Re: What to Do with a PS/2?

[Liam Proven]

On 30 January 2016 at 06:18, Robert Ferguson  wrote:
> This is exactly correct, although marketing had nothing to do with the “NT” 
> retcon; we did it ourselves.
>
> - Rob
>
> ps: the i860 was not a pleasant thing. There was much rejoicing in the halls 
> the day we decided to drop it as a target architecture.


Wow! Thanks for that! My compliments on your work.

-- 
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Re: What to Do with a PS/2?

[Mark J. Blair]

> On Jan 27, 2016, at 22:52, John Blake  wrote:
> 
> Vetusware is highly unreliable and tries to charge for accounts, which isn't 
> worth it at all because most of the things I've gotten from there haven't 
> worked.  Try: https://winworldpc.com/library

I got the "blue spine" release of OS/2 Warp Connect 3.0 from winworldpc.com and 
successfully installed it, using a SCSI CDROM drive that I pulled out of a Sun 
Ultra 60 parts rig. It's clearly a newer release than the Warp Connect release 
I downloaded form vetusware, which didn't even include TCP/IP support. The IBM 
WebExplorer browser is not able to cope with the modern web, and the updater 
was not able to resolve updates.gopher.ibm.com, oddly enough. :)


-- 
Mark J. Blair, NF6X 
http://www.nf6x.net/

Re: What to Do with a PS/2?

[Robert Ferguson]

> On Jan 28, 2016, at 5:01 AM, Liam Proven  wrote:
> 
> Actually, though, it was developed on multiple CPU platforms, and one
> was an in-house board design based around Intel's RISC chip, the i860
> -- codenamed the N10. NT allegedly stood for "N Ten" before MS
> marketing retconned it to "New Technology”.

This is exactly correct, although marketing had nothing to do with the “NT” 
retcon; we did it ourselves.

- Rob

ps: the i860 was not a pleasant thing. There was much rejoicing in the halls 
the day we decided to drop it as a target architecture.

Re: What to Do with a PS/2?

[John Wallace]

[massive snippage, sorry]

Several folks have mentioned Dave Cutler.

There's a book called "Inside Windows NT", by Helen Custer at Microsoft Press. 
The aforementioned Dave Cutler (architect of software including RSX11, VAX/VMS, 
VAXELN, and WNT) wrote a foreword for it. There, he says the goals of NT were 
"portability, security, POSIX compliance, compatibility, scalable performance, 
multiprocessor support, extensibility, and ease of internationalisation" (p 
xviii in my copy). Obviously some of that list has fallen away during the 
NT/Gates years (portability? security? POSIX?)

WNT's kernel stuff, process architecture, etc has some VAXELN heritage. VAXELN 
was a not particularly well known (even inside DEC) Cutler project for a 
distributable realtime OS which would feel comfortable for VMS programmers 
without being VMS, and allow distributed RT applications to be developed 
without need to understand low level hardware specifics and OS kernel interface 
details. VAXELN incorporated early examples of a process model which also 
incorporated threads, and a nice approach to interprocess data sharing (a 
distributed naming service, transparent messaging between apps whether on the 
same node or separate, etc). Marvellous stuff, some of which  duly made its way 
into NT, though many writers understandably missed the VAXELN connection (it is 
briefly mentioned in Custer's book).

Those who are moderately familiar with the internals of NT, VMS, and VAXELN 
(which probably isn't that many people) will recognise some of the VMSisms that 
VAXELN didn't have and which are also not present in NT. At a detail level, 
where are WNT's ASTs, where are logical names? And at a big-picture level - VMS 
is a mostly monolithic setup (one single kernel address space), WNT originally 
wasn't, though over time Gates forced changes towards the monolithic approach, 
e.g. moving assorted drivers and subsystems into the kernel for performance 
reasons that for security and robustness reasons should have been isolated from 
each other. Neither VAXELN nor NT have quotas or privileges as such. There is 
no meaningful security architecture on WNT; on VMS there is. And so on.

But fewer people will know VAXELN, and so the Cutler project that gets the 
publicity in the "where does WNT come from" context is VMS (it is, after all, 
still pretty close even if VAXELN is closer).

And the WNT name? Who knows. 

The magic words PRISM and MICA perhaps come into this discussion somewhere too, 
but I know nothing about them.

Have a lot of fun.

John Wallace (not to be confused with John Willis!)

[Repurposed with minor edits from some of my occasional WNT/VAXELN/VMS 
ramblings on comp.os.vms]

Re: What to Do with a PS/2?

[Liam Proven]

On 27 January 2016 at 23:00, Geoffrey Oltmans  wrote:
> Hmmm... agree to disagree I guess. I generally found the Workplace shell in
> OS/2 a bit cumbersome and maddening compared to a lot of the GUI
> alternatives.


