS/2 API.
I mentioned Micrografix's touting of the Mirrors as a "final" single source
code solution to one of Soyring's people... to say they weren't pleased
would be an understatment. (Who could blame him? It clearly won't aid
the development of PM apps.)
On the other hand, it will aid OS/2 getting an app base. Still it
adds yet another level of complexity (potential bugs) and it will
guarantee that OS/2 apps will lag Win32 ones. Maybe IBM should give
up and put Win32 in directly? It would be nice to have two
sources for Win32.
WORKSET/2
Due to space limitations and my inability to decipher my notes, I'll
skip most of this.
One item of note, the C Set/2 area in the Help Lab was manned by
Roger Pett from the Toronto compiler group. When he saw my
name badge, he said "Oh yes, I was told to expect you!". Anyway
after a bit of discussion it looks like there might be levels of
optimization added to C Set/2 in the sense of 3 or 4 levels stating
the "fanciness" of optimization to be attempted. (I.E. -O1 basic,
-O2 extensive local, -O3 simple global, -O4 everything.)
OBJECT ORIENTED REXX
OO-REXX is the most interesting product I saw at the conference.
Currently it's missing the front-end that allows the drawing of user
interfaces, but even so was capable of creating a GUI calculator in 100
lines. An editor similar to the System Editor was written in 250
lines. The objects in OO-REXX are SOM objects and thus drag and drop
actions can be intercepted. It's hard to describe in a small space
this really nifty product. It's intended for release sometime in
1993.
One example for pondering: Two OO-REXX apps, the editor above, and a
"button" app. The button app had the property that if it was dragged
onto a window it would attach the button to the window. You could then
use the right mouse button to tune the button to perform any object
method. The example I saw tuned the button to invoke the "Undo" item
from the "Edit" menu in the editor. The mind boggles at the
flexibility. Microsoft had better light a fire under Cairo. Oh...
when I saw it, I asked the guy giving me the demo if IBM would do an NT
port. He said "maybe". Later, asking the same question of Soyring I
got the same answer. This does NOT imply that IBM will actually do
it... I think it's basically the idea that internally they are
seriously considering not ruling out any options like that. Much in
the same manner that HP puts some of it's HP/UX CAD tools on SUNOS
too. Yet another indication at the conference that the recent
reorganization really is making a difference.
TALKING WITH THE CORPORATE DEVELOPERS
I talked to many people at the conference, most of them were corporate
developers. Here's some miscellaneous trends I picked up from the ones
at large sites.
They believed 16 megs for a machine a year or two from now was not a
problem... confused about IBM's chasing 4 megs. (This surprised me...
I had assumed that opinions in c.o.o.a would be somewhat indicative of
true Blue sites... this appears not to be the case.)
CD-ROM was the way they preferred to get software distributions. It was
much easier for them to handle.
WPS is not an important feature. Things like the lack of a reasonable
browse facility when associating a program path to a program object,
caused a great deal of laughter at the WPS session I attended.
While demoing the "feature" even the Team Leader for WPS had to admit
it was "a trifle convoluted". I heard no one say they really
liked WPS; there were several that didn't like it; most were ambivalent.
They knew very little about NT, believed it needed a lot of resources.
None of them had the pre-release SDK. Microsoft is clearly not getting
their message through to this group.
Networking and multi-media were important for desktop machines running
an OS/2 or NT class OS.
The percentage of those still using 1.3 vs. those that had done the 2.0
conversion seemed to be 50:50.
OS/2 DEV. CONF. VS. NT DEV. CONF
The composition of the attendees were very different between the OS/2
and NT developer's conferences (DCs).
OS/2 Microsoft
% %
ISV's and Consultants 15 55
Employees from IBM or MS 25 1
IS Managers 5 0
Corporate Developers 50 35
Academia 2 4
Other (Press, Writers, etc) 3 5
(The numbers are based on my impressions from talking with people and
surveying name badges.)
