OS/2 Shareware BBS: 14 Text/14-Text.zip/OS2CON.ZIP/OS2CONF.RPT

Text File | 1992-02-10 | 36KB | 692 lines

Hello fellow Compuserve IBMOS2 Forum members!!  Below is a file that I
posted to the USENET comp.os.os2.misc newsgroup on Friday, February 7th.

Having received many favorable responses I thought that I should post it
here for you as well.  Perhaps I should have even posted it here first,
since this is the grooviest forum on CIS!! :-)  [No don't worry the Brady
Bunch debate is not starting up again!!]

Seriously I have to say that in large part my enthusiasm for OS/2 is due to
the enthusiasm I have seen present in this forum.  I had intended originally
to only write a short piece basically saying how much fun I had in San Jose
at the Conference.  But as you are about to see things didn't quite work out
that way.

Near the end of the post are some questions that Usenet readers sent me
to ask at the conference.  If any of the information you see is wrong
please tell me.  There are alot of people who would be very interested
in any discrepancies.  This is especially true of the question of support
for the Hercules Graphics Station Card, as Mr. McGonigle is about ready
to nuke the city of Berkeley (and Hercules Graphics Corp. along with it).

Finally I would like to thank some of our sysops, who were at the Conf.:
Brian Proffit, Guy Scharf, and Mike Kogan.


======================== START OF ORIGINAL POST =======================

Sorry for the long post, but I think the information is really worthwhile.
It might also help to dispell some bad perceptions of IBM.  I think that
you all would have been impressed had you been able to go to the Conference.
All of this took place on Thurday, January 30th, the last day of the show.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here is what I learned and heard at the OS/2 & Windows Conference.  Yes I
know it is really the Windows & OS/2 Conference, but from what I saw there
I tend to agree With Lee Reiswig that the conference should be renamed.

I had posted to the group offering to ask questions at the Conf.  I received
a few replies and I did indeed get to ask some of the questions.  Since
there was already a post about the Reiswig demo I will comment on it here
as well.  I understand that there are tapes available for the Reiswig talk,
if I make any stupid memory errors please let me know, I think that what
I have written is accurate.

The questions, questioners, and answers are at the end of this post.

Here are some perceptions on the show itself:


The Reiswig-Guglielmi talk was at 12pm so we had a chance to walk around for
a few hours.

As we walked around I was struck immediately by the smallness of the
Microsoft display area.  As it was described in another post it was quite
small and unimpressive.  There were a few stations demonstrating Word,
Excell and perhaps some other apps.  From what I saw there was 1 machine
running NT and 1 machine running 3.1.  At each one of these there was just
a single MS employee (in yellow shirts) describing the setup.  There was
no big rollout for 3.1 or NT.  There was no central area that had large
screens demonstrating either of these products.  From what I saw and heard
this was one of the "passive" types of displays.  What I mean is that if
someone is interested you just stop, look, and listen to the guy talking.
There was no "showbiz" aspect to the MS display.

I heard some interesting things from the guy demonstrating NT.  He said
that the beta version of NT would be out sometime this summer.  He also
said that 3.1 is very stable, as he has been using it exclusively for
the last 3 months.  This comment was in response to a person saying that
they had heard that 3.1 was unstable.

Now that I think about it the Borland area seemed about twice as large as
Microsoft's, I think that Lotus had a bigger area as well.  There was even
some company selling their scanner software that had a bigger display than
Microsoft.  I know that often size doesn't count, :-), but I have to say
that the people staffing these other boothes seemed much nicer and willing
to talk than the ones at the Microsoft booth.  If I had to boil the response
I got from Microsoft down it was:

    Well we own the marketplace now, so you need us, and I don't have
    to go through any sort of song and dance to get you to look at our
    products, as a matter of fact I don't even have to be nice to you!
    And I am offended that you are even asking me about OS/2 2.0, or
    that you are even considering that anything could be better than
    Windows.


