From: sip1@ellis.uchicago.edu (Timothy F. Sipples)
Subject: Re: OS/2 2.0 Release: First Impressions
Reply-To: sip1@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: Dept. of Econ., Univ. of Chicago
Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1992 18:16:53 GMT

In article <1992Apr9.110300.1047@news.Hawaii.Edu> tholen@galileo.ifa.hawaii.edu (Dave Tholen) writes:
>Any expected crashes?

No, actually.  I half expected some problems when I was playing with
SuperVGA modes from a DOS program.  Other than a funny looking screen
(for the DOS session), no problems.  (This was without SVGA ON,
incidently.)

I managed to get the Workplace Shell to crash once.  But only the
shell did.  No work was lost, and the icons were restored to where I
had left them.  A CTRL-ESC brought the expected dialog after a few
seconds asking me to shut down the shell.  It then popped right back
up.  Quite elegant, quite impressive.  (Incidently, what made the
shell crash was trying to delete a shadow of PM Terminal using the
menu option.  I'll try and replicate it one of these days.)

>> I still get a strange noise from the hard disk when I boot up.  It is
>> about a second of a grating or whining noise -- quite strange.  Any
>> idea if that is normal?
>I had a 20 Mbyte Miniscribe hard disk in an old Compaq Portable II that
>also made a grating noise on power up (not boot up).  Might be a similar
>thing.  Never sounded very good, but never resulted in any problem
>either.

No, I think OS/2 (2.0) is at fault here (for making a strange noise).
Now it is hardly a problem, but it is a bit spooky.  OS/2 1.3 (all
HPFS) did not do it, nor does DOS.

Sounds like it (OS/2) is trying to do some seek that the hard drive
doesn't like (like seeking beyond a valid cylinder), but that's just
speculation.  Happens only for a second after the OS/2 logo screen
appears and just before the "Loading..." message flashes below the
logo.

Incidently, CONFIG.SYS commands no longer generate screen output.  The
presentation is thus "cleaner" as OS/2 boots.

>> All my former applications seem to be working fine (save Microsoft
>> Word for Presentation Manager; but I knew that; anyone have the
>> replacement DLL for that?).
>Which one?  The DLL that Microsoft originally shipped with Word that
>made Word break under the original release of OS/2 1.3 or the replacement?
>Why would you need the replacement DLL for Word under OS/2 2.0?  Don't
>tell me that the 16-bit OS/2 support code went back to the original level
>of OS/2 1.3 rather than the CSD 5050 level.  If it's at the CSD 5050
>level, you shouldn't need the replacement DLL, I would think.  Even
>with the replacement DLL, Word was still buggy; maybe that's the problem.
>My solution was to get DeScribe.  Have yet to see half of a line of text
>disappear on me when a font or point size was changed, like Word did to
>me on a regular basis.

I am not fond of Word for PM (to be sure), but I do like Word.  I've
installed Word 1.1 for Windows and it seems to run just fine
(seamlessly) on the OS/2 2.0 desktop.  I'm using the DLL that shipped
with Word.  The replacement DLL might be helpful.

>> On my 100% HPFS setup the installation program dropped a DISKCACHE
>> line into CONFIG.SYS.  That probably shouldn't happen -- one doesn't
>> need a FAT cache with all HPFS.
>Unless you use floppy disk a lot, or if you use a RAM disk like I do
>to speed up compilers that like to write intermediate files.  Both use FAT.
>Seems a bit strange to use a cache for a RAM disk, but I've heard rumors
>of problems that occurred when accessing an FAT drive without any diskcache,
>though I haven't encountered any myself.  Probably wouldn't hurt to have a
>small FAT cache.  That may be why the installation program puts it there.

Hey, now that's a thought!  Come to think of it I have had some slight
floppy problems (particularly with FORMAT in the DOS box).  Maybe I'll
put that cache back in there.  (I was not aware the DISKCACHE line
affected floppy disks.)

