Pictures from Warpstock USA 2010 have been posted online. From VOICE News.
netlabs.org has published biweekly newsletter #120 to update everyone on their latest developments. Recent updates include 4OS2, Java, QT4, Samba, UniAud, and more. You can sponsor netlabs.org, which helps fund development on various projects. From VOICE News.
UniAud versions 1.9.24 and 2.1.1 have been updated (8/13/2010); in these releases, the driver code is based on ALSA 1.0.21 and 1.0.23, respectively. This is based on the GPL ALSA Project from Linux and provides drivers for various sound chipsets, including HDA, AC97, and PCI cards. Note that there are some known problems with the 2.1.x series, such as "pops" at the end of WAV files. In addition, the cause of repeating system sounds has been found to be a bug in IBM's SND.DLL, and a workaround created.
eComStation.Ru is collecting information about barebone computers, notebooks, and servers that work with OS/2. From VOICE News.
Thunderbird version 3.1.2 has been released (8/3/2010). Thunderbird is a mail / news client, based on Mozilla code. There is also a build of Lightning, which adds calendar support. See my Warpzilla tips page for more information.
An official build of Firefox version 3.6.8 has been released (7/24/2010). As with previous 3.x builds, there are some known issues (particularly with printing); Java support is also no longer available. See my Warpzilla tips page for more information.
Official builds of Seamonkey version 2.0.6, Firefox version 3.5.11, and Thunderbird version 3.0.6 have been released (7/21/2010). SeaMonkey is a continuation of the Mozilla Suite, and now features addon management, HTML 5 audio and video, tabbed mail, and more. Firefox is a stand-alone browser, based on Mozilla code. Thunderbird is a mail / news client, based on Mozilla code; the 3.0.x build includes the Lightning extension, which adds calendar support. See my Warpzilla tips page for more information.
Dave Yeo has released (7/11/2010) an OS/2 build of Seamonkey 2.1 alpha 2, which features support for the new "webm" video format, and a few OS/2-specific improvements. SeaMonkey is a continuation of the Mozilla Suite, and now features addon management, HTML 5 audio and video, tabbed mail, and more. See my Warpzilla tips page for more information.
A concerned reader pointed out that the "Web of Trust" has some poor ratings for os2bbs.com, and a few other OS/2 sites. You can help change this by providing your own ratings.
eComstation.ru has listings of interviews with various OS/2 developers over the last few years; the most recent addition is an interview with Alex Taylor, who is one of the core developers of eComstation. From VOICE News.
eCo Software is working on a new File Open Dialog, and encourages developers to try out the library and samples. eComstation subscribers can try out a beta version on the Beta Zone. From VOICE News.
Dave Yeo has released (6/27/2010) a test build of Firefox 3.7a6pre, which features support for the new "webm" video format, and Rich Walsh's earlier patches: scrolling should require 25-50% less CPU usage than previously; less memory use for new tabs; users of Matrox video drivers should see a normal display; FlashBlock will no longer show a floating rectangle.
Silvan Scherrer has started a netlabs.org project to port the latest Java to OS/2. Previously, Java has been made available by IBM, Golden Code, and Innotek. However, none of those companies have kept current, and many Java apps can no longer be run on OS/2. Dmitry Kumenov, who is well-known for his work on the Qt 3 and 4 ports, has been hired as chief developer. Funding is being provided by Mensys and other interested parties. It appears that the plan is to use Odin as a wrapper for the Win32 version of Java, as was done for the Innotek releases. A release is scheduled to be available by the end of the year. From VOICE News.
InfoWorld has an article on "tech cults," and the section on OS/2 mentions Warpstock. Warpstock 2010 will be held at the University of Waterloo, in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, August 6th through 8th. There is a call for speakers to present on topics related to OS/2 and eComStation; submit your presentation ideas to presenters(at)warpstock(dot)org. Your proposal should contain a title and one paragraph synopsis of the topic to be presented. A range of registration options from $115 to $435 are available, with a deadline of June 30. The Warpstock 2010 logo can be displayed on other web sites to help publicity. Note that a passport is now required to travel between the USA and Canada. Thanks to Andy Willis for the info.
Greggory Shaw has a Soundcard Database where users can share their experiences with the UniAud drivers and various sound cards and chipsets.
OpenWatcom 1.9 has been released (6/5/2010), and includes an OS/2 installer. This is an open source release of the Watcom C, C++, and Fortran compilers. It now includes wipfc, an open source tool for generating OS/2 help files, intended to replace the buggy IBM tool that is no longer developed. Michal Necasek has an article describing how to set up an older version of Watcom, much of which is still applicable.
The ofb.biz site has an overview of the eComstation release; it's more of a "what markets this will fit in" opinion article than a review. From VOICE News.