I have to agree.

Classic MacOS, particularly in MacOS 8 and 9, was perhaps the most
polished GUI I've ever used.

I also retain great fondness for Acorn's RISC OS desktop, with its
unusual and distinctive elegance:
* "maximise" only makes a window as big as it needs to be to show all
icons without scrolling
* drag-and-drop file saving -- no need for a directory browser in the dialog
* the first GUI with anti-aliasing & full-window moving & resizing (as
opposed to outlines)
* the first Icon Bar, before even the NeXT Dock, AFAIK

WPS was impressively powerful and had an impressive design, but the
actual implementation was a bit patchy and clunky. Sorry to have to
say it, but I found the Windows 9x Explorer more actual /use./ The
idea of the Start menu, implemented as a directory of directories, was
*inspired*. Shortcuts are clunky but they work -- if the
implementation had originated on NT and NTFS, it would have worked
better.

-- 
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Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven
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Re: What to Do with a PS/2?

[Liam Proven]

On 27 January 2016 at 18:38, j...@cimmeri.com  wrote:
> Correct me if I'm remembering incorrectly (probably am), but wasn't NT a
> descendent of DEC VMS?

Oversimplifying freely:

DEC OS team lead Dave Cutler wanted to take VAX/VMS multi-platform.
DEC rejected this. So he allowed himself and his core team leads to be
headhunted by Microsoft.

Microsoft had recently fallen out with IBM over OS/2. OS/2 1.x was a
joint MS/IBM development. IBM kept the 80386 version, OS/2 2.x. MS got
the portable, CPU-independent version, OS/2 3.x, which was barely more
than a skeleton draft at that point.

MS hired Cutler and gave him the OS/2 3 project. Cutler & his team
retained some of it, but redid a lot, reusing ideas, concepts and even
filenames from VMS -- but no code, obviously.

The result was named "Windows NT".

Entertainingly, WNT is what you get if you shift the letters of 'VMS"
1 position forward in the alphabet.

Actually, though, it was developed on multiple CPU platforms, and one
was an in-house board design based around Intel's RISC chip, the i860
-- codenamed the N10. NT allegedly stood for "N Ten" before MS
marketing retconned it to "New Technology".

-- 
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Re: What to Do with a PS/2?

[Stefan Skoglund (lokal]

tor 2016-01-28 klockan 01:52 -0500 skrev John Blake: 
> Vetusware is highly unreliable and tries to charge for accounts, which 
> isn't worth it at all because most of the things I've gotten from there 
> haven't worked.  Try: https://winworldpc.com/library
> 
> Their images are tested, I've used the OS/2 Warp 4 images to install on 
> an old thinkpad 760.  I'd also suggest you try some other OSes, Nextstep 
> 3.3 should work (and may have network drivers), as well as Unixware, GEM 
> (on top of DOS), and possibly even AT SVR4 or one of the later Xenix 
> variants.  If you do decide to go with OS/2, you should also be able to 
> find native applications and development tools there too.
> 
> ---
> This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
> https://www.avast.com/antivirus
> 

AIX 1 ?

Re: What to Do with a PS/2?

[Stefan Skoglund (lokal]

ons 2016-01-27 klockan 14:42 +0100 skrev Liam Proven: 
> But trying the modern version today brings the bad memories flooding
> back, I'm afraid... Of multi-thousand-line CONFIG.SYS files, of
> juggling drivers (PATA versus SATA today, for example), of patchy or
> missing hardware support etc.
> 

The previous evening i tried to install vmware esxi 5.5 on an Lenovo
Thinkserver (ts140.)
An exercise in futility trying to install stock esx 5.5 on that thing
(it needs an patched install image of esxi if its inbuilt ethernet is to
work  and then it is the question about that software raid which it
has.) ESX doesnt like software raid :-)
ESXi 6 went without an hitch.

Re: What to Do with a PS/2?

[Mark J. Blair]

I finally managed to get OS/2 Warp Connect 3.0 installed after a few tries. I 
think that messing with the SCSI2SD settings fixed things. My best guess is 
that with the default settings the BIOS code could access the drive, but once 
OS/2 switched over to its own drivers part way through the install, the wheels 
came off. 

I tried enabling the touch display, and it kind of works. Calibration is way 
off; I saw something that looked like a calibration program flashing by during 
the driver installation, but I got frustrated doing things with a dodgy and 
uncalibrated screen before finding it. Switching between touch screen and mouse 
involved a reboot (at least the way I found to do it), and when I switched to 
the touch screen, the mouse quit working even though it's daisy chained through 
the monitor. There may be some better way to configure it that I haven't found 
yet.