Ok now on the the IBM Arena.  I call it an arena because it was BIG.
I was really impressed with the demo.  There was a small stage with
a big screen behind it.  A lady would introduce some IBM programmer
and they would run through the skit.  There was also a cartoon-like
character (who was on the screen) that really provided alot of laughs for
the crowd.  The whole show would run interactively (the cartoon was not
just a video tape, that would say the same thing every time, it was some
sort of hand puppet thing, but it was still a cartoon, of course in the
guise of the typical Conference attendee, you know with lots of documentation)
for about 15 minutes.  I believe that they used an new IBM programmer in
each rendition of the skit.  I think this added a more personal touch to
the whole thing rather than having just professional actors going through
the whole thing.

I have to say that the main character in all this was this cartoon person.
Alot of jibes were directed at MS.  Some of them were really funny too.
This cartoon played the skeptical windows user who did not believe any of
the claims made by IBM.  I think as punishment the lady put the cartoon in
a window on the desktop for some comment the cartoon made.  I think I
remember him screaming when this happened.  Something along the lines of,
"Help me, Help me!"

I think this whole concept was a real crowd pleaser, I know that I really
enjoyed it.  In front of the stage there were just about 10 chairs, but
everytime I looked at the IBM area, it was really filled to capacity
(10 chairs + 50-60 standing) with people watching the stage.  Sometimes there
were so many people that the audience flowed into some of the other IBM demo
points clogging things up.

When this finished we were all handed out OS/2 mousepads and a little
white button (2" diameter) that said "I want OS/2".  The purpose of this
button was so that you could be spotted by IBM folks cruising around the
show.  If they chose you (and your button) you were given the complete
6.177 code package (and the 6 little booklets as well).  At this point
you were asked to print your name, address on a little sheet of paper.
Then the guy would give you some support docs. describing how you could
call the IBM EEP BBS (actually this got changed, as I got a call yesterday
saying that I would now have to call the IBM NSC BBS in Atlanta, oh well it
was nice to have been able to make a 1-800 BBS call for a while) and get
support for your new prize.  After all of this was over you would be given
a blue button that said "I have OS/2".

And how do I know all this???  Well let's just say that I don't have
to give $100 to Hart Graphics to get 6.177.

Ok, back to the show.  I don't know how many copies of the code were
given out, but from what I saw most everyone at the show had a white
button on.  At around 3 pm (the show ended at 4:30) people were starting
to beg the IBM booth folks for the code.  One guy even had his button on
his glasses, right between his eyes!

Right behind the IBM arena was a bunch of PS/2's that were running 2.0.
I can't remember exactly how many, but it seemed around 20-40.  You would
just sit down and start playing with it.  As you were doing this the IBM
guys in their white, multi-threaded sweaters (Yes someone sitting at a
computer did say that they liked the white sweater, and the "IBM" stiched
onto the front in big letters.  This person asked how that was done.  And
the IBM guy said that even their sweaters are Multi-Threaded!  As you
can expect this was very funny) would come around and look at what you
were doing.  If you were having any problems they would help you.  If
you looked like you were doing something neat they would just start talking
with you.  This was very nice, because at all times there seemed to be
4-5 of them floating around this test-drive area.  Some of these guys were
programmers from Boca Raton and other OS/2 2.0 programming centers around
the country.  BTW this is where we were "chosen" to receive our version of
2.0.

I should also say that one of the stations in the IBM area was devoted just
to DOCUMENTATION.  It seemed like every 2.0 publication was available on the
table (of course marked "DISPLAY COPY ONLY").  There were even the new books
on 2.0 that will be coming out soon (or are already out).  It was in this
area that I spotted the OS/2 Monthly Magazine (it too was marked "DISPLAY
COPY ONLY").  I thought that it was interesting to see IBM displaying other
non-IBM OS/2 publications, especially the first issue of an untested startup
magazine (which I might add is a very good one).