Silvan Scherrer has started a netlabs.org project to port the latest VirtualBox to OS/2. VirtualBox is a feature rich, high performance virtualization product, and is the only professional solution that is open source. Earlier versions of VirtualBox have been ported to OS/2, but those efforts were suspended due to technical problems, and the lack of the Qt4 library. With the Qt4 library and the latest GCC compiler available, there is already some initial success; the support driver works and a DOS guest can be booted. A team of several developers will work on the project and funding will be provided by the community; you can contribute by buying sponsor units from Mensys. From VOICE News.
Wim Brul is doing research for a USB touch screen driver. Some touch screens adhere to the standard HID class, while others have a vendor specific protocol; there is a forum discussion about it. If there any developers who own a ELO USB touch screen, and are willing to do some prototyping, you can interface with the Direct USB Control Driver and the Emulate Mouse Driver. From VOICE News.
eComStation 2.0 was presented at Warpstock Europe 2010, May 14-16. Highlights of the new version include: FAT32/NTFS partition resizing, GenMAC network drivers, installation on JFS, SNAP/ENT, ACPI, Samba client, and more. It is now available for purchase from the Mensys online store, in "Business" and "Home & Student" editions, and now includes OpenOffice.org. The OpenOffice.org support agreement is being phased out, and will be covered by the standard Software Subscription; it is mentioned that version 3.2 is forthcoming. Note that even if your subscription has expired, you are not required to purchase a renewal to obtain the GA version of eComStation 2.0. OS News picked up the story, and it seems to be widely believed that the cheaper edition allows installation on up to 5 machines with a single license, while it actually means if you are buying more than 5 licenses, you have to purchase the more expensive "Business" edition (which you can buy an unlimited number of licenses for, rather than install unlimited copies of). Mensys previously reported that 2009 was the most successful year for sales to corporate customers, with continuing growth in the first quarter of 2010. OS/2 is still widely used in areas like embedded systems, mission critical control systems, and running existing, large in-house applications. Thanks to "The Captain" for some of the info.
The Warpstock Europe 2010 presentations are available for download; the Mensys presentation includes details about future developments, including Flash, Java support, printing with CUPS, USB stack, AHCI driver support, UniAud updates, Intel Gigabit NIC support, and Panorama driver development.
QT version 4.6.2 has been ported (5/14/2010) to OS/2. This is a cross-platform application and UI framework. Applications that use QT include VirtualBox, SMPlayer, Psi, Scribus, and LyX. The QT4 runtime libraries and plugins are necessary for running programs built with the QT4 library. Included is an XCenter system tray plugin, which extends the functionality of earlier SysTray plugins. Highlights of the new version include printing support through CUPS, faster drawing using DIVE, support for WebKit, and context sensitive help. Development is funded by donations from the community, and the amount of donations made so far cover the current goals, although surplus funds will be used for even further development, such as a future update to Qt version 4.7. Sponsor units can be purchased from the Mensys online shop.
There's a rumor that there are some within IBM that want to resurrect OS/2 as services on top of Linux. From OS2World, which has a discussion about it. It was also reported on by OSNews and Computer World.
An unofficial build of Seamonkey version 1.1.19 has been released (4/4/2010). SeaMonkey is a continuation of the Mozilla Suite, which was discontinued by the Mozilla Foundation. See my Warpzilla tips page for more information.
The OS2World Bounty System lists several projects that developers can get paid for; the total current value of all bounties exceeds $3700. Users can help by sponsoring money to encourage development on the projects that are of interest to them. Open bounties include an OS/2 native port of Java 6, improving the icon routines in OS/2, ports of VirtualBox, Skype, VLC, and Abiword, and many more. The latest bounty is for a network driver that supports the Intel Wired Gigabit Ethernet (e1000) network interfaces. From VOICE News.
The OSFree project is working on their 0.0.5 milestone, which is a file system API implementation; it is expected to be completed in May, see the roadmap for more details. Developers are welcome on the project; long-term plans include replacements for Presentation Manager, a WarpIn-based installer subsystem, and command line tools. From VOICE News.
eComStation.Ru is running a poll asking which new features of eComstation 2.0 are most important to you. From VOICE News.
VMware now supports eComStation 1.2R on VMware vSphere 4.0 Update 1; support does not include VMware Tools. It is also listed in the VMware Compatibility Guide. From VOICE News.
The eComStation.tv site has various video clips and movies related to OS/2 and eComStation. From VOICE News.
Paul Curtis reports that Curtis Systems Software is selling Quad core computers with eComstation running in a VM under Linux. They also have dual head video cards which have been tested with the Scitech SNAP drivers.
Jim Read has had to withdraw Unimaint, FileStar/2, and Flexedit from further sale on Mensys and BMT Micro, due to family obligations. He will continue to support current users to the extent that he can, and hopes to provide a free update for FS/2 that adds support for larger than 2 GB files. From VOICE News.