At the OS/2 conference (other than as a speaker in a session or at
a trade show), I saw no one from Lotus, Borland, Spinnaker,
Computer Associates, DEC, HP, Micrografix, Novell, etc. At the NT
sightings of people from these places were common -- Novell, Borland,
and especially DEC, were numerous. I did not see one representative from
a major ISV attending the OS/2 conference.
There was a sharp cultural difference between the attendees of the NT DC
and the OS/2 DC. At the NT DC a tee shirt and jeans or shorts were the norm.
At the OS/2 DC dress pants and a shirt were the norm, with at least a third
wearing jackets. Maybe a fifth wore suits at the OS/2 DC, but at the NT DC
suits were almost non-existent.
Male to female ratio was bad at both, perhaps 10:1 -- the OS/2 DC may
have had a slightly better ratio. Race-based ratios were bad at both also.
The trade shows for both were about 40 booths. Both trade shows
were dominated by those vendors which are most closely associated
with that vendor, but I was surprised to find at the OS/2 DC trade show
NO presence from Novell or Lotus and Borland's booth seemed unmanned.
(I.E. literature was present, but I never saw a person there).
One nice feature at the OS/2 trade show... a book vendor with
lots of OS/2 books.
Both vendors had "stores" that sold promotional tee-shirts, hats, etc.
It's interesting that the one at the NT DC was called the "Microsoft Store"
and the one at the OS/2 DC was called the "OS/2 Store". I'm not sure
it really means anything, but somehow it feels significant.
The technical level of the OS/2 DC was definitely lower, than that of
NT, though I believe the was appropriate for the crowd attending in both
cases. Both IBM and Microsoft had guts-level team leaders present for Q&A
and presentations.
IBM gave out a lot more prizes than Microsoft did.
Microsoft gave out chains with your name badge... quite useful for people
wearing tee-shirts or polo-shirts.
Both companies aggressively sought input on the quality of conference and
their products from attendees.
The food at the OS/2 DC _sucked!_ (Even IBM employees were heard to complain).
Though this is of course more of a reflection on the Sheraton New York, than
on IBM. The conference had "smoothness" problems, but IBM employees told
me that the conference was not even being planned until August --
this being the case, they did a great job.
The NT DC was the best conference I've ever attended, I cannot recall
a single slip-up, technical content was just right, the food was excellent,
etc.
MISCELLANY
A book on OS/2 app porting I'd not seen before (I did not get a good look
at it):
David Moskowitz, et. al.
Converting Applications to OS/2
Brady Press
ISBN 0-13-171943-2
You can now sign up for the DAP on CompuServe with "GO OS2DAP".
The PDK (developer CD-ROM) can be ordered by calling 1-800-3IBMOS2,
cost is $15 + S&H. Most of the code on the CD-ROM expires
_December 15, 1992_, so it's not a cheap way to get multimedia etc.
And so this is not as good a deal as the Microsoft $69 for the SDK
where you end up with the final release as well.
Word from James Taylor, Team Leader for WPS in Boca Raton.
Under the GA release do _NOT_ use Ctrl-Alt-Delete to restart the
machine, things can screw up. This should be fixed in the
Service Pack.
SUMMARY
Before the conference I was pessimistic about OS/2, during the conference
this changed to cautiously optimistic. After writing this post, I'd
say I've dropped back to neutral (better than pessimistic though!).
I now see IBM saying the right things. They now seem to have a comprehensive
plan that rivals Microsoft:
IBM Microsoft
WPS on DOS DOS 6.0
OS/2 2.0 GA Windows 3.1
OS/2 + WG extensions Windows for Workgroups
OS/2 on Mach Windows NT
The plan is good, but I the timing worries me. OS/2 2.0 GA has failed
to prove itself as significantly superior to Windows 3.1. DOS 6.0 is likely
to ship months before WPS on DOS. Windows for Workgroups comes out
Tuesday, giving Microsoft at least a 3 month lead on OS/2 + WGX.
Windows NT will likely ship at Spring Comdex '93 (April), OS/2 on Mach
will not be ready until at least 1Q94, giving NT a year or more lead.
It's too early to write off OS/2, but it's hard to be optimistic.