As Bob Cain said in a previous post it did seem like most of the products
being demonstrated were for Windows.  However at most of the big booths
(Wordperfect, Borland, etc).  They would have a sign up that said
something like "Wordperfect running on OS/2 V. 2.0"  Or "Borland C++ for
OS/2 v. 2.0 demo here" or "Corel Draw for OS/2 v 2.0."  To me it seemed
like these signs were printed up after the Conf. began on Tuesday.  I say
this because they all looked like they used the same paper, template, type.
Perhaps some of these Co's underestimated the interest in v. 2.0 and were
trying to compensate.  Well whatever the case may be I did see alot of
specific references to the fact that vendor's products were going to
support OS/2 v 2.0.

I did however have a really bad experience at Hercules.  My purpose in
being there was to ask some questions for others.  I waited there patiently
and I knew things were not going to work out when the Herc. rep said (as
he noticed my white "I want OS/2" button), "I want OS/2 ... WHY? ...
Why in the hell would you want that?"  A little bit surprised I proceeded
to ask what type of driver support the Graphics Station card would have
w.r.t. OS/2 2.0.

I was told flat out that there is no support for OS/2 2.0 now and that
in his opinion there would be none in the future.  I pressed further and
then asked that perhaps he is saying that because they want to wait and
see how well 2.0 does.  He said (direct quote here), "Let me put it to
you this way.  We would do drivers for 2.0 if it was anything but a
gamble.  And right now it is nothing but a gamble, a gamble that is not
going to succeed.  We (Hercules) are very committed to Microsoft and to
Windows 3.1, and that's it."  I asked him if it would be possible to use
the win3 driver for the Graphics Station in OS/2.  I was told that would
not work.  As we were leaving we received another "OS/2 is going to be
a flop" remark from that same rep.

I immediately went over to the IBM area and posed the same questions to
they guy running the 2.0 demo (this guy would answer any question, or do
anything you wanted him to do, quite nice).  I asked him whether IBM was
going to support the Hercules Graphics Station card.  He said that IBM
would not write the driver, that job was up to Hercules.  I then relayed
the comments the Herc. rep had made re. OS/2 flopping, and Herc. not taking
a gamble.  His response to that was (another direct quote), "Well I see, I
think you will get a different response from Hercules when they see
4 million copies of 2.0 installed."  I have to agree here.  I think Herc.
will write drivers if OS/2 is successful, and if that is the case who knows
how long it would take to write them.  :-(

However, this IBM guy did say that there would be TIGA support with 2.0,
and that he said it might be possible to use the Herc. win3 driver.  He
suggested installing 2.0 as VGA, and then going in and changing that
setting.  When 2.0 prompts for the new driver, just give it the Herc.
win3 driver.  He said this was some sort of layering approach.

Right about now a loud booming voice was announcing the fact that the IBM
Strategy Session would be beginning in 30 minutes (similar announcements
were made at 20, 10, and 5 minutes before the start).  It might have been
fun to have been over at the MS area when this was going on.

Anyway on to the talk:

It took place in ballroom A2.  I just learned this morning that there were
1700 available seats.  And I would estimate that at least 90% of them
were filled.  The talk began with Joe Guglielmi who described IBM's
Strategy for the next decade.  He worked with a slide projector and used
slides to basically illustrate what he was saying.  He said that at this
there were 750 developers writing 1200 applications that would be
dedicated OS/2 2.0 32bit products.  He also showed many large corps.
that were going to be using 2.0.  The one that struck me was Samsonite.
I also saw that UPS was listed as well.