The winners for the e-ball Awards 2009 have been announced, and include: Best eComStation Application - OpenOffice.org 3.x; Best WorkPlaceShell Application - NeoWPS + Sunny icons; Best eComStation Utility - DFSee; Best eComStation Driver - Uniaud; Best eComStation Developer Tool - Qt4 app framework; Best eComStation Game - Qt4 fun package; Best Student Tool - Python; Best eComStation Website - OS/2 World. From VOICE News.
OpenOffice version 3.1.1 has been released for OS/2, and is available to subscribers of the OpenOffice.org Support Agreement, via login at the Mensys online shop. It features mouse wheel support, support for the Innotek FontEngine, and more. It does not support Java, which means that the database component is not fully functional. The source code is available under the LGPL license from Sun. Support for the OS/2 version can be obtained through the ticketing system, and there is also a newsgroup available. Version 1.0.3 of the WPS integration package has also been released; it extends the WPS data file class to recognize OpenOffice.org document files, has integrated support for WPS-Wizard hint and folder info area, and provides Rexx hooks for reading document properties. Thanks to Joachim Benjamins for the info.
As reported previously, Mensys has received permission from Adobe to distribute the Windows version of the Flash plugin with eCS. There is now a "Technology Preview" version of Flash 10 available for Software Subscription customers, which requires eComstation 1.2 or higher. Odin was updated using code from the WINE project, to handle the Win32 code needed by newer Flash versions. The updates to Odin are in the netlabs.org source code repository, in accordance with WINE's LGPL license. Thanks to Joachim Benjamins for the info.
Lewis Rosenthal runs a few OS/2-related mailing lists, including: os2-wireless-users for discussion of all wireless technologies, os2-netware-users for discussion of connecting clients to Novell servers, ecs-t6x for discussion of running eCS on modern ThinkPad T & W series laptops, and virutalized_ecs_users for discussion of running eCS as a guest or host OS on virtual machines. You can subscribe to any of them by sending a blank message to {listname}-on [at] 2rosenthals [dot] com, and responding to the confirmation message. From VOICE News.
eComStation is at last being marketed for ATM fleets; ATMMarketPlace.com has an article about it, and mentions that NCR launched an advertising program in 2008 that supports OS/2 ATMs. From OS2World.
eComstation.ru has listings of OS/2 based solutions and companies that you can contribute to; recent additions include ATM fleets and Touchvoice CTI. From VOICE News.
Martin Iturbide has set up a wiki listing the last updates available for OS/2 Warp 4.52. If you see that he has missed any IBM fixpack, APAR, or driver (public or not), let him know. From VOICE News.
eComStation.Ru is creating a list of "eComStation Essentials" - small utilities and applications, which are not included with eComStation, but should be installed on every PC. From VOICE News.
The CUPS How To on the eCUPS wiki has been recently updated; it covers installing and configuring CUPS, creating a postscript printer using the CUPS supplied PPD file for the printer, and linking the printer to CUPS to print. From VOICE News.
There is documentation on Hobbes detailing how to install eCS 2.0 on the ASUS EeePC 701 netbook; the package includes some necessary WiFi drivers. Also, Yuri Dario managed to install eCS 2.0 on a Asus EeePC 900, and shared his experience. There are various videos on YouTube showing OS/2 and eComstation running on the Asus EEE PC netbooks. From VOICE News.
eComStation.Ru has a forum discussing what would make for a Perfect eComStation, and a place to list wishes for new apps. Thanks to Eugene Gorbunoff for the info.
The eCo Software Developer Connection has some new info, including new control elements, which include a "vivid" listbox and an about dialog. There are updates to the eCo Software runtime, and the eCo Software Toolkit should be updated soon. There are also reference books, useful links, and more for professional developers. Thanks to Eugene Gorbunoff for the info.
Adrian Gschwend has written a blog post discussing the direction of the netlabs.org Voyager Project. In the post, he also reveals that Daniela Engert has ceased work on her OS/2 drivers (most notably DaniS506). Roderick Klein noted in the comments that Mensys has been investigating adding AHCI support to DaniS506.
Eugene Gorbunoff sent out a plea asking for users to help developers by testing software and filing the appropriate bugs for various projects: use the eComStation bug tracker for eCS bugs; report any printing problems with Lucide; test drivers working in UNSUPPORTED mode with GenMac; test ACPI notebook events for Central Remote Control; test printers with CUPS/2 and report your results; test and report power consumption with ACPI; test DVD/CD Toys with Blu-ray and USB CD/DVD recorders; test Panorama VESA with HDMI; test application compatibility with eSchemes; test TV tuners with Emperoar TV.
NFTP has changed from shareware to freeware. You can now find a product key to register the software, and an open source release is planned. From OS2.org.
eCoSoft has published a newsletter informing everyone on their latest developments. Recent updates include ACPI, Panorama, General Network Utilities, NeoWPS, and more. Thanks to Eugene Gorbunoff for the info.
eComStation.Ru has collected their Frequently Asked Questions into a 233 page book, which they are selling via Mensys. The full list of questions is available online, so you can get an idea of the content. Thanks to Eugene Gorbunoff for the info.
