═══ 1. Welcome to CAOS/2 ═══ Welcome to CAOS/2 We are a small but merry band of OS/2 pioneers and newbies living in and around Edmonton, Alberta. The group was formed in August of 1993 to provide a forum for OS/2 users and investigators who often found themselves alone in a sea of marketing ballyhoo and technical misinformation. As of our first anniversary we have over 70 paid members. The aims of CAOS/2 are many, and vary from member to member, but all involve one or more of the following principles. ■ Information Local support (or even recognition) of OS/2 while growing, still leaves many users with questions about their own setup. CAOS/2 members and resources can provide a local source of news and information about products, services, and the experiences of real users. ■ Technical Support Our members come from a wide variety of backgrounds, operating OS/2 in the home and at work, for fun and profit. We have a collective experience with OS/2 products and procedures that outpaces what is usually available through normal consumer channels. ■ Participation Many OS/2 users face a quite struggle when justifying their choice to DOS and Windows users, especially those that have gained the bulk of their information from mainstream computing resources, like magazines and the popular press. CAOS/2 provides an environment in which like-minded individuals and the open-minded can gain credible facts in an atmosphere of informed consensus, rather than market hype. Those that feel the need to do so are also provided with a forum to relate their experiences to an educated and appreciative audience. CAOS/2 is a registered Society under the Alberta Societies Act. ═══ 2. How we talk to the world ═══ From the beginning CAOS/2 has relied on multiple media outlets for spreading its message. Since it's so easy once you've mastered a few computer-based media, we thought we'd do as many as we could. ═══ 2.1. Electronic ═══ Mach/2 BBS +1.403 489.4250 FREE 484.3982 This is the CAOS/2 information hub, an OS/2-hosted BBS operating two nodes around the clock. The board offers an OS/2-heavy list of e-mail conferences and files fed by a Planet Connect satellite receiver. There are several conferences devoted to group activities (CAOS_*) and OS/2 in general, and many more devoted to OS/2 discussion carried by several networks: Fido, UseNet, BitNet, WorldNet, and IBMNet. Furthermore, several Mach/2 users also use CompuServe and UseNet and will at various times cross-post information onto Mach/2 from these sources. The majority of our group's interaction and information exchange occurs through this BBS, and members should make every effort to take advantage of this valuable service. The board's always-affable sysop is also committed to providing all the files he possibly can, including the Walnut Creek and Hobbes CD-ROM collections. Sysop Comments ═══ 2.2. E-mail ═══ CAOS/2 conferences are echoed locally by the following Edmonton (403 area code) BBSs, which also carry as much available shareware as they can find (and have room for): ■ Freddy's Place 456.4241 Jim McGallan ■ The Circular Ruins/2 453.5711 John Long ■ Calanost RBBS-PC 468.1741 Robert Goshko ■ Nor'wester 472.7882 Edward Williams ■ First Solution BBS 458.7871 Harry Wagensveld ■ The Ozone (Athabasca) 675.3392 Kevin Crocker ■ Starship Heart of Gold 489.1735 Steve Whitelaw ■ NAPCUG 489.4685 Peter Mosonyi ■ Northern Alberta Maple 474.0147 Don Hazlewood ■ Tanktalus' Tower 457.0249 Darin McBride ■ Full Circle Wildcat 425.2535 Dennis Cambly ■ The Real George 459.8219 Gary George Note: If you run an OS/2-friendly BBS within the Central Alberta region (roughly Red Deer and north) we'd be happy to include your name here. Contact Jerome Yuzyk for this or any other information. ═══ 2.3. Fax ═══ Meeting notices are posted by fax at least one week before each meeting, or when details of the monthly meeting are settled. To be included on the notice list, send a fax cover-page with your addressing details to Jerome Yuzyk; also state whether you require a cover page for your notice. To be removed from the list, simply return the cover page or a copy of a monthly notice, indicating your name, to Jerome. ═══ 2.4. Print ═══ A quarterly newsletter is available, edited by our secretary. Interested contributors are always welcomed. Also look for our notice in the "User Groups" listing in the Alberta edition of The Computer Paper. ═══ 3. Details ═══ Here are a few details about how the group operates. (Actually, the only reason there is text on this page is because the IPF compiler squawks if there isn't, and won't let you use the Back button.) ═══ 3.1. Meetings ═══ First Thursday of every month, 6:30 pm Agriculture/Forestry Building, Rm. 113 University of Alberta campus, North of Stadium Carpark, East of the General Services Building Meetings are informal, and generally consist of some group administration, OS/2 news and notes, featured presentations, and a Question/Answer session. Thanks to the kindly assistance of the UofA Department of Animal Sciences, we have a decent computer to use for meeting demos, complete with LCD-panel projector. ═══ 3.2. Membership ═══ From the beginning we have decided to keep our membership fee low. Since we rely on electronic means where we can and solicit donations for things we need, we have been successful in doing so. Membership fees cover meeting supplies, registrations, shipping costs, and the occasional piece of hardware for our BBS or meeting machine. Single: $25 per year, payable at 2nd meeting Corporate: $100/5 people per year Since we are a registered society, a receipt will be provided. ═══ 3.3. Benefits ═══ Here's what you get for your membership fee: o one-time $5 off OS/2 merchandise o early access to "hot" files on Mach/2 o beta- and evaluation-testing programs o access to collected information materials and demonstration kits o various discounts from local vendors on presentation of proof of membership o a reliable, unbiased source of OS/2 information and technical assistance o a chance to talk with other OS/2 users of varying experience, and get the kind of assistance and support you can't find anywhere else ═══ 3.4. Who's Who ═══ Executive: Jerome Yuzyk Chairman, New 448.1434 (v) jerome@supernet.ab.ca User Director 468.9453 (f) Kevin Crocker Vice Chair 675.3585 (Athabasca) Steve Ward Secretary 450.3300 70404.1462@compuserve.com Harry Wagensveld Treasurer 459.6298 henry@cs.ualberta.ca Members at Large: Richard Dodsworth Mach/2 BBS Sysop Arylnn Poczynek founding member, now doing TeamOS/2 work with IBM in Toronto Tom King original secretary, now in Winnipeg working on a group ═══ 4. Tips for a better Life with OS/2 ═══ o Remember that OS/2 is an operating system, quite possibly the first you have encountered in your personal computing experience, unless you have used Unix. Expect that some of the things you "got away with" in DOS and Windows won't always work (the same way) in OS/2. o Make sure you are using a "quality" 386/486 machine. OS/2 demands a CPU that meets Intel specifications. Most DOS programs (Windows included) are much more forgiving of cheap hardware, and not every CPU is created equally. Beware of "bargain" hardware. o Read the README.TXT file on the Installation Disk before starting an installation. This file lists known hardware and software incompatibilities. The majority of installation problems arise because information in this file is not known or not heeded. o Turn off all BIOS-based RAM caching and shadowing options before installing. OS/2 needs to know the exact nature of your computer during installation, and these options mask the true nature of your system. These options may be turned back on after OS/2 is installed. Failing to follow this simple rule accounts for 90% of all installation problems, and even though OS/2 may appear to install successfully, you may have problems later on. o Once OS/2 has completed its base installation, you will be presented with the opportunity to take a tutorial while the rest of the system is configured. We strongly suggest you take the time to complete the tutorial. Since OS/2 is already multi-tasking at this stage, you can work through the tutorial while configuration continues in the background, and avoid many common "how do I?" problems. o Get the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) list, a file containing a wealth of answers and tips on the successful installation and operation of OS/2 gathered from various questions posed by new (and veteran) users over the years. This file is available from any BBS that supports OS/2. o OS/2 for Windows users will need their original disks during installation, since a few original files will be copied to your hard-disk from these disks. o Join CAOS/2 and ask us the rest! ═══ 5. Other Information Sources ═══ Edmonton Computer Books stocks as many OS/2 titles as they can find, and is happy to fill special orders. The Northern Alberta Institute of Technology (NAIT) offers an introductory-level OS/2 course through their Microcomputer Institute. ═══ 6. CAOS Guy ═══ Here's "CAOS Guy," a graphic we use as our mascot, of sorts. ═══ 7. Colophon ═══ Colophon? This INF was prepared by Jerome Yuzyk over the course of three hours one evening in September. A little extra effort the next day (and the day after that, and the day after that...), and the thing is lookin' pretty sharp! Text for the INF was exported from an existing paper brochure designed with PageMaker 4. My handy vi editor (elVIs) was only too happy to let me define a function-key binding that let me compile and view the INF as I built it from a "stock" IPF I had previously created while reading through the IPF compiler INF. "CAOS Guy" came from a clipboard-transfer-to-BMP of a piece of a FaxWorks page from our paper brochure. The image is composed of a PCX scan of a hand-drawn picture generously donated by a friend of a group member. The PCX was passed through CorelPhoto to remove some extraneous lettering, then imported into PageMaker. The lettering was built in and imported from CorelDRAW. The whole brochure had been previously printed to FaxWorks, which explains its less-than-perfect resolution. All this hoo-ha really points out the need for a good OS/2-native graphics application. ═══ 8. Version and Copyright Information ═══ This is version 0.4 of this INF, produced on 03-October-1994. This INF is (c) Copyright CAOS/2: Central Alberta OS/2 User Group 1994 and may be distributed freely provided it is distributed without modification nor changes in attribution. ═══ ═══ Central Alberta OS/2 Users Group ═══ ═══ In case you didn't know, Edmonton is a smallish city of 650,000 people located in the middle of the Canadian province of Alberta. For those of you with atlases, look at 53.5° North, 113.5° West. For any telephone-based contact, use the "1" country code and "403" area code. ═══ ═══ I'm running two BBS/mailer (Maximus/Binkley) nodes on a 386DX 33Mhz with 8M RAM, two SCSI 1.2 gig drives (one Maxtor and one Seagate) in a separate enclosure, a SoundBlaster 16, and a Philips CD-ROM. OS/2 2.11 and 2.99 are both bootable to run the BBS system. I use a 5 gig Tape backup (SCSI) Exabyte 8200 with BackupWiz for files that go offline, and GNU TAR ported to OS/2 for weekly "full" backups. I have a separate machine (386-16, 2M RAM) that runs all the time for the satellite feed (Planet Connect). I transfer files as they are received through a parallel port to the main machine, at the rate of 2M/min.ё using "File Shuttle Express." I have in the neighborhood of 1 gig of files online all the time. I carry a few hundred message areas, top heavy on OS/2, including InterNet, Fido, WorldNet, ImexNet, "CAOSnet", ProgNet, EggNet, etc. I provide a direct FidoNet/filebone feed to approximately 16-20 people, of which three are hubs who probably feed another 20+ people. I am a hub for IMEXNET and the local NC for IBMNET and CAOSNET. ═══ ═══ Actually, an OS/2 mailing list, which may also be found as a UseNet group. ═══ ═══ Note that not all of these echoes are on the "backbone." OS2 OS2BBS TeamOS2 OS_Debate OS2ProdSup OS2Lan OS2Prog OS2DOS OS2HW OS2DOSBBS OS2Video OS2Communic OS2Database OS2Wordpro OS2Workplac OS2Beginner OS2Rexx OS2Games OS2CDRom FernwOS2 ═══ ═══ IBM.OS2DBM IBM.OS2LAN IBM.OS2COM IBM.OS2PRO IBM.OS2.OS2REXX IBM.OS2SIG IBM.OS2.INS IBM.OS2BETA ═══ ═══ OS2 ═══ ═══ comp.binaries.os2 comp.os.os2 comp.os.os2.advocacy comp.os.os2.announce comp.os.os2.apps comp.os.os2.beta comp.os.os2.bugs comp.os.os2.games comp.os.os2.misc comp.os.os2.multimedia comp.os.os2.networking comp.os.os2.networking.misc comp.os.os2.networking.tcp-ip comp.os.os2.programmer comp.os.os2.programmer.misc comp.os.os2.programmer.oop comp.os.os2.programmer.porting comp.os.os2.programmer.tools comp.os.os2.setup comp.os.os2.ver1x ═══ ═══ We use FaxWorks for all our faxing. ═══ ═══ This is a free monthly newsprint paper published across Canada by Canada Computer Paper Inc. and available at various Computer, computer-related and convenience stores. ═══ ═══ Try to be on time, please. The building has a security system that automatically locks all doors at 7:00 and we'd hate to miss you. If you do get locked out, try entering the General Services Building and using the 2nd-floor walkway to enter the building, then go to the bottom floor. ═══ ═══ Doing something neat with OS/2? We're always open to hear what you know. If you can provide a 15-30 minute demonstration, you've got the floor! Presenters are always welcome - you need not be an expert, only enthusastic. ═══ ═══ Specifically Brian Kerrigan, Faculty Services Officer ═══ ═══ Among other things we have DeScribe, Lotus SmartSuite, R:Base, VX-Rexx, and a number of utilities. ═══ ═══ TeamOS/2 is a grass-roots organization of OS/2-enthusiasts that spread the word through their pontification and demonstration activities. ═══ ═══ Edmonton Computer Books 10265 - 107 Street Edmonton, Alberta +1.403.429.1077 ═══ ═══ MCC36: OS/2 Operating System Introduction $275 for 14 hours. Available days, evenings, or weekends ═══ ═══ From Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary col·o·phon \'kДl-e-fen, -,fДn\ n [L, fr. Gk kolophУ summit, finishing touch; akin to L culmen top ─ more at HILL] (1621) 1: an inscription placed at the end of a book or manuscript usually with facts relative to its production 2: an identifying device used by a printer or a publisher ═══ ═══ "Matt," a friend of Tom King.