Anyway, now that it's working, I guess I can put it all on a shelf! :)


-- 
Mark J. Blair, NF6X 
http://www.nf6x.net/

Re: What to Do with a PS/2?

[John Blake]

Vetusware is highly unreliable and tries to charge for accounts, which 
isn't worth it at all because most of the things I've gotten from there 
haven't worked.  Try: https://winworldpc.com/library


Their images are tested, I've used the OS/2 Warp 4 images to install on 
an old thinkpad 760.  I'd also suggest you try some other OSes, Nextstep 
3.3 should work (and may have network drivers), as well as Unixware, GEM 
(on top of DOS), and possibly even AT SVR4 or one of the later Xenix 
variants.  If you do decide to go with OS/2, you should also be able to 
find native applications and development tools there too.


---
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
https://www.avast.com/antivirus

Re: What to Do with a PS/2?

[Mark J. Blair]

I tried the touch screen again. This time the mouse remained working, and it's 
kind of usable-ish after running the CALIBRAT.EXE utility.


-- 
Mark J. Blair, NF6X 
http://www.nf6x.net/

Re: What to Do with a PS/2?

[Mouse]

> Correct me if I'm remembering incorrectly (probably am), but wasn't
> NT a descendent of DEC VMS?

As I understand it - an important caveat here - Windows NT was to some
extent a conceptual descendent of VMS, but that was more because the
same person was instrumental in designing both than because there was
an explicit inheritance relationship.

/~\ The ASCII Mouse
\ / Ribbon Campaign
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/ \ Email!   7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39  4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B

Re: What to Do with a PS/2?

[j...@cimmeri.com]

On 1/27/2016 8:42 AM, Liam Proven wrote:

I actually bought OS/2 with my own money. I was always extremely
averse to doing that.

It was good for its time, but NT 3.x was technically superior, just
lacking in the UI department.


Correct me if I'm remembering 
incorrectly (probably am), but wasn't NT 
a descendent of DEC VMS?


- J.

Re: What to Do with a PS/2?

[Fred Cisin]

Correct me if I'm remembering incorrectly (probably am), but wasn't
NT a descendent of DEC VMS?

On Wed, 27 Jan 2016, Mouse wrote:

As I understand it - an important caveat here - Windows NT was to some
extent a conceptual descendent of VMS, but that was more because the
same person was instrumental in designing both than because there was
an explicit inheritance relationship.


Dave Cutler?

It also, of course, used a lot of Gordon Letwin's OS/2 code.

Re: What to Do with a PS/2?

[j...@cimmeri.com]

On 1/27/2016 1:14 PM, John Willis wrote:

Correct me if I'm remembering incorrectly (probably am), but wasn't
NT a descendent of DEC VMS?

As I understand it - an important caveat here - Windows NT was to some
extent a conceptual descendent of VMS, but that was more because the
same person was instrumental in designing both than because there was
an explicit inheritance relationship.

That would be Dave Cutler. You can see his philosophy clearly in both
systems. And he had little respect for Gordon Letwin and the OS/2 architecture, 
and open disdain for UNIX and its underlying stream-of-bytes, 
everything-is-a-file, everything-is-plaintext philosophy. IMO, NT offers a 
better kernel than OS/2, but nothing has ever matched the elegance and sheer 
power of the Workplace Shell as a graphical abstraction.


In relation to that, here's something 
interesting: 
http://toastytech.com/guis/wps.html


- J.

Re: What to Do with a PS/2?

[Geoffrey Oltmans]

On Wed, Jan 27, 2016 at 12:14 PM, John Willis 
wrote:

> everything-is-plaintext philosophy. IMO, NT offers a better kernel than
> OS/2,
> but nothing has ever matched the elegance and sheer power of the Workplace
> Shell as a graphical abstraction.
>

Hmmm... agree to disagree I guess. I generally found the Workplace shell in
OS/2 a bit cumbersome and maddening compared to a lot of the GUI
alternatives.

Re: What to Do with a PS/2?

[Liam Proven]

On 27 January 2016 at 07:18, Mark J. Blair  wrote:
> That XDFCOPY.EXE from the BonusPak ISO also has the same issue under MS-DOS 
> 6.22 on the PS/2. However, I got an OS/2 prompt from the first two floppies 
> of the OS/2 Warp Connect 3.0 set (which are regular 1.44M floppies), and then 
> I can CD to the DOS 6.22 HD and use that XDFCOPY.EXE to write the images. Yay!
>
> This is like a text adventure.


:-D

Yes, it is a bit, isn't it?