The Simple DirectMedia Layer version 1.2.10 OS/2 port has been updated (8/4/2008). This is a cross-platform multimedia library designed to provide low level access to audio, keyboard, mouse, joystick, and 2D video framebuffer. It is used by MPEG playback software, emulators, and many popular games. The SDL/2 package includes the following libraries: SDL 1.2.10, SDL_mixer 1.2.6, SDL_image 1.2.5, SDL_gfx 2.0.13, SDL_net 1.2.5, and SDL_ttf 2.0.7. The latest build is on netlabs.org FTP, and offers a VMAN fallback mode, in addition to the default accelerated SNAP Graphics mode.
eCo Software has updated their list of eComStation Myths. They are collecting photos of eComStation boxes and souvenirs in their forum, and they also have some logos and artwork that can be used. Thanks to Eugene Gorbunoff for the info.
The July issue of the VOICE newsletter has been published, which covers VBox/2, Feature Install, virtual memory problems, multilingual character sets, Usenet advocacy, Developers Workshop, and more. There is a Newsletter Master Index and Search Function for finding things in back issues.
Coming on the heels of the announcement that there is finally a 100% open source implementation of Java, is the news that there is a project to work on an OS/2 port of Java 7.
eComstation.ru has a categorized listing of available software, and have started a new "eCommunity" IRC forum. Thanks to Eugene Gorbunoff for the info.
The SciTech SNAP Graphics products are no longer being actively developed, and there is a free registration code you can use. SciTech SNAP Graphics is a "universal" video driver, with support for over 240 graphics chipsets, with extra features like zooming, multihead, video overlays for some chipsets, software OpenGL 1.5 support, and more.
Some people have apparently had luck running the Win32 version of Java 1.5.0_07 with Odin. This should allow running some newer Java applications, although it won't work in web browsers. From OS2.org.
James Bell, author of MidiLab/2, the original MIDI sequencer for OS/2, has posted all the material associated with the program on his web site. There are both binary and source downloads available; anyone interested can pick up further development of the project.
The OS/2 and USB page has been updated with additional info on cameras, printers, storage, multimedia, cards, mice, and more. Be sure to check it out if you are using USB devices. Thanks to Martin Iturbide for the news.
eCo Software has released the "Panorama" video driver, which features support for older Radeon chipsets (pre-R300, i.e. those with a number below 9500). Thanks to Eugene Gorbunoff for the info.
There are timezone updates available for eClock, Java 1.3.1, and Java 1.4.2. For other apps, including GoldenCode Java, you can update your TZ variable manually, by appending or modifying it with the new daylight savings string "3,2,0,7200,11,1,0,7200,3600" - this translates to "March, second week, Sunday, 2:00AM, November, first week, Sunday, 2:00AM, 1 hour adjustment". Thanks to cytan and Maynard for the info.
There's a wiki article discussing How to Boot OS/2 from USB. From OS2.org.
The OS/2 Java Corner has been updated with new info. It contains over 180 Java applications (and some applets), each with a short description and its url, and sorted into categories. All applications have been reported to run well with IBM Java 1.1.8 or 1.3.1, or Innotek's port of Sun Java 1.4.2. Click the Java icon at the top of the page to see a list of the most recent updates. Thanks to Roger Henson for the news.
Martin Iturbide has migrated The Config.sys Documentation Project to a wiki on the EDM2 web site; this will allow for more people to easily contribute to it.
Martin Iturbide has migrated the Warp Wishlist onto the netlabs.org Wiki, which makes it easier for everyone to contribute to it. This is a list of operating system and application enhancements that current eComStation and OS/2 users believe are worth paying for.
Opera 5.12 for OS/2 was released back in 2002. Since then, the browser has become free. You can register and turn off the ads by using this registration code: v-ucebm-WmRrz-WnifM-ezWsJ-WFTyb
Mensys has updated their Hobbes DVD, which contains over 4 GB of software from the Hobbes file archive. Long-time OS/2 users may recall that there was once a Walnut Creek Hobbes CD. The DVD from Mensys offers a convenient web interface, which can be either used to browse the contents or search for a specific file. Of each DVD sold, Mensys will transfer 2 Euro to the New Mexico State University to support the Hobbes server. From VOICE News.
A year ago, Innotek quietly released (9/20/2005) OS/2 Kit for Java version 1.4.2_09, which is an Odin wrapper for Sun's Windows JVM. You can download the latest JRE and SDK directly. It is free for personal use; enterprise customers can license it in order to get defect support. It includes browser plugin support for Mozilla, but you need to copy the files manually. See the readme and FAQ for more information. From OS2.org.
Alex Taylor has updated the Toolkit documentation for the OS/2 Unicode API. It is based on the IBM UNIAPI.HTM document from the 4.5x toolkit, but with many improvements.