He said that basically IBM sees 2.0 and subsequent releases as
a stepping stone on the way to Taligent.  He made great pains to say that
IBM was going to stick to a standard w/2.0.  "We will not be changing
our strategy from week to week."  He mentioned that in the next year
Novell would be introducing a Netware for OS/2 2.0, and that in 1993
there would be a new Lotus Notes for 2.0.  He also pointed out that
IBM realizes the potential future of Pen-based systems, and multimedia
as well and IBM is already in the planning stages or putting these
things into OS/2.  He wrapped up by saying that in his opinion 2.0 was
the greatest product that IBM had ever put out.  He was very enthusiastic
about the whole thing.  He talked about the fact that the amount of change
in just one year is very staggering to him.  He said that the input from
end users was very helpful to IBM.   Anyway he seemed like a very nice
guy.  I found it different to see an IBM presentation by a guy in grey
slacks and that white sweater.

Next came Lee Reiswig, the Blue Ninja.

As Bob Cain already pointed out there really was a great deal of information
in the Reiswig presentation.  Fortunately we took notes!  But I am sure
that I might have misunderstood some things....

Lee started off by charging onto the stage (of course in that white
sweater as well).  He told us that all the people and the computers off
to stage right would be helping him put on the demo.  All through the
Guglielmi talk I was wondering who these people were.  Each was sitting at
a computer, bathed in the monitor light.  Of course each was intently
listening to Guglielmi, I'm sure none of them were playing solitaire!!

Lee listed what all 12 computers were.  Each was running 2.0, I will try to
list all of them:

Compaq systempro
ALR 486 EISA system
others were PS/2's
one w/32M of RAM (after everyone stopped laughing he said, "Hey, at only
          40 bucks a meg, this is feasible now!")
ultimedia system
rest were 386, 386SX's (PS/2's I believe)

All of them were tied to two servers (I believe the Systempro and the ALR)
with a Token Ring and a Novell Network.

Lee pointed out that they were using code and drivers that had just been
flown in from Boca a few days previous.  So he said that we would be seeing
things that were different from what was on the conference floor.

He said that IBM was going to implement various ways of installing 2.0.
The standard way, using diskettes, would take 35-40 minutes.  IBM would
also let the user have the option of installation over a LAN.  He would
demonstrate this capacity by doing an installation on the ALR from the
Systempro.  He said that this would take about 15 minutes, and that in the
mean time he would go on with the presentation.  When this install was
finished Lee said that we would "hear a gentle chime".

Lee went to great lengths to point out that everything that we were about
to see was live.  There would be no pre-recorded parts of the demonstration.

The first thing he did was start up Lotus 123 for DOS in one window, and
then right next to it he started up Wordperfect 5.1 for DOS.  He sized
both of them so that each filled half of the screen.  He then highlighted
some of the Lotus data, and then pasted it right into the Wordperfect
document.  As I recall it the exact spacing and tabbing was maintained.

He then went on to say that a feature of 2.0 would be to somehow
associate each type of file with a specific application.  He demonstrated
this by going through a procedure whereby every ascii file would be
associated with Wordperfect.  I believe the point of this was to help
the user not to have to ever deal with directories and subdirectories.
After he had finished this process he went to another text file and clicked
on it.  Quite quickly Wordperfect was started up with that text file ready
to edit.

He then went on to demonstrate the communications ability of OS/2.  I
cannot remember what Comm. program he was using, I think it was Procomm.
Before he dialed away he told the audience how, just a few weeks ago, he
(Lee Reiswig) had somehow come across the OS/2 Shareware BBS.  Lee was
really excited about the BBS.  He went on and on about how there were
a great deal of OS/2 shareware programs on the BBS.  He even pointed out
that he had found a fix for his Comm. program that "Even the folks in
Boca did not know about".  He dialed up the BBS, logged on and then
downloaded a file that contained file titles.  When this was done he
displayed the file (I guess the BBS sysop had it in a OS/2 format) and
when Lee clicked on a filename a little window popped up with info about
the file date and size.