I actually bought OS/2 with my own money. I was always extremely
averse to doing that.

It was good for its time, but NT 3.x was technically superior, just
lacking in the UI department.

Win95 brought a better UI. NT 4 combined them and Windows 2000 brought
them together -- NT with Plug, power management etc.

I don't like to have to say it, but Windows was better than OS/2. And
Windows drove the rest of the industry onwards, to better it.

Which, now, with Ubuntu and RHEL and Mac OS X and iOS and Android, it
has, I reckon.

Today there is eComStation. I have review copies but I've never got it
100% working. I may need to dedicate a machine to it. :¬(

I miss OS/2, just as something genuinely /different/ in the greater
DOS family -- but really, NT was better in almost every way. Less
flexible by far, but also far more polished and stable. (E.g. I could
reliably kernel-trap an OS/2 machine with Fractint, one of my
favourite apps.)

But trying the modern version today brings the bad memories flooding
back, I'm afraid... Of multi-thousand-line CONFIG.SYS files, of
juggling drivers (PATA versus SATA today, for example), of patchy or
missing hardware support etc.

-- 
Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile
Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven
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Re: What to Do with a PS/2?

[Liam Proven]

On 26 January 2016 at 17:24, Mark J. Blair  wrote:
> That site looks a bit more challenging for an English-only speaker. :) Maybe 
> google translate can help me find my way around... yeah, much better now. 
> Thanks for the links!

Yes, it certainly is. I live in the Czech Republic, but I don't speak
Czech worth a damn -- but between that and rudimentary Cyrillic
reading ability, I can handle a little very basic Russian. That site's
still too much for me, but Google Chrome and Google Translate make it
navigable.

I don't normally recommend such things, but for decades-old releases
of an OS, Bittorrent can be your friend, too.

E.g.

https://thepiratebay.se/search/ibm%20os%202/0/99/300

-- 
Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile
Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven
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Re: What to Do with a PS/2?

[Mark J. Blair]

XDFCOPY.EXE from that BonusPak ISO isn't working on my ImageDisk rig; it says 
it can't format track 0. I think I'll try reinstalling DOS 6.22 on the PS/2 
temporarily to see if I can write out the XDF disks there. Or maybe I'll try 
PC-DOS 7 if I can find it.


-- 
Mark J. Blair, NF6X 
http://www.nf6x.net/

Re: What to Do with a PS/2?

[Mark J. Blair]

That XDFCOPY.EXE from the BonusPak ISO also has the same issue under MS-DOS 
6.22 on the PS/2. However, I got an OS/2 prompt from the first two floppies of 
the OS/2 Warp Connect 3.0 set (which are regular 1.44M floppies), and then I 
can CD to the DOS 6.22 HD and use that XDFCOPY.EXE to write the images. Yay!

This is like a text adventure.

-- 
Mark J. Blair, NF6X 
http://www.nf6x.net/

Re: What to Do with a PS/2?

[John Willis]

Warp 3 requires a 386SX with 4MB at minimum. Connect will work with a 386
and 8 to 12MB RAM, depending on what LAN services you choose to run.

Here is a link to an IBM Redbook on the subject, covering all of this in
great detail.

http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/redbooks/pdfs/sg244552.pdf

No version of OS/2 supplied by IBM has an "El Torito" bootable installation
disc. LOADDSKF should be able to write the installation floppy and disk 1
as required for all versions of the system. I have never successfully done
this on my Sabrent USB floppy, nor any other raw image transfer, due to the
controller issues mentioned earlier in this thread.

Hope this helps.




-- 
*John P. Willis*
Coherent Logic Development LLC

M: 575.520.9542
O: 575.524.1034

chocolatejolli...@gmail.com
http://www.coherent-logic.com/

Re: What to Do with a PS/2?

[Liam Proven]

On 26 January 2016 at 06:24, Mark J. Blair  wrote:
>  So I think my next challenge is to figure out how to write out 1.8M XDF 
> floppies from the installation floppy images. Maybe I can find a utility to 
> write them from DOS? I have a 386 clone running MS-DOS 6.22 that I use for 
> running ImageDisk.

Should work. Even a DOS shell under Windows should, I think. They're
just 1.4MB disks with some extra sectors per track and tracks --
pushing the spec a little, not different hardware.

There are lots of disk images of OS/2 out there -- I used to have 1.0,
1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 2.0, 2.1, 3.0, 4.0 and 4.5 before I switched countries.

Try VetusWare:
http://vetusware.com/

Or OldDos Ru:
http://old-dos.ru/

However, sorry to say, but I think the 3.x / 4.x timeline will be too
new and require higher-spec hardware than a 486 with 12MB.