IBM has released (8/10/2006) Java 1.3.1 Service Release 10 for Passport Advantage subscribers. It includes Java Web Start, an XML parser, and a plugin for the IBM Web Browser (and Warpzilla), so that it can use Java. eCS customers should look for it on the eComstation site. From VOICE News.
Solution Technology, Mensys, and Paul Smedley have agreed to work together on a TWAIN interface for controlling flatbed scanners. Solution Technologies has provided the source code of its OS/2 TWAIN DDK so that an interface can be built between SANE and TWAIN; this will allow applications with a TWAIN interface to utilize scanners supported by the open source SANE drivers. The driver will be available as part of the standard SANE package. Thanks to Roderick Klein for the info.
Mensys now owns all rights and source code for the Win32Prn project. This allows you to use Windows 2000 printer drivers via Odin. It was previously announced that it would be sold for $20 once it was out of the test cycle, but there is currently not expected to even be a beta version available until after a few months. Thanks to Roderick Klein for the info.
www.RexxInfo.org is a comprehensive new web site covering Rexx, with free downloads, tools,
reference, manuals, and how-to's. From VOICE News.
Sander Nyman reports that he has discovered why Duxshelf has stopped working for many people. The Styler/2 option "Use Styler/2 font," which can be used to replace system fonts with Warpsans (or another font), appears to make Duxshelf crash. You can fix this by adding DUX.EXE to the "Exceptions list" for the font replacement feature.
The winners of the 5th Annual OS2World Awards have been announced. Winners are: Best Commercial Software - DFSee; Best Individual Software - Genmac NIC Driver; Best JAVA Application - Jeti/2; Best PHP Application - phpMyAdmin; Best Site - os2voice.org; Best Supporting Company - SciTech Software; Best Unix Port - LIBC/GCC; Honor Award for Individuals - Paul Smedley.
IBM has released (12/5/2005) version 2.2.2 of SciTech SNAP Graphics/se, but it is not available for download (except for registered eComstation users). Apparently you must now contact IBM by phone to get updates. Note that the version numbers for SNAP/se and SNAP/Pro do not correspond to each other, and they do not support the same graphics chipsets. From VOICE News.
The eComStation 1.2 media refresh has been released. This utilizes IBM's recent kernel updates, which fixes crashes on Athlon64 (and Pentium4) systems with more than 512MB of RAM, as well as the latest DaniS506, which provides support for many SATA chipsets. The Application Pack has been withdrawn; Lotus SmartSuite will be sold separately for anyone still interested in that. Support for eCS 1.0 and 1.1 will be dropped at the end of the year. There is a promotion running this month, offering discounts (and free subscription services, which gets you a free upgrade to version 2.0) for anyone who has yet to upgrade to version 1.2. From VOICE News.
An eComStation demo CD has been released. It is a "Live CD" that can be booted directly on a system, without anything getting installed. It can be downloaded as an ISO image, or you can purchase it for a nominal fee. It will be published in more languages in the future. There is now a review of it. From VOICE News.
For those wondering what the connection is between Parallels Workstation and SVISTA, this posting should help explain things. Apparently there are plans to continue with a virtual machine product, but this was a major setback.
Sander Nyman reports that on October 5th, Symantec discontinued support for the OS/2 version of Norton AntiVirus. However, the Linux virus signatures are identical, and can still be used. You can delete the extra Linux files (3 *.so files, and navuplin.dis); the 2 OS/2 DLL files (NAVEXO2A.DLL and NAVENGO2.DLL) are copied to the new VIRUSDEF folder automatically by Live Update. NAV Live Update can also be fixed by editing NAVLUOS2.INI as follows:
[NAVLUOS2] PacketName=ftp://update.symantec.com/public/english_us_canada/antivirus_definitions/symantec_antivirus_corp/rapidrelease/ennlu.lin UserName=anonymous Password=email@address.com
Here's a tip for Passport Advantage subscribers: if you are trying to get a PMR opened for OS/2, it will get routed to the right place quicker if you reference Rodney Almodovar's name. Rodney is the one who routes all the OS/2 PMRs to get handled by the right people, so he will be the first OS/2 person to see it anyway. If you are unsure of how to obtain IBM support contacts for OS/2, call 1-800-426-7378 for IBM Solutions Management in the United States, or your IBM country support in other countries.
The PCI Soundcard Matrix has been updated with additional information. There is also another PCI sound card compatibility listing hosted by OS2World. Thanks to Martin Iturbide for the news.
Martin Iturbide has started a nice Wiki listing various MMOS2 Related Projects.
IBM now has an online "Library Server" where you can find a lot of information on OS/2 APIs. For example, searching for "Presentation Manager" gives you links to a number of programming guides and references.
