Hello Colin!

Sunday December 29 1996 12:37, Colin Wheat wrote to Hamish Moffatt:

 >> I initially installed TCP/IP + OS/2 NetBIOS. Of course, the
 >> NE2000 driver supplied with Warp 4 is the same one as Warp 3,
 >> which doesn't work on 99.9% of NE2000s ever made (none of
 >> which have a shared RAM address). Out with the NatSemi one,
 >> as usually.

 > Yes, their EAGLE driver is -not- a generic NE2000 driver.

Fine, but how many people have NE2000 clone cards vs Eagle cards? The
number of the latter is likely insignificant in comparison. Which therefore
makes this an extremely bad mistake on IBM's part.

 >> MPTS gave an error updating CONFIG.SYS (as it
 >> is prone to doing). From then on, OS/2 during boot says it
 >> could not load the file NETWKSTA.200 in F:\IBMLAN\NETPROG,

 > No. The Netware client is not particularly friendly. As per the docs, did
 > you run nwfixup.exe?

No, and what docs? All I did was add the "Netware support"
protocol in MPTS, assuming this to be IPX. I did not actually want the
Netware Client, nor did I actually install it. Just this protocol support.
Which, just like Warp3, seems to ruin the entire networking configuration.

 >> menus look fairly poor. The hardware manager is next to
 >> useless; as far as I can tell, it does not let you change any
 >> settings, so what's the good of it?

 > Beat's me :). Ditto for Win95 though. At least we don't have that horid
 > auto reconfig junk that Win95 includes.

Actually, in a system where all devices can be reliably detected, and are
preferably plug and play, this is quite a reasonable way to go. Yes, Win95
is inclined to reconfigure things that it really can't, but OS/2's Hardware
Manager seems a very poor clone of Win95, and in fact, it seems utterly
useless.

 >> I installed it with the
 >> wrong settings for my PAS16 initially; the only way to fix
 >> them was to go back into Selective Install (same as with Warp
 >> 3).

 > Just change the entry in config.sys. Takes 10 seconds.

Assume I'm not a power user. Why should I need to edit CONFIG.SYS?

 >> The speed isn't anything to write home about. I have a Cyrix
 >> 6x86-P166+, 32mb RAM. Windows95 is a lot snappier on the same
 > You need to compare it with WinNT V4. Win95 is the world's last DOS
 > extender, tiny (and stupid) in comparison.

Technically, perhaps that would be a fairer comparison. It doesn't matter.
Windows95 is intended for the end (home) user's desktop, NT is not (yet).
Isn't Warp intended for the home user's desktop as well? Then a comparison
of Win95 and Warp4 is very valid.

 > Speaking of WinNT V4, I shipped an NT4 machine last week. Most impressive
 > compared to Win95. Really it's what Win95 should be, and by Jan 97 we're
 > more able to declare Win95 a dead end product.

Sorry, I still can't say I'm impressed. The VoiceType is interesting, but
in my experience it has trouble with Australian pronunciation. Basically, a
gimmick.

I booted Warp4 up again last week. I recently changed network cards from an
NE2000 to an SMC8013. The NE2000 (NS2000) driver hung when it did not
detect the card. Given my other network configuration problems, I
reinstalled the whole operating system. Total installation score: Windows95
- 2 (initial install was an upgrade, second was fresh install), OS/2 Warp 4
(both fresh installs, the second one only two weeks after the first),
Debian Linux 1.1/1.2 - 1 (no reinstall required, in place upgrades handled
perfectly).

 > Overall, as a general workstation operating system, network client, and
 > internet interface, WARP V4 is way out in front. No comparison at all
 > really.

I can't agree. The interface on Warp has remained constant, and I believe
is now surpassed by Windows95. Certainly, the implementation of the GUI
itself may be poor in Win95 (eg no SOM, with shortcuts being kludges on
95). But to the end user, there's not much difference. When you want to
move, copy, or make a shortcut to a file, you drag it with the right mouse
button. It took quite a while to work out which combination of Shift, Alt
and Control was used to make a shadow the other day. Things like this need
to be a lot more obvious.

Warp4 still comes with WebExplorer! A good browser in its day, but that was in
1995 in Warp3. OEM Windows95 comes with Internet Explorer these days, which
is a pretty comparable browser to Netscape, and a lot better than WebEx.


Regards,
Hamish

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