On the other hand, I feel I've left out a very important item in this
report. This item is the newly found vigor coming from IBM.
Around March all contacts with IBM employees I had revealed a totally
confused situation. Around June, things were less confused, but many
were pessimistic -- I had two tell me (a stranger) that they were ready
to quit. Well there were no quiters at this conference. All were
upbeat and even in the face of bad news exhibited a grim determination
to force OS/2 through its problems. The guys from Austin in the Help
Lab were loads of fun.
The fact that so many people there were familiar with my complaints about
OS/2 (and I assume I'm not unique in the world, there must be others they
know about too) tells me that IBM employees have found ways around all the
nasty, choking bureaucracy, and that communications between groups is now
greatly improved.
Certainly I intend to remain open-minded about OS/2's chances till at
least COMDEX (late November). By then I'll have had time to evaluate
the new NT beta, and see how many mainstream apps for OS/2 are really
going to be out.
Brian
--
C. Brian Sturgill I strongly encourage you to read Ross Perot's
University of Utah United We Stand
Center for Software Science How we can take back our country.
brian@cs.utah.edu; CIS: 70363,1373 (It's more important than OS/2 vs NT! :-))
------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: sip1@ellis.uchicago.edu (Timothy F. Sipples)
Subject: Re: WPS changes...???
Organization: Dept. of Econ., Univ. of Chicago
Date: Fri, 4 Dec 1992 19:51:06 GMT
In article <1992Dec4.021355.7496@nmt.edu> stimpy@nmt.edu
(John Reynolds) writes:
>I recently read a posting in one OS/2 group stating that IBM wanted to
>make the WPS more like X. Does anyone have any information on this?
>It seams the "perfect" shell now (despite it's size, and bugs, I
>think it beats all others including X--I've not used NextStep).
>How would they make it more like X? Something to do with the next
>proposed mach-like kernel running things on (perhaps) different
>machines over a network like X can?
Exactly. I have heard IBM talking a lot about something called
Distributed/PM (so that you can run Workplace Shell and/or
Presentation Manager applications over the network) as well as X
client support. I'm not sure the Workplace Shell itself will get much
more X-like in terms of behavior, but it will get an infusion of
X-like networking features.
--
Timothy F. Sipples | Read the OS/2 FAQ List 2.0h, available from
sip1@ellis.uchicago.edu | 128.123.35.151, anonymous ftp, in /pub/os2/all/info
Dept. of Econ., Univ. | /faq, or from LISTSERV@BLEKUL11.BITNET (send "HELP")
of Chicago, 60637 | [Read the List, THEN post to ONE OS/2 newsgroup.]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: rvaniwaa@copper.denver.colorado.edu (Ronald J. Vaniwaarden)
Subject: OS/2 gains accolades from PC-Magazine
Date: 5 Dec 92 05:13:27 GMT
Organization: University of Colorado at Denver
Someone please pick my jaw up off of the floor!!!! I just saw the December 22
issue of PC-Magazine where they give the 9th annual awards for excellence
and OS/2 takes top honors for operating systems!!!!! They did have to give
an award to windows 3.1 with true type fonts as a runner up but still This
is part of the break that we have been looking for!!!
--Ronald Van Iwaarden
A VERY hapy OS/2 user
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From: goyal@utdallas.edu (MOHIT K GOYAL)
Subject: OS/2 Monthly is *finally* shipping! (I hope!)
Organization: Univ. of Texas at Dallas
Date: Sat, 5 Dec 1992 05:52:03 GMT
I called OS/2 Monthly today as to inquire about when I might be receiving
my first issue, and I told that the December (issue #6) is shipping!
If true(I'm assuming it is), that means all the various excuses they have
been telling me have been true. (I did believe them, FWIW)
1 - switching printers, ship late November
2 - will be a special Comdex issue, maybe double-issue(I forget) shipping
early December
3 - shipping! (hey, whaddya know, it early December!)
I'm looking forward to receiving it. They said it will have a new look from
issue #5...which came out a looooong time ago!
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END OF OS/2 Discussion Forum 921201
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