IBM has officially announced that they will stop selling OS/2 on December 23, 2005, and withdraw support on December 31, 2006. Further details indicate that support after December 31, 2006 will be available for a fee through Service Extensions or Total Content Ownership contracts. There are no plans for any Java 1.3.1 updates (obsoleted by the GoldenCode and Innotek Java offerings), IBM Web Browser updates (obsoleted by Mozilla), or new FixPaks. No new device drivers will be provided after this year. From VOICE News.
Bob St.John has said that this will have no effect on eComstation. The product plan is to sell it through at least mid-2007. "eComStation will remain available as long as it is a good business. There is no end in sight." Esther Schindler has an opinion article discussing the OS/2 community, and how it hasn't depended on IBM for years. The Inquirer also ran an article recently pointing out how much of the OS/2 hardware support these days isn't coming from IBM. There have been a couple Ubersoft comic strips about the announcement.
Martin Iturbide reports that there was wide coverage by the press: Slashdot, The Register, OSNews, The Inquirer, Red Herring, Tom's Hardware Guide, PC World, ZDNet UK, NewsForge, WebProNews, WebProNews (2), Softpedia, ATM Workplace, Neoseeker, DesignTechnica, Monsters and Critics, SearchDomino, WebIndia123, BetaNews, CNet News, ZDNet, and eWeek.
WarpOverlay version 1.10 has been released (4/18/2005) as open source. This successor to HW EnDIVE provides hardware-based video overlay support on top of the SciTech GRADD drivers. This no longer uses DIVE, so it only works on applications that use its API, such as WarpVision. For what it's worth, it was quite easy to add support for my Radeon X600.
Tonigy is now free for non-commercial purposes; a registration key is available. Tonigy is an IFS that maps tracks of Audio CD into WAV or RAW files, tracks of Video CD into MPG files and tracks of Data CD into ISO files. From OS2World.
There is a new QEMU forum on running OS/2. QEMU is a virtual machine for running x86 OSes, that runs on Linux, FreeBSD, Windows, and MacOS. They need more developers to help improve the OS/2
guest support. Thanks to "ecs user" for the info.
The latest "testcase" kernels (revision 14.103a and later) at last feature proper support for Athlon64 and Pentium4 systems with more than 512MB of RAM. Previous versions would crash in testcfg.sys or apm.sys, unless you used Veit Kannegeiser's APMAA64.SYS.
Michal Necasek has a lengthy overview, including screenshots, of OS/2 Warp for PowerPC.
IBM has released (2/28/2005) Convenience Pak FixPak 5. Downloading requires a Passport Advantage subscription; eCS customers can get it from the eComstation site. The majority of changes in it have already been available via IBM's testcase FTP server (kernel updates, and HPFS and JFS fixes). Thanks to Achain for the info.
There are many new printers listed as supported on the IBM Device Driver Pak Online, but the new printer drivers are not available for download. Apparently you must now contact IBM at 1-800-IBM-SERV (1-800-426-7378) to get the updated PrinterPak (it is supposed to be available on the eComstation site soon, for eCS customers). From VOICE News.
InnoTek has released (2/1/2005) version 2.60 beta 1 of their anti-aliasing font engine, based on FreeType. This version can be used with any program (as manually specified by the user), but OpenOffice and Mozilla (and other Mozilla-based browsers) are the only applications currently supported. From OS2World.
Smartsuite 1.7.3 was recently made available to eComstation "Upgrade Protection" subscribers. IBM has published a list of fixes. It's also available from IBM, by calling 1-800-465-6887. From VOICE News.
The modem settings information page has been updated. Thanks to Martin Iturbide for the news.
EDM/2 (Electronic Developer Magazine/2) has been hosted at netlabs.org for quite some time now, and is now done with a Wiki, which makes it possible for everyone to add or edit articles. The first article in the new magazine is "An introduction to SOM" by Yuri Prokushev. Thanks to Adrian Gschwend for the news.
Four months after announcing it, Golden Code has finally made their port of Java 1.4.1_07 available for purchase to endusers. It is priced at $42; customers requiring more than 10 seats are requested to contact Golden Code Development directly for volume discount information. It includes a plugin for use with Mozilla (including GCC builds). This is a native port, as opposed to the Odin port from Innotek, and features many improvements over the previous release. For German customers, Juergen Ulbts is organizing a group purchase, contact him if you are interested.
The first alpha version of a Firewire driver (IEEE 1394a) has been released (8/6/2004). This version does not yet enable you to use any devices, but it will show if your Firewire controller is recognized; those based on the VIA
VT6306 chipset are supported, and it should also work with other OHCI compatible controllers. From VOICE News.
The OS/2 Config.Sys editor, Tyra/2, is now available for free (Username: Freeware; Key: 788818476). The source code will be open sourced after removing the registration code. The CSDP (Config.Sys Documentation Project) and Tyra/2 will be given to the Team OS/2 Hamburg e.V. to maintain. Thanks to Joerg Sievers for the news.