He then went on to display a screen that contained 12 seamless windowed
Apps.  He pointed out quite clearly that this was being done on the
machine with 32Megs of RAM.  He proceed to do something with each app, and
then he would shut it down.  These apps were a combination of the following
types: Windows3, OS/2 1.3, OS/2 2.0, DOS.  The program titles were:

Wordperfect 5.1
Lotus 123 v 3.1+ (new version that uses DPMI, Lee said that 123 was
          working on a 1.5Mb spreadsheet)
Current (win3)
Ami Pro 2.0
2 1.3 apps
Choreographer
Enfin (I believe this is a new 32 bit app)
Objectvision for OS/2 (New 32bit version)
Corel Draw for OS/2 (New 32bit version, Lee said this was a first showing
             for this product)
Lotus 123/G (New 32 bit version)
Describe (32 bit version)


He then went on to display the DDE capabilities of 2.0.  He had a 123/G
spreadsheet open and then he opened up Describe.  The Describe document
incorporated part of the Lotus spreadsheet.  He (I should say at this
point that all Lee was doing was talking and using his laser pointer, the
folks doing the real work were sitting over on stage right) then went
to the spreadsheet and changed a value in the cell.  As he did this the
value also changed in the Describe document.  He did this several times,
I think he wanted to make sure the audience knew what was going on.  This
was pretty neat.

He then went on to Multimedia.  Lee said that IBM knew that multimedia was
going to be very important in the future.  Accordingly IBM was going to do
all it could to make 2.0 and 2.x work with multimedia.

He then demonstrated the new Columbus product.  I believe this is an IBM app.
He told us that Columbus comes on 3 laser discs and 5 cdroms.  It was really
neat seeing James Earl Jones in a little window on the WPS.  This full
motion video looked just like a TV picture, very clear and sharp.  Lee then
went through and showed some of the searching capabilities.  As he did a
search little icons of the found data would appear on the screen.  He
could scroll through them.  We were told that each of these little icons
was a separate sound stream or video stream.  What was really neat was
that at the same time James Earl Jones was talking the words were scrolling
in a little window right below his.

Next was one of my favorite parts of the show.  Lee wanted to search for
some more recent information regarding Columbus.  He then proceeded to
start up the "Columbus Rap".  As the guy started to rap the entire bevy of
Lee's helpers off to stage right got up and started to dance.  This was a
big hit with the crowd, I can't be sure but this looked like it kind of
caught Lee by surprise.  Actually it looked like the "12" might have been
having a bit of fun at Lee's expense because right about now (I think) there
was a tremendous "GONG" sound (indicating that the LAN install was done, I
might be wrong about which part of the show the gong sounded in, but I think
the LAN install only took about 10 minutes).  If I remembered it right this
GONG sound really scared the sh*t out of Lee.

Anyway back to Columbus.  Lee explained that he sometimes has trouble
understanding what rappers say, but that won't be a problem in this case
because just like the James Earl Jones piece this rappers words were
scrolling in a little window right below as the rapper rapped.

Next Lee started to use both of the big screens (like 15'x15' or so).  On
one he started up plain old windows, the other was OS/2 of course.  He
said he wanted to show what the difference between a task switcher and a
true multitasking operating system was.  On the Windows screen he brought
up some sort of multimedia application that plays little sound bytes (like
the one on the Mac, with play, pause, stop buttons etc.).  He proceeded to
play a little jazz tune.  He then wanted to find out what would happen if
you wanted to load an application at the same time the tune was playing.
He started the jazz tune, then started some application, as the application
started up the music abruptly stopped while the application loaded.  This
demonstrated that Windows really cannot do two things at once very well.

He also wanted to show that Windows had limits even if the hardware did not.
He said that the sound card in the computer had two channels, so he should
be able to play two things at once.  On the windows computer he started
the jazz tune and then attempted to play some sort of siren sound effect.
The jazz tune was able to play.  As he tried to start up the siren noise
a little window popped up and said something to the effect that "you can't
do that."

