Great Product have had the opportunity of seeing and using both the OS/2 version running WINDOZE and the Windoze version running OS/2.
Great idea, even to run OS/2 versions on an OS/2 desktop. There are presently 6 YES SIX currently supported versions of OS/2 and testing a new version before implementing using VirtualPC/2 seems a great way of testing a new version before implementing it!
Also with hardware manufacturers being slow to provide OS/2 drivers for their hardware, VPC/Win running OS/2 gives at least a temporary way to get around the problem as the "guest" OS, whatever it is, always see's the same basic hardware,(sound, video, HD, network etc.) irrespective of what it actualy is - as long as the Host OS supports the hardware, the Guest OS can run on the system.
Ed Durrant Sydney, Australia,
P.S. for those who don't believe - the current 7 versions of OS/2 are:
OS/2 Warp Client FP15/16. OS/2 Warp Server for e-Business FP3 OS/2 Warp Client - Convenience Pack 1 FP2 OS/2 Warp Server for e-Biz - Conv Pack 1 FP2 OS/2 Warp Client - Convenience Pack 2 OS/2 Warp Server for e-Biz - Conv Pack 2 eCommStation from Serenity Systems.
Although without any great fanfare, except in OS/2 circles, there have been several upgrades to the OS/2 Warp OS in the last 6 months. The first was from BigBlue (IBM) in the form of OS/2 Warp 4 Convienence Pack 1. This is a "round-up" of fixpacks, new hardware drivers (including USB and DVD) and a few new utilities. This is what I am presently running. CP2 is due out in the next 6 weeks and it will include further options that otherwise the user would need to download and install themselves, such as a new IBM Browser based on the NETscape / Mozilla 6 code. These Convienience packs, dont change the look and feel of OS/2's WPS.
The release in the last few weeks of eCommstation from Serenity Systems (an American IBM Business partner) certainly does change the look of OS/2. eCommstation is based on the IBM Convienience pack base but has several third party (commercial / shareware & freeware) packages integrated into it. Some consider this to be the answer to Windows XP's desktop look.
There is more OS/2 application software available today than ever before!
Wordprocessors:
Lotus have currently V 1.6 of their smartsuite available (this is the equivalent of the Millenium edition on the Windows platform) and are about to relaese version 1.7, with V 1.8 rumoured to be in development also.
Sun's Star Office V5 is a (IMHO) better office package than Microsoft Office or Lotus Smartsuite and its Freeware. Unfortunately Sun are not going to release V6 for OS/2 however it is reported that the WIN32 version works well via ODIN (see below).
Browsers:
Netscape 4.61 is still doing good service.
Opera have released a beta of their OS/2 version of "the fastest browser on the planet", however Java does not work yet. A fully functional version is expected to be released very soon. This browser can "emulate" IE to sites that refuse to work with anything else!
IBM have released their new Browser and will be updating it. If has full Java 2 support and has had some speed improvements over the freeware version.
Mozilla/2 or Warpzilla are two names for the freeware version of the Netscape 6 browser. At present this browser only supports JAVA 1.1 however as new releases come out of this almost every day, I would expect this also to support JAVA 2 very soon.
CD-Burning:
As well as the commercial RSJ product, the freeware CDRecord has advanced to a point where it is reliable and works well with all recent CD-R / RW drives IDE or SCSI.
Scanning:
HP scanners have always been well supported under OS/2 however through another freeware application SANE/2 many many more scanners are also supported. At present the scanner still needs to be SCSI. Some people have claimed success with some makes of parrallel port scanners but no support is yet available for USB attached scanners, but I can't belive this will stay sop for much longer now that IBM has extended the USB support in OS/2 to cover the OHCI standard as well as the UHCI one.
Windows 32 Bit application support:
I guess I saved the best 'til last! If you can't find a native OS/2 application you may be able to run the WIN32 version of a product under OS/2 now thanks to one of two applications. The first has been in development for siome time, getting better and better with every release - this is ODIN (previously know as WIN32-OS2). This "interpretor" takes Windows binary executable code and converts it to OS/2 executable code "on-the-fly" amending calls to apis to address either OS/2's own APIs or those supported by code within ODIN. Although this method obviously slows down the execution of the WIN32 code, it often isn't that much after initial loading (where the code is converted from Win32 to OS/2). What runs is native OS/2 code ! Examples of applications that run well via ODIN are Lotus Notes V5, Star Office 6, Real Player V8 and many, many small Windows utilities like WinZip.
The second WIN32 under OS/2 option was only announced a couple of weeks ago. The Connectix Virtual PC is going to be extended to support the running of OS/2 under Windows and Windows under OS/2. In this case a full version of Windows will need to be purchased/licensed (this is not needed with ODIN). Beta versions of the Virtual-PC code along with lots of the applications and code described above will be on show at Warpstock Europe this month. Checkout http://www.warpstock.de for details.
As has been so often said, If OS/2 is dead, someone ought to tell the 70% of Finanicial institutions and many military, govermental and Nuclear Power companies around the world that rely on it for it stability and performance !
I'd just like to correct some inacuracies in your brief newsitem on E-Comstation.
Firstly IBM is still developing OS/2 Warp in both Client and Server versions. There have been more additions in the last 12 months, than in the 3 years previously. The difference now is that in this "horrible world" of ours, you no longer get the improvements for free, you have to take out a software "subscription" with IBM. This finances the changes and additions and gives the users more power to have the OS shaped the way they want it. Windows and others make you pay for complete new version with some new features (and often new bugs), so I think the IBM model is somewhat better.
The other error is that Mensys are stated as the makers of e-comstation. This is not true. e-Comstation is produced by Serenity Systems in the US, Mensys is simply a distributor of the product, located in Holland.
Well I'm going back to my "dead" operating system (which don't forget was essential to the 110% successful Sydney 2000 Olympics) and getting on with my work without a worry of it hanging up or falling fowl to a virus.....
Slashdot Mirror
Great Product have had the opportunity of
seeing and using both the OS/2 version
running WINDOZE and the Windoze version
running OS/2.
Great idea, even to run OS/2 versions on an
OS/2 desktop. There are presently 6 YES SIX
currently supported versions of OS/2 and
testing a new version before implementing
using VirtualPC/2 seems a great way of
testing a new version before implementing
it!
Also with hardware manufacturers being slow
to provide OS/2 drivers for their hardware,
VPC/Win running OS/2 gives at least a
temporary way to get around the problem as
the "guest" OS, whatever it is, always see's
the same basic hardware,(sound, video, HD,
network etc.) irrespective of what it actualy is - as long as the Host OS supports
the hardware, the Guest OS can run on the
system.
Ed Durrant
Sydney, Australia,
P.S. for those who don't believe - the
current 7 versions of OS/2 are:
OS/2 Warp Client FP15/16.
OS/2 Warp Server for e-Business FP3
OS/2 Warp Client - Convenience Pack 1 FP2
OS/2 Warp Server for e-Biz - Conv Pack 1 FP2
OS/2 Warp Client - Convenience Pack 2
OS/2 Warp Server for e-Biz - Conv Pack 2
eCommStation from Serenity Systems.
Although without any great fanfare, except in OS/2 circles, there have been several upgrades to the OS/2 Warp OS in the last 6 months. The first was from BigBlue (IBM) in the form of OS/2 Warp 4 Convienence Pack 1. This is a "round-up" of fixpacks, new hardware drivers (including USB and DVD) and a few new utilities. This is what I am presently running. CP2 is due out in the next 6 weeks and it will include further options that otherwise the user would need to download and install themselves, such as a new IBM Browser based on the NETscape / Mozilla 6 code. These Convienience packs, dont change the look and feel of OS/2's WPS.
//www.warpstock.de for details.
The release in the last few weeks of eCommstation from Serenity Systems (an American IBM Business partner) certainly does change the look of OS/2. eCommstation is based on the IBM Convienience pack base but has several third party (commercial / shareware & freeware) packages integrated into it. Some consider this to be the answer to Windows XP's desktop look.
There is more OS/2 application software available today than ever before!
Wordprocessors:
Lotus have currently V 1.6 of their smartsuite available (this is the equivalent of the Millenium edition on the Windows platform) and are about to relaese version 1.7, with V 1.8 rumoured to be in development also.
Sun's Star Office V5 is a (IMHO) better office package than Microsoft Office or Lotus Smartsuite and its Freeware. Unfortunately Sun are not going to release V6 for OS/2 however it is reported that the WIN32 version works well via ODIN (see below).
Browsers:
Netscape 4.61 is still doing good service.
Opera have released a beta of their OS/2 version of "the fastest browser on the planet", however Java does not work yet. A fully functional version is expected to be released very soon. This browser can "emulate" IE to sites that refuse to work with anything else!
IBM have released their new Browser and will be updating it. If has full Java 2 support and has had some speed improvements over the freeware version.
Mozilla/2 or Warpzilla are two names for the freeware version of the Netscape 6 browser. At present this browser only supports JAVA 1.1 however as new releases come out of this almost every day, I would expect this also to support JAVA 2 very soon.
CD-Burning:
As well as the commercial RSJ product, the freeware CDRecord has advanced to a point where it is reliable and works well with all recent CD-R / RW drives IDE or SCSI.
Scanning:
HP scanners have always been well supported under OS/2 however through another freeware application SANE/2 many many more scanners are also supported. At present the scanner still needs to be SCSI. Some people have claimed success with some makes of parrallel port scanners but no support is yet available for USB attached scanners, but I can't belive this will stay sop for much longer now that IBM has extended the USB support in OS/2 to cover the OHCI standard as well as the UHCI one.
Windows 32 Bit application support:
I guess I saved the best 'til last! If you can't find a native OS/2 application you may be able to run the WIN32 version of a product under OS/2 now thanks to one of two applications. The first has been in development for siome time, getting better and better with every release - this is ODIN (previously know as WIN32-OS2). This "interpretor" takes Windows binary executable code and converts it to OS/2 executable code "on-the-fly" amending calls to apis to address either OS/2's own APIs or those supported by code within ODIN. Although this method obviously slows down the execution of the WIN32 code, it often isn't that much after initial loading (where the code is converted from Win32 to OS/2). What runs is native OS/2 code ! Examples of applications that run well via ODIN are Lotus Notes V5, Star Office 6, Real Player V8 and many, many small Windows utilities like WinZip.
The second WIN32 under OS/2 option was only announced a couple of weeks ago. The Connectix Virtual PC is going to be extended to support the running of OS/2 under Windows and Windows under OS/2. In this case a full version of Windows will need to be purchased/licensed (this is not needed with ODIN). Beta versions of the Virtual-PC code along with lots of the applications and code described above will be on show at Warpstock Europe this month. Checkout http:
As has been so often said, If OS/2 is dead, someone ought to tell the 70% of Finanicial institutions and many military, govermental and Nuclear Power companies around the world that rely on it for it stability and performance !
Cheers/2
Ed Durrant
I'd just like to correct some inacuracies in your brief newsitem on E-Comstation.
.....
....
Firstly IBM is still developing OS/2 Warp in both Client and Server versions. There have been more additions in the last 12 months, than in the 3 years previously. The difference now is that in this "horrible world" of ours, you no longer get the improvements for free, you have to take out a software "subscription" with IBM. This finances the changes and additions and gives the users more power to have the OS shaped the way they want it. Windows and others make you pay for complete new version with some new features (and often new bugs), so I think the IBM model is somewhat better.
The other error is that Mensys are stated as the makers of e-comstation. This is not true. e-Comstation is produced by Serenity Systems in the US, Mensys is simply a distributor of the product, located in Holland.
Well I'm going back to my "dead" operating system (which don't forget was essential to the 110% successful Sydney 2000 Olympics) and getting on with my work without a worry of it hanging up or falling fowl to a virus
Everyone to their own
Happy Warping
Ed.