> I use a SCSI2SD in it for its hard drive, and I can pop the MicroSD card into 
> a reader on my Mac to get files on and off of it.

Mid-1990s era CDs were usually not bootable media, because the
firmware of the time couldn't do it. You tended to need to boot off a
floppy or 2 and a small setup program ran, then accessed the CD and
bootstrapped the main one off CD.

So don't expect the ISO to be bootable. Look on it for boot floppy
images, in /BOOTDISK/ or something like that.

Another option:

Boot it under DOS. Install MSCDEX and SCSI CD drivers -- and SMARTDRV.
Ensure that DOS can see and read the CD-ROM drive and that it's
cached. (Important -- CDs are very slow without caching.)

Copy the OS/2 files into a subdirectory of the DOS drive, or even into
a whole dedicated partition. (Older versions should be _substantially_
less than a CD-full.)

E.g.:

C: -- MS-DOS
D: -- OS/2 OS
E: -- installer files
F: -- free for data or swap file.

Then hack the config file on the boot CD to read the files from the hard disk.

I've been following your posts on Twitter about this, and enjoying it.
:-) Good work so far!

-- 
Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile
Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven
MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven
Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)

Re: What to Do with a PS/2?

[Mark J. Blair]

> On Jan 26, 2016, at 06:30, Liam Proven  wrote:
> 
> Try VetusWare:
> http://vetusware.com/

I have been getting my OS/2 images from there.

> 
> Or OldDos Ru:
> http://old-dos.ru/

That site looks a bit more challenging for an English-only speaker. :) Maybe 
google translate can help me find my way around... yeah, much better now. 
Thanks for the links!



-- 
Mark J. Blair, NF6X 
http://www.nf6x.net/

Re: What to Do with a PS/2?

[Chuck Guzis]

On 01/26/2016 06:30 AM, Liam Proven wrote:

On 26 January 2016 at 06:24, Mark J. Blair  wrote:

So I think my next challenge is to figure out how to write out 1.8M
XDF floppies from the installation floppy images. Maybe I can find
a utility to write them from DOS? I have a 386 clone running MS-DOS
6.22 that I use for running ImageDisk.


Should work. Even a DOS shell under Windows should, I think. They're
just 1.4MB disks with some extra sectors per track and tracks --
pushing the spec a little, not different hardware.


Just remember that a USB floppy is the wrong kit to use to do this. 
They embody firmware that knows only 3 fixed formats:  9x512, 18x512 and 
8x1024 (sectors x bytes per sector).  You need an honest-to-gosh legacy 
floppy and controller.   Not as convoluted as MS DMF format, but not 
USB-compatible in any case.


--Chuck

Re: What to Do with a PS/2?

[r.stricklin]

On Jan 25, 2016, at 9:24 PM, Mark J. Blair wrote:

> images. Maybe I can find a utility to write them from DOS? I have a 386 clone 
> running MS-DOS 6.22 that I use for running ImageDisk. 

There's an LOADDSKF program on the CD that can be used to write the images to 
floppies, from DOS. It may even be in the directory with the floppy images. 
(\DISKIMGS IIRC. It's been >20 years.)

ok
bear.

-- 
until further notice

Re: What to Do with a PS/2?

[william degnan]

>
>
> >
> > So, would any of y'all like to help me brainstorm about interesting
> > applications for this vintage heap, or maybe point me towards non-eBay
> > sources of software that it would like to run?
> >
> > --
> > Mark J. Blair, NF6X 
> > http://www.nf6x.net/
> >
> >
>


Sell it and make some money to buy something you really can use.

Re: What to Do with a PS/2?

[Mark J. Blair]

> On Jan 25, 2016, at 08:29, drlegendre .  wrote:
> 
> If you're interested in a speed-up, I'm fairly sure a 486DX/2-66 should
> drop-in for the current 33mhz CPU, without any additional changes. Doubles
> your core speed and adds the math co-processor in one go.

Cool. I didn't know that it would drop in like that.

I found images of OS/2 installation disks on a possibly dodgy "abandonware" 
site. 2.0 installation crashed on the second disk. 2.1 made it all the way 
through the 20th disk, then hung at "Updating the system configuration" (but 
with mouse pointer still movable) and yielded a system that doesn't boot past 
the loading screen. The system passes its diagnostic tests, but maybe the 
scsi2sd is incompatible in some way, or maybe a different distribution is 
needed for this machine?

-- 
Mark J. Blair, NF6X 
http://www.nf6x.net/

Re: What to Do with a PS/2?

[Todd Killingsworth]

Ugh.  Find Warp (OS/2 v3 ) if you plan on playing with OS/2.  It had more
drivers included.
If you find IBM Visualage software, you'll get C/C++  and with enough
hunting - Smalltalk.
I always wanted to play with that, but couldn't justify the  needed.

Todd Killingsworth

On Mon, Jan 25, 2016 at 11:41 AM, Mark J. Blair  wrote:

>
> > On Jan 25, 2016, at 08:29, drlegendre .  wrote:
> >
> > If you're interested in a speed-up, I'm fairly sure a 486DX/2-66 should
> > drop-in for the current 33mhz CPU, without any additional changes.
> Doubles
> > your core speed and adds the math co-processor in one go.
>
> Cool. I didn't know that it would drop in like that.
>
> I found images of OS/2 installation disks on a possibly dodgy
> "abandonware" site. 2.0 installation crashed on the second disk. 2.1 made
> it all the way through the 20th disk, then hung at "Updating the system
> configuration" (but with mouse pointer still movable) and yielded a system
> that doesn't boot past the loading screen. The system passes its diagnostic
> tests, but maybe the scsi2sd is incompatible in some way, or maybe a
> different distribution is needed for this machine?
>
> --
> Mark J. Blair, NF6X 
> http://www.nf6x.net/
>
>

Re: What to Do with a PS/2?

[Mark J. Blair]

> On Jan 25, 2016, at 08:44, Todd Killingsworth  
> wrote:
> 
> Ugh.  Find Warp (OS/2 v3 ) if you plan on playing with OS/2.  It had more
> drivers included.

I think I'll give it a try. I had wanted to run whatever OS version would have 
most likely shipped with this system originally, but maybe this machine 
required a special version of 2.0/2.1 that differs from the shelf versions that 
got archived online?
 
-- 
Mark J. Blair, NF6X 
http://www.nf6x.net/

Re: What to Do with a PS/2?

[Chuck Guzis]

On 01/25/2016 09:11 AM, Todd Killingsworth wrote:

According to the first Google hit, Warp should be really close in
time with your PS/2: ( From
http://www.os2museum.com/wp/os2-history/os2-timeline/ )

*OS/2 Warp*—October 1994—Codename Warp


IBM distributed free CDs with Warp on them about then, publicizing their 
"Developer Connection"--something akin to MSDN.  The CD included (IIRC) 
a C compiler and a few tools as well.  I still have my CD; if you want 
an ISO of it, I think I can manage.


--Chuck

Re: What to Do with a PS/2?

[drlegendre .]

If you're interested in a speed-up, I'm fairly sure a 486DX/2-66 should
drop-in for the current 33mhz CPU, without any additional changes. Doubles
your core speed and adds the math co-processor in one go.

On Mon, Jan 25, 2016 at 12:29 AM, Mark J. Blair  wrote:

> To my surprise, I found something just barely old enough to interest me on
> the e-waste pile at work: An IBM PS/2 85 from around 1993 or so. The hard
> drive is long gone and it didn't include a keyboard, but it did come with a
> model 8516 touch screen display and original mouse. I already had a nice
> Model M to plug into it, plus some scsi2sd adapters sitting around waiting
> for projects like this one.
>
> I'm new to the PS/2 line, but after some poking around I found images of
> the reference and diagnostic disks necessary to set this machine up. I also
> found the ADF file needed for the Cabletron ethernet card in it. The
> machine has 12M of parity RAM, with one SIMM slot pair still open. It has a
> 2.88M 3.5" floppy and a 1.2M 5.25" floppy. The 5.25" floppy is a
> motor-eject style which I haven't encountered before. This model has a
> 486SX 33MHz CPU, and the math coprocessor socket is empty. Aside from a
> bunch of dust that I cleaned out, it's in pretty nice cosmetic shape. This
> particular model was intended for duty as a server.
>
> I've been posting pictures of the machine on Twitter over the last few
> days, starting on 1/21/2016:
>
> https://twitter.com/nf6x/media
>
> I replaced the CMOS battery (conveniently, a CR2032 coin cell, available
> at the local supermarket), reconfigured the CMOS settings, set up a scsi2sd
> as four emulated 512M SCSI hard drives, milled a pair of generic PC hard
> drive mounting rails to length for use in a PS/2, and installed MS-DOS 6.22
> on it. OS/2 2.0 would probably be more appropriate for this machine, but I
> don't have it. I see original OS/2 2.0 boxes in the shrink wrap on eBay,
> but eBay and I are seeing other people at this time.
>
> Well, I seem to have it fully working aside from not having suitable
> software installed to test out the touch screen and networking card. The
> monitor sometimes makes a bit of high-pitch whine which by some miracle I
> can still hear. Younger folks might find it objectionable. I wonder if it
> would be effective as a child repellant? :) Thankfully, it doesn't seem to
> set my dogs to howling.
>
> And now that it is cleaned up and working, I have no clue about what to do
> with it! I just didn't want to see it go to the landfill or end up as toxic
> dust in some poor guy's lungs in India, so I got permission and then carted
> it home. I am not normally interested in PC-family machines, but actual IBM
> ones interest me a bit. And the countless ways IBM found to make the PS/2
> line incompatible with regular PC lines give me things to bitch about, and
> that in turn gives my life purpose. :)
>
> So, would any of y'all like to help me brainstorm about interesting
> applications for this vintage heap, or maybe point me towards non-eBay
> sources of software that it would like to run?
>
> --
> Mark J. Blair, NF6X 
> http://www.nf6x.net/
>
>

