From: kenyee@ksr.com (Ken Yee)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.misc
Subject: OS/2 2.0 rollout (Boston) impressions...
Date: 7 Apr 92 20:39:27 EDT
Organization: Kendall Square Research Corp.

Here's a report on what I saw at the OS/2 2.0 rollout at IBM Copley
in Boston.

In the freebie department (interesting how marketing always manages to
make freebie's part of a marketing campaign...not that I'm complaining
;-), there were about 10 shrink-wrapped copies of OS/2 2.0 GA which
were raffled.  I didn't get one :-( Everyone also got the
complimentary multicolored fluorescent office doohicky (a cheesy
looking pen imported from Germany!!!  but it does work well...).

IBM reps actually wore OS/2 t-shirts and caps instead of the
norm-for-IBM grey pin stripe.  Hats off to IBM for letting their team
look like normal people...sort of a subliminal reminder that this is
not the IBM we used to know.  I know, it's been mentioned before at
other rollouts, but I was pleasantly surprised to see it.

Vendors represented were Wordperfect, Lotus (123, Freelance, Notes),
Borland (Objectvision), Describe.  

There was a live satellite broadcast from Comdex.  Lee Reisweig (sp?)
a.k.a. the Blue Ninja appeared in a T-shirt and demo'd OS/2.  It seemed
targetted a bit more toward MIS people than end users, but hey, they're
the ones supporting the software in companies and it's important that
IBM get a good foothold in the companies this time.  He demoed install
and a couple of Workplace Shell features.  He also showed software
only multimedia in OS/2 (it looks like Autodesk's Windows AAplay
utility but he had sound going in a different application at the
same time).  He also showed Windows Multimedia running under OS/2.
Also, in case you haven't heard, Windows 3.1 now runs under OS/2!
(not in GA, but they do have it working seamlessly already at Boca).
He also showed 14 DOS windows on a system at a time.  The only thing
is he didn't mention what kind of system he was running on...

They had a couple of PS/2's that I played with while people were
watching the first part of the Comdex broadcast.  GA seems to run at a
decent speed on a 386sx (Windows 3.0 was a dog :-).  Everything seems
to be stable.  I hit the wrong switch on a PS/2 and turned it off
while it was running OS/2 (don't ask...)...it booted up, ran CHKDSK
and went back into the shell with everything where I left it.  Someone
who went with me managed to crash PMGlobe; OS/2 gave an informative
register dump (out of stack space) and let him terminate the
application (a *far* cry from a clueless Windows UAE)  I ran Flight
Simulator in a windowed DOS shell (no surprise...but it was neat :-)
Disappointed that Wing Commander wasn't on the system :-)

Sat in on a seminar with a couple of OS/2 developers (Jim, manager in
file system group, and Mark, one of the developers of WPS).  They
seemed down to earth (though they couldn't find the projector channel
selector ;-).  They answered a bunch of technical questions from
developers and promised to get back to people whom they couldn't
answer.  In case no one has mentioned it before...there is limited
SVGA support in GA.  You have to explicitly say "SVGA ON" and then
reboot; the support is not totally automatic yet.  The OS/2
Developers also referred to the online help extensively; I think it
rivals the Next online documentation in depth (didn't see any
embedded bitmaps though :-)

All in all, it was an interesting way to spend half a vacation day.
OS/2 2.0 looks like a winner and IBM seems to have changed for the
better.  Now if only we could see it on more shelves.  I've been
seeing 3.1 upgrade ads from Egghead <gag>...if only IBM could get
3.1 support into OS/2...how would you like an OS/2 Windows 3.1
upgrade for the same price as a Windows 3.1 upgrade?

In the meantime, I'm hoping my OS/2 upgrade comes soon...:-)
Here's to a better DOS than DOS, better Windows than Windows,
better OS/2 than OS/2...congrats to the OS/2 team!

  ken  (kenyee@ksr.com)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.misc