Elvis Hargrove wrote in a message to David Calafrancesco:

 EH> Yep!  I fully understand and certainly agree! However we
 EH> don't NEED four modems anymore as four callers A DAY are a
 EH> lot these days.  The new BBS *IS* OS2, and I wouldn't run
 EH> