From: dic5340@hertz.njit.edu (David Charlap)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.misc
Subject: Re: OS/2 questions from Amiga user
Date: 21 Aug 92 19:19:55 GMT
Organization: New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, N.J.

In article <1992Aug20.024946.26954@datamark.co.nz> tfarmer@datamark.co.nz (Thomas Farmer) writes:
>Hi there guys and guyettes.
>For example, on my Amiga I can give task priorities to different
>tasks. For example, I normally run comms packages with a task priority
>of about 3, most other things with a priority of 0, and stuff like
>screen-savers and ray-tracers with a priority of -1 or lower.
>
>What is the equivalent with OS/2? Does it use task priorities in the
>same way? Can you change them?

OS/2 has priorities.  A process can send API calls to set its
priority.  A process can also set the priorities of its children, so
you can have a "loader" program to launch an app and set its priority.
There is a shareware program which does this.

I don't know if you can set the priorities of DOS and WIN-OS2 sessions.

>Another question : why is it necessary for OS/2 to load the various
>comms drivers and other such stuff from the config.sys? This means
>that whenever you want to change something, you have to reboot the
>machine. If you happen to be running TCP/IP, this takes a fair while.

The Amiga has standard hardware.  The PC's don't.  Since the OS can't
make many (if any) assumptions about the hardware, it uses device
drivers to support everything.  You had this under DOS as well, but
DOS uses the computer's ROM BIOS for functions - which is really a
bunch of device drivers on the motherboard - so there weren't as much
of a need for them.

If you use non-standard hardware on your Amiga, I'd suspect that
you'll need device drivers or programs or something to access it.  If
you can't terminate the driver (as is the nature of device drivers),
then you'll need to reboot when you replace it for a new one (for
example: when upgrading).

>Third question : Can I turn off mouse acceleration? I like highly
>geared, but linear, mouse movement.

Mouse movement is a function of the mouse device driver.  All the ones
shipped with OS/2 have acceleration, and I don't know of any
third-party drivers.  There are some settings in the system for the
mouse, but I don't know of one to turn off acceleration.

>Question : Are there any command shells which aren't just text windows
>in a box? I'm looking for something that is scalable and doesn't just
>use scrollbars to access the pre-defined area.

They can be written, but there aren't any shipped with OS/2.  I don't
know of any.  Text-mode apps always run in the virtual text-mode of
the OS/2 windowed session.  The command shell is simply a text-mode
app, so it runs in that kind of session.  Someone could, conceivably,
write a shell that was a PM app - it could use any kind of interface
it wants to - as a matter of fact, WPS is one such example.  There's
nothing stopping a developer from writing a command-line based PM
shell. 

>Last question : Can I play Pinball Dreams under OS/2? :-)

Is this an Amiga program?

>I'm looking forward to the next release.

Of OS/2 or Pinball Dreams?
-- 
   |)  David Charlap           "I don't even represent myself
  /|_  dic5340@hertz.njit.edu   sometimes so NJIT is right out!.
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