Felix Miata has an excellent FAQ on disk partitioning. From VOICE News.
The OS/2 Compatible Hardware List has been updated, and now has over 1600 compatible printers listed. Minor changes to the other device types have also been made. There has also been an update to the PCMCIA Socket Chipsets Matrix. Thanks to Jonas Buys for the info.
The latest "testcase" OS/2 kernels (14.097d and above) have a new experimental feature, that allows loading parts of DLLs above the 512MB line. "Any DLL objects that do not need to be called by (for code) or addressed by (for data) 16 bit code can be moved out of the low shared arena... this is the place that most often runs out of room, causing sys0008 and similar." Scott Garfinkle gave an example that "saved nearly 11mb of shared memory address space" on his test system:
EXEHDR /HIGHMEM MMPARTS.DLL EXEHDR /HIGHMEM:1 xx.dllwhere xx is every DLL in mozilla and mozilla/components except npoji6.dll (the Java plugin). Note that for mmparts.dll, you'll need to use an unlock program or boot to a command line. If you have trouble finding the new EXEHDR, you can also try the above512 program.
IBM has released (12/17/2003) Warp 4 FixPak 17 for Software Choice subscribers. Still available (1/10/2001) is the free FixPak 15. FixPak 17 updates the base level of OS/2 to approximately the same level as Convenience Pak FixPak 4. Device drivers are not included, and can be found in the separate Device Driver FixPak. You will need FixTool version 1.44 to install this. My personal preference is to install it using Fix.cmd from FastKick, which eliminates the need for floppies. From VOICE News.
The OS/2 game Master of the Empire has been released as a free download. From os2.jp.
BlueCad 1.0 is now available for free. Unfortunately, this CAD program has only continued on the Windows platform. Thanks to Klaus Staedtler for the news.
Here are some Java tips which may be useful:
SET HOMEDRIVE=X: SET HOMEPATH=\DIR\PATHor if you prefer a root directory you must NOT have a trailing backslash:
SET HOMEDRIVE=X SET HOMEPATH=:The JAVA2_USERHOME variable used by the Innotek/Sun Java does work correctly.
Adrian Gschwend wrote in to announce that GIMP can now (4/7/2003) run on the OS/2 desktop, with the help of Everblue. Gimp is the Gnu Image Manipulation Program, often called the free "Photoshop". It has been available for a long time for XFree86/OS2, and now you can run it without XFree86/OS2 installed. Everblue, the XLib implementation for OS/2 PM, is bundled with GIMP in a WarpIN package for easy installation. There is also a gimp.org page for the OS/2 version, which has further information.
The WPS Toolkit web site has been launched at netlabs.org. The Workplace Shell has by far the most innovative and extendible interface of all computer GUIs around. Besides giving you a lot of little helper functions, the API of the Workplace Shell Toolkit encapsulates the complexity of the handling of some of the tasks being the most time consuming to code. The following major APIs of the Workplace Shell Toolkit possibly are of particular interest: Text Message File (TMF) Support, Settings and Details Manager, Extended Attributes Manager, and Memory Mapped Files Manager. Among lots of little additional helpers to show up in future versions the following major APIs are on the todo list: XUL support. There is a programmer's guide and reference available.
IBM has released updates for the OS/2 networking components. MPTS has been updated to revision WR08706, and TCP/IP 4.3 has FixPak UN022206, both of which require a Software Choice subscription. eCS customers can find these on the eComstation site. With this update, MPTS is at version 6.52, and the TCP/IP revisions are: SOCKETS.SYS - 6.3100, AFOS2.SYS - 6.3000, AFINET.SYS - 6.3100. To check your current version, type INETVER at a command prompt. From VOICE News.
Virtual PC for OS/2 version 5.1 has been released (10/21/2002). This allows you to execute additional operating systems on top of your OS/2 desktops. This update comes with a plethora of new features and enhancements. For existing Virtual PC for OS/2 customers, the update is free of charge, and can be downloaded here. You can purchase it for the suggested retail price of Euro 239, from resellers such as Mensys. From OS2.org.
Here's a nice tip for people who are using recent kernels, and have large Windows EXE files (for use with Odin or otherwise). You may have noticed that the WPS takes a VERY long time to display the folders holding these files. The reason for this delay is that OS/2 has to search through the entire file to find the proper icon to display. If you're tired of waiting, add the following to your CONFIG.SYS file:
SET NOLARGENTEXEICON=nWhere n is the number of megabytes OS/2 should scan before assigning a default Windows icon.
IBM has released (8/19/2002) Device Driver FixPak 3, for Software Choice subscribers. eCS customers can find it on the eComstation site. Still available (9/29/2000) is the free Device Driver FixPak 2. Thanks to Andy Willis for the news.
IBM has released (2/25/2002) FixPak 3 for WSeB, which is available via FTP, and on the Software Updates Page. If you want to use the RSU update, you need to get this fix, or install TCP/IP FixPak UN_2101. Thanks to Klaus Staedtler for the news.