Next Lee wanted to try the same tests on OS/2.  I believe that he was using
the exact same hardware for these Windows & OS/2 tests.  He played the jazz
tune.  He played the jazz tune while Describe loaded (new 32bit beta version
of Describe).  All was going well and then right in the middle of the jazz
tune there was a load "CHIRP", the song continued to play and Describe
successfully loaded.  I had the impression that this chirp was completely
unexpected as Lee said, "What was THAT!!!????"  As Lee said that he quite
obviously gave the "12" a very "evil" gaze.....

He then went on to play the jazz tune and the siren sound at the same time.
Both were on separate channels of the sound card.  Next he wanted to take this
one step further by doing the following at the same time:

1. Play the jazz tune
2. Play the siren sound effect
3. load Describe
4. Run a full motion video application

He started up the full motion video.  This showed a view like you were
flying around some skyscraper in an airplane.  Next he started the sounds
(which played over and over).  Next he loaded Describe.  Again everything
worked flawlessly until Describe came up with some sort of error message
halfway through its load.  Lee seemed really disapointed.  I got the
impression that this had worked in the practice sessions but was having
some problems now.  Lee even said that their OS/2 Beta was running
Describe's beta so there were bound to be problems.  Oh well, it was still
very impressive.

Next Lee went on to show some of the LAN features.  My memory is pretty
sketchy on this part of the show, but here goes.  He popped up two windows,
each one being one of the two servers.  He showed that he had access to
every asset on each server.  I believe each window showed things like
printer icons, files, applications, drives etc.  I think one server was
running Novell, and the other IBM's LAN product (I think this is what was
happening).  He wanted to show how easy it would be to work in this sort
of environment.  He proceeded to move a file from one server to the other.
He simply picked up the icon off of one and dropped it onto the other
server's window (perhaps I should say the other server's desktop).  He
then moved this file from its new location to his desktop.   This seemed
to impress alot of people at the show.  I heard alot of "oohs, and ahhs".

Next he showed that you could not only do file moving, but that you did
truly have access to everything connected to the servers.  He took some
document from his desktop and he dragged and dropped it onto one of the
server's printer icon.  A little while later a document was printed on
one of the printers on the stage.  He then did the same thing, but with
a twist.  He printed one of the documents on one of the servers via his
own printer that was connected to his personal system.  So he dragged and
dropped a file from the server's desktop onto his desktop's printer icon.
A few seconds later a document printed off of a different printer on the
stage.

I believe he then mailed something over his network using Lotus' Notes.
It was a file with a color picture picture of the Earth.  There was text
as well.  But before he sent it (I imagine head off any possible cries of
fraud) he typed something into the document before he sent it.  It then
popped up onto some other computer after having been successfully sent.  The
entire message was intact including the picture of the Earth.

In the last part of the show (yes finally, we're there!) he wanted to show
some of the tools that will be available for 2.0.  Again I am a little bit
foggy on this part of the show (perhaps some person who bought the tapes
could fill it in...).  I can remember only two of them:

1. GPF, a program from France
2. Borland's 32bit C++ compiler for OS/2 2.0

GPF means Graphical Application Builder, it seems that you generate front
ends and GPF will in turn generate the C code that will run it.  It was
a real neat demo.  It was set up to help make travel plans easier.  If
you have ever seen the travel agent's airline reservation screen you would
have really been impressed with this.  Basically it was a graphical
interface to the reservation system.  You just had to click on
arrival/departure times, destinations, and then little icons representing the
airlines that had flights would pop up.  He clicked on one of them (I think
it was the American Airlines' logo) and a little window popped up with
flight times, seat assignments, airplane type, fare all that neat stuff!!).