If there's one problem with OS/2 2.0 it is that if you know too much
you're in trouble.  :-)

I bumped the machine up to 8 MB yesterday.  Now I can run HPFS.  The
system really does do a great job speedwise.  I have the HPFS cache
set at 768K, which should be about right.  To reiterate, DO NOT use
HPFS on a 4 MB machine.  REM out the IFS line or make sure it is
missing from CONFIG.SYS.  The HPFS driver takes about half a megabyte
on such a machine and will push it over the edge, so to speak.

The fonts for Adobe Type Manager for Windows are not automatically
installed by OS/2 2.0 (although ATM is).  Those fonts are available on
Printer Disk 5 (and it is quite easy to use the ATM control panel to
install them).  Font files (at least for the standard issue fonts) are
not shared between Windows and OS/2 since the OS/2 standard issue
fonts are stored in a special, quick rendering format.  Other typeface
files can apparently be shared (as long as you tell ATM for Windows
that said typefaces are located in \OS2\DLL).

The DDE Agent/Clipboard problem I reported earlier was indeed a
problem arising out of memory constraints (i.e. mixing HPFS and a 4 MB
machine).  That all works fine now -- no error messages.

I haven't looked into it much, but I think editing icon titles could
be improved a bit.  Holding ALT and clicking on the title allows you
to edit the title, but it isn't intuitive (yet) how to finish editing.
The only way I could figure out to finish was to click on another
icon.  Very minor point.

I keep looking for a "Save" button with notebook settings.  As it
turns out, simply closing the dialog makes the settings stick.  (And
does "Default" mean use "factory defaults" or "make the default"?  I
know the answer, but it is confusing at first.)  But otherwise I like
the release implementation.

Making VIO window dimensions "stick" could be made more obvious.

I miss command history in DOS sessions.  I'd like this to be the
default.

I also think DIR /OG should be the default.

And, further, it would be nice if prompts got colors on a color system
by default.  It is one of the first things I do.  For a green OS/2
command line prompt, add the following line (or change an existing
line) to read:

SET PROMPT=$e[32;40m$e[1m[$P]$e[0m

For a yellow command line prompt in your DOS sessions, add the line:

PROMPT $e[33;40m$e[1m$P$G$e[0m

to your AUTOEXEC.BAT file (assuming ANSI.SYS is loaded in CONFIG.SYS).
Note that I've removed the "$i" part.

These distinct, colored command line prompts will enable you to
quickly distinguish between DOS and OS/2 command line sessions.  (I'll
put this trick in the FAQ.)

Opening the Productivity folder in OS/2 System is still a tad slow.

I haven't been able to get satisfactory performance in testing the
shareware communications program Telix.  At 4800 bps, hardware
handshaking enabled, RTS=HS set systemwide from a RUN=...MODE line in
CONFIG.SYS, 16450 UART, COM2, downloads get CRC errors a lot and
performance suffers.  Also, Telix seems to grab a lot of CPU attention
when downloading.  Fiddling with DOS Settings hasn't done much.  I'm
still checking to see what other things I might change to remedy the
problem.  OS/2 communications programs do not share this problem.

Mouse movement in a full screen Windows desktop is jerky.  I'm using a
Logitech C7 serial mouse attached to COM1.

To pin down the floppy problems a bit, I tried FORMATting a 720K
diskette (with the /F:720 parameter) in a 1.44 MB drive (drive A:)
from a DOS session.  On rare occasions it has problems.  Same for
using the "Boot Drive A" icon and a 720K DOS 3.3 system disk.  The
real DOS session came up, but upon taking a directory I got a disk
error.  (This could have been caused by a bad disk, incidently.  I
can't pin this problem down.)  It is difficult to figure out what's
going on or to replicate these problems, so I can't blame OS/2 2.0
just yet.

Would it be possible to add a facility to boot a system disk into a
VDM from Drive B (more "better DOS than DOS")?  Right now only booting
from Drive A is supported (as far as I can determine).

More later.
-- 
Timothy F. Sipples       Keeper of the OS/2 Frequently Asked Questions
sip1@ellis.uchicago.edu  List, available via anonymous ftp from
Dept. of Economics       128.123.35.151, directory pub/os2/faq, or via
Univ. of Chicago  60637  netmail from LISTSERV@BLEKUL11.BITNET.
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.misc