Re: What to Do with a PS/2?

[Todd Killingsworth]

According to the first Google hit, Warp should be really close in time with
your PS/2:
( From http://www.os2museum.com/wp/os2-history/os2-timeline/ )

*OS/2 Warp*—October 1994—Codename Warp

   - Internal revision 8.162 (94/09/19)
   - Performance tuned, lower resource requirements
   - Compatible with Windows 3.11
   - BonusPak (with Internet Access Kit) included
   - Improved hardware support
   - Updated WPS


This roughly matches up with my memory.  I haven't worked OS/2 in a long
while!

On Mon, Jan 25, 2016 at 12:00 PM, Mark J. Blair  wrote:

>
> > On Jan 25, 2016, at 08:44, Todd Killingsworth <
> killingsworth.t...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Ugh.  Find Warp (OS/2 v3 ) if you plan on playing with OS/2.  It had more
> > drivers included.
>
> I think I'll give it a try. I had wanted to run whatever OS version would
> have most likely shipped with this system originally, but maybe this
> machine required a special version of 2.0/2.1 that differs from the shelf
> versions that got archived online?
>
> --
> Mark J. Blair, NF6X 
> http://www.nf6x.net/
>
>

Re: What to Do with a PS/2?

[Mark J. Blair]

> On Jan 25, 2016, at 10:04 , Chuck Guzis  wrote:
> 
> However, my recollection of Warp is that you need two floppies available for 
> the "kicker" loader.  Given that PS/2 floppy drives seem to have an 
> unfortunate propensity toward death, you might want to check those out first. 
>  It is possible, IIRC, at least on some of the models to substitute a 
> commodity DSHD 3.5" drive with a few small modifications.

Luckily, the floppy drives on this machine still seem to be fine.


-- 
Mark J. Blair, NF6X 
http://www.nf6x.net/

Re: What to Do with a PS/2?

[Mark J. Blair]

> On Jan 25, 2016, at 10:19, drlegendre .  wrote:
> 
> You should also be able to attach an external SCSI CD drive using a device
> like the Trantor T-348, which is a parallel port -to- SCSI adapter built
> into a cable.

I should also be able to plug one into the system's external SCSI port. I don't 
think I still have an external SCSI CD drive, but I could borrow the internal 
one from my Sun Ultra 60. 

Re: What to Do with a PS/2?

[Mark J. Blair]

> On Jan 25, 2016, at 09:21, Chuck Guzis  wrote:
> 
> IBM distributed free CDs with Warp on them about then, publicizing their 
> "Developer Connection"--something akin to MSDN.  The CD included (IIRC) a C 
> compiler and a few tools as well.  I still have my CD; if you want an ISO of 
> it, I think I can manage.

This machine doesn't have a CD drive, and I don't think it ever did based on 
there being no missing bezel filler panels. But I think that the scsi2sd may be 
able to emulate a CD drive. I'm off to work now, but this evening I'll poke 
around to see what Warp images are out there. 

Re: What to Do with a PS/2?

[geneb]

On Mon, 25 Jan 2016, Mark J. Blair wrote:



This machine doesn't have a CD drive, and I don't think it ever did 
based on there being no missing bezel filler panels. But I think that 
the scsi2sd may be able to emulate a CD drive. I'm off to work now, but 
this evening I'll poke around to see what Warp images are out there.


There's a few folks out there running internet-connected BBSes on OS/2. 
You might look into that. :)


g.

--
Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home.
Some people collect things for a hobby.  Geeks collect hobbies.

ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment
A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes.
http://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_!

Re: What to Do with a PS/2?

[drlegendre .]

You should also be able to attach an external SCSI CD drive using a device
like the Trantor T-348, which is a parallel port -to- SCSI adapter built
into a cable. I've used one many times to load OS onto some weird old
machine that lacked any other (easy) options.

There are both DOS and Linux drivers for the Trantor adapters.