IBM has released (1/31/2002) TCP/IP 4.3.2 for Software Choice subscribers. This should include all of the previous fixes, as well as improved support for Java 1.3.
IBM has released (12/28/2001) updates to Java 1.1.8. You must have Java 1.1.8 from Software Choice already installed. Thanks to Klaus Staedtler for the news.
IBM has released (10/26/2001) updated kernels for Warp 4 and WSeB / MCP / ACP (UNI and SMP), as well as updates to JFS, SES, and the dump formatter. There are lots of fixes, and a couple new features: fine-tuning of the clock scale; support for more than 64MB of memory (for machines that previously required Dani's patch to OS2LDR); the internal revision displayed during boot can be suppressed; and trap messages will show the module name, including traps in 32-bit code. Thanks to R.C. for the news.
IBM has created updated (8/4/2001) installation disks for Warp 4. They are for ThinkPads, but should work on other systems as well.
Just like in Microsoft Office, there is a game hidden in the Star Office spreadsheet. Open a new Spreadsheet document, and then enter =GAME("StarWars") in the first cell. It starts a game resembling Space Invaders - the text is German, but it's easy to figure out. From eCS NewsCast.
Complete text of some OS/2 books are now available at OS/2.cz: Advanced OS/2 Programming, Inside OS/2, and Programming The OS/2 Presentation Manager. Note that these are copyrighted materials, so be aware of any local copyright and fair use laws. There is also a free OS/2.cz e-cards calendar for the year 2001. Thanks to Filip Molcan for the news.
IBM has released (3/14/2001) updates for TCP/IP 4.21 and 4.3 to fix the Trap E's that were occurring for dialup users (especially with InJoy). Thanks to Klaus Staedtler for the news. They also released (2/27/2001) updates for TCP/IP 4.21 and 4.3 that fix FTP ASCII transfers, and another update (8/14/2000) for TCP/IP 4.3 that fixes traps when connecting to FTP via Telnet.
IBM has released (1/9/2001) fixpak IP08414 for Warp Peer services. From VOICE News.
FixPak 43, the last FixPak for Warp 3, has been released (10/18/2000). You can get it via FTP or the IBM Software Updates page. It applies to Warp Server and Warp Server SMP only, because all versions of Warp 3 except Server and Server SMP have been dropped from support.
MPTS has been updated (4/28/2000) to revision WR08621, which contains a 32-bit TCP/IP stack. It requires either WR08600 or WR08610 to be installed. I recommend extracting the disk images to a directory on your hard drive, and installing it from there, since it is much faster. With this update, MPTS is at version 5.50, and the TCP/IP revisions are: SOCKETS.SYS - 6.2004, AFOS2.SYS - 6.2000, AFINET.SYS - 6.2013. To check your current version, type INETVER at a command prompt. Warning: the problems with the InJoy dialer in 32-bit stacks has gotten much worse with this release; it now causes Trap E errors. From WarpCast.
IBM has released (4/27/2000) FixPak UN_2101 for TCP/IP 4.21 (included with WSeB). It should be installed with MPTS 8621.
It seems the 512MB memory limit in Warp 4 has been increased to a maximum of 3GB. With FixPak 13 applied, it defaults to 1GB, but can be tuned via the Config.Sys variable "VIRTUALADDRESSLIMIT=3072" which indicates the value in megabytes, 512-3072.
For those who have stuck with the 16-bit TCP/IP stack (version 4.0x), MPTS WR08425 is now (1/19/2000) available. This will bring your inetver to 4.02y, and requires 8421 or above to be installed. Thanks to Klaus Staedtler for the news. Also available (12/2/99) is FixPak UN_0980. This contains updates to the 16-bit TCP/IP applications, including FTP, FTPD, NewsReader/2, Syslogd, and TCPCOEX. From WarpCast.
IBM has released (1/6/2000) some new fixes for the 32-bit TCP/IP applications. This supersedes UN1001, and requires MPTS 8620. From WarpCast.
Martin Hadam reports IBM has updated (8/16/99) the Feature Installer to version 1.2.5. It "contains enhancements for installation reliability and serviceability."
FixPak 6 and above includes what seems to be a fix for the Pentium F00F bug. To enable it, add the line "BASEDEV=CMPXCHG8.SYS" to your CONFIG.SYS. You may have to copy this file from the OS2 directory to the OS2\BOOT directory. Thanks to Loren Bandiera for the info.
It's recently been discovered that FixPak 5 and 6 have an extra setting for the WarpCenter. If you add the line "SET MENUSFOLLOWPOINTER=ON" to your Config.sys, the cascading menus work in the same manner as the Windows 95 Start menu; that is, to view the contents of any folder you only need to put the mouse pointer over its icon. Thanks to Loren Bandiera for passing it on.