He next went on to display, again another Windows & OS/2 Conference first,
Borland's 32bit C++ compiler for OS/2 2.0.  Lee was very excited as he
explained that the Borland people had only just given him their code a few
days ago.  He again gave the warning that this was beta code running on
beta code so he might have some problems.  I believe he created an
application called the "Tower of Hanoi".  As it compiled Lee seemed to
be trying to will the compile to succeed.  It worked and we were greeted
with a color representation of the game.  There were little boxes indicating
how complex things should be (number of plates I think), and a start box.
There was some difficulty as Lee's helpers somehow chose illegal values.
Lee seemed kind of frustrated as he said, "No, make it 50!  No, 5 then 0..."
Eventually it ended up being 15.  The start box was clicked and the program
worked, it was really neat.  I have the following notes written down, now
they make no sense to me, but they might to you:

1.  All this can be run from the Workframe.
2.  Integrated Development Environment - develop apps in a single platform.

Well that was about it.  Lee finished up the show by announcing that he
and his staff had put 20 coupons under some lucky people's seats at the
show.  If you looked under your seat and found a coupon you would be able
to come up to the stage and get a free copy of LA.  As he said this there
was alot of loud rustling as everyone started looking under seats.  This
was really fun.

Anyway that was it.  I was really impressed with the whole show.  Next
come some questions and answers I was able to ask for some geographically-
disadvantaged folks.  :-)


From: Daniel Brian Greenfield <[e-mail]>

The question: Will there be a driver for the Hercules monochrome?  The
standard IBM answer is "That is up to Hercules".  The standard Hercules
answer is "That is up to IBM".  The standard consumer statement (and it
would not hurt for you to pass this on) is "I don't care who writes it.
But if no-one does, I may think twice before buying OS/2."


    I was told that the monchrome should be supported.  But in light
    of the Hercules comments I am not sure what to expect.  Sorry.


From: [e-mail] (James J. Koschella)

Better DOS than DOS, better Windows than Windows.  Does/will debug and cvw
work under OS/2 2.0?  Or will IPMD accept Windows/DOS programs?  If no to
both questions, is there ANY equivalent way to get the job done?  Thanks!


    To the first part of your question I was told yes.  As to the
    second part (re: IPMD) he did not understand that part of it.


From: "Timothy F. Sipples" <[e-mail]>

I can think of a few questions.  Here are a few to get you started:

(1) Will OS/2's ATM be hooked into the Windows emulation so that Windows
applications will have scaleable typefaces?

    Yes.


(2) Will the Hercules Monochrome Graphics Adapter be supported under
OS/2 2.0?

    See the answer to the above question re: Herc. mono.


(3) Will COM3/COM4 be supported on ISA machines under OS/2 2.0?

    Yes.


(4) What SCSI adapters (brands, models) will be supported by the new
"generic" driver?

    He seemed stumped by the term "generic" driver, but after a
    little explanation he said that most should work.  If not your
    controller company would be the ones to ask.  Yes, the same old
    device driver debate lives on!!!


(5) What high resolution super VGA drivers will ship with OS/2 2.0?


    I forgot to ask this one.  I guess after the Hercules Graphics
    Station Showdown I got kind of burned out on high resolution....


(6) Any hints on what the advertising and promotion will be like?

    Nothing specific, but if it is anything like the show it will
    probably be pretty spectacular.  Again IBM really went all out
    at this show.  In comparison to the Microsoft area IBM's was
    gigantic.  Microsoft was off to one side, IBM was right in
    the middle of the conference floor.  To me it seemed like most of
    the people at the show were at the IBM area.  And I think IBM realizes
    that they really could have a hit with 2.0, I don't think that
    they will blow it.


From: [e-mail] (Bill McGonigle)

I want to know if there will be any support for the TIGA (Texas Instruments
Graphics Architecture) Graphics Standard.

    Well as I stated above the answer to this particular question
    seems to be yes, but only wrt TIGA, and TIGA API.


If not, could you ask if it would be possible to use a Windows graphics
driver for OS/2 2.0?

    IBM said you would be able to.  Hercules said, "NO."