On Mon, Jan 25, 2016 at 12:15 PM, Mark J. Blair  wrote:

>
> > On Jan 25, 2016, at 10:04 , Chuck Guzis  wrote:
> >
> > However, my recollection of Warp is that you need two floppies available
> for the "kicker" loader.  Given that PS/2 floppy drives seem to have an
> unfortunate propensity toward death, you might want to check those out
> first.  It is possible, IIRC, at least on some of the models to substitute
> a commodity DSHD 3.5" drive with a few small modifications.
>
> Luckily, the floppy drives on this machine still seem to be fine.
>
>
> --
> Mark J. Blair, NF6X 
> http://www.nf6x.net/
>
>

Re: What to Do with a PS/2?

[Pete Lancashire]

This brings back memories. One place I worked used a IBM "Industrial" PS/2.
It's main board was the same as a regular PS/2 don't remember the model. We
were buying so many of these things IBM set us up as reseller. Still have
the "Authorized Reseller" sign somewhere in the basement. These things were
not cheap, remember something like 3 times the price of the regular model,
but they were all the same parts in
a rack mount case.

But being IBM even though we never needed a keyboard, mouse etc. Everyone
came with one. Still have a couple of the keyboards, the only difference
all the industrial systems were a dark gray.

The big waste was the software, every system came with a PS/2 box with both
a CD and floppies, and an envelope with driver / firmware floppies. For the
longest time we could not throw out the software, we had in dock at one
time the whole top row of pallet racks where PS/2
Floppies, CDs, keyboard, mice, etc etc. And one day PS/2 was updated ...
something like 400 new copies of the O/S showed up on pallets.

I remember at that point the lawyers getting more involved and all the
excess disappeared.



On Mon, Jan 25, 2016 at 10:25 AM, Mark J. Blair  wrote:

>
>
> > On Jan 25, 2016, at 10:19, drlegendre .  wrote:
> >
> > You should also be able to attach an external SCSI CD drive using a
> device
> > like the Trantor T-348, which is a parallel port -to- SCSI adapter built
> > into a cable.
>
> I should also be able to plug one into the system's external SCSI port. I
> don't think I still have an external SCSI CD drive, but I could borrow the
> internal one from my Sun Ultra 60.
>

Re: What to Do with a PS/2?

[Mike Ross]

The 'best' 'prepackaged' version of OS/2 to have is probably the one
called 'DemoPkg'. Back in the day it was for IBM and Business Partners
internal use only and - as the name suggests - included an OS/2 system
preconfigured and installed with a whole bunch of interesting
software. Came as a set of several CDs. Not that easy to lay your
hands on these days.

Mike

On Tue, Jan 26, 2016 at 8:11 AM, John Willis
 wrote:
> I would second the idea of running OS/2 Warp on it. Though FWIW, I would
> recommend Warp Connect (blue spine).
> It will give you TCP/IP networking (over Ethernet, and not just dial-up
> like the "Internet Connection for OS/2" that shipped
> with "vanilla" Warp's Bonus Pak) out of the box. If you get Warp Connect
> (or any version of Warp, for that matter)
> going, I would strongly recommend applying all of the available FixPaks for
> it, which should let you run at least some
> version of WarpZilla, and save you a great deal of headaches.



-- 

http://www.corestore.org
'No greater love hath a man than he lay down his life for his brother.
Not for millions, not for glory, not for fame.
For one person, in the dark, where no one will ever know or see.'

Re: What to Do with a PS/2?

[Tapley, Mark]

On Jan 25, 2016, at 12:29 AM, Mark J. Blair  wrote:

> So, would any of y'all like to help me brainstorm about interesting 
> applications for this vintage heap, or maybe point me towards non-eBay 
> sources of software that it would like to run?

Great work on the restoration!

Distributed.net?

http://www.distributed.net/Download_clients

“no networking support” on the PC-DOS/MS-DOS client I think means you have to 
get work units via email or other means to a net-connected machine, then 
transfer them to the MS-DOS machine via kermit or similar, then crunch, then 
reverse the process to get credit. However, even at 66 MHz you won’t have to do 
that very often… my 25 MHz NeXT cube 040 does a bit less than one work unit per 
2 days. Until/unless you get it on Warp/Connect, maybe that’s OK?

OS/2 clients have done 5.67 million blocks, and MS-DOS 1.31 million blocks so 
far:

http://stats.distributed.net/misc/platformlist.php?project_id=8=tco

so you’ll have some company. (But, a lot of those clients have shifted over to 
working on OGR-28.)

Yes, that’s mostly me down near the bottom of that list, with my 68k/NeXTStep 
running for 13 years.