If both answers are no (tears here), you could mention to
them about all of the business they are going to lose to Microsoft with
many high-end graphics board owners, because they don't want to deal
with plain-vanilla VGA.

    I have to say that in addition to my comments above I got
    much better treatment at IBM with your questions.  Your question
    would place blame for this situation with IBM.  But when the
    Herc. rep tells me that, "they are very committed to Microsoft,
    and Windows 3.1," and that, "they are not now and foresee no
    development for OS/2 drivers", because Herc thinks 2.0 is a
    gamble that is going to lose (besides the rep showing some obvious
    personal hatred for both OS/2 2.0 and me and my "I want OS/2"
    pin) is IBM to blame for that?

    And unfortunately this does not help you.  I really felt bad
    as I went from Hercules to IBM, and I am not even the one who
    owns a Hercules Graphics Station Card!

    Bill (and other Graphics Station owners) this is the way I see it:
    right now it seems like you are caught in the middle.  I know that
    you wouldn't care who it is that writes a driver for your card, as
    long as someone writes it.  Hercules point blank told me that in
    their opinion 2.0 is going to flop and they are not going to waste
    one cent on it.  IBM said that they will not write a driver for
    Hercules Corp.

    I will concede that I might have just bumped into a real jerk of
    a Herc. rep.  It would have been entirely different if Herc. would
    have said, "well right now we are waiting to see how the marketplace
    responds to 2.0, because Mr. Schubert, as you might recall, Herc.
    did not have a Windows 3.0 driver that worked until well after the
    introduction of 3.0, but we knew there was a great deal of demand for
    such a driver so we finished it up as quickly as possible.  And the
    same thing might happen with OS/2 2.0." But, of course, that is not
    how my "talk" with Hercules went.


From: [e-mail] (Stephen M Smith)


--is IBM planning any big media blitz for OS/2 2.0?  I have this awful
  feeling that MS's multi-million dollar advertising compaign on TV
  in March is going to drown out OS/2 sales.  :(   A couple months ago
  everyone was so concerned about IBM's advertising strategies!  Every
  day this group was filled with ideas about how to get IBM to push
  OS/2.  What happened to the drive?

    Well I hope what IBM did at the show is only the beginning.  IBM
    seemed aware that they have a good product, but need better
    marketing.  During the talk Guglielmi and Reiswig mentioned that
    end-user comments were very important and helpful.  Also the staff
    at the mega-booth were all very helpful and enthusiastic to the
    hoards of people that were there.  Of course the smiles began to
    wear a bit thin at the end of the day.  And having me pepper them
    with alot of questions might have drained them a bit....

--to have 3-4 apps running, would I be a lot better off to have 12 MB
  ram instead of 8?  These apps will probably be an OS/2 com program,
  a couple DOS programs, and a Windows program.

    I don't know why Lee had a 32 Megs of RAM on the machine that
    was running 12 apps, perhaps there is a link :-)

--someone mentioned that they got a post-6.177H beta that was numbered
  something like 6.500.  They said that it fixed a lot of bugs in the
  WPS.  Could that person (or anybody else with this beta) please post

    At the show Reiswig was using code that was only a few days old.
    He did not mention what release it was, but it seems like there
    are definitely post-6.177H betas.



Well I hope that this information is of use to some of you.  I believe
that Reiswig-Guglielmi talk might have been videotaped as well.  In closing
I'll just comment on "the New IBM".  Remember when I said that Lee had
mentioned the OS/2 Shareware BBS in VA.  Well I was just on it a few days
ago, and as a lark I did a search for users.  The name I typed in was
"Reiswig"

Here are the results of that search:

    name        last on
    -----        --------
    Lee Reiswig    2-1-92

Maybe someone gave him a copy of the FAQ!!

I hope you enjoyed this.  If I made any real stupid errors please let me
know.  Thanks.

-John Schubert

[e-mail]        Internet
70571,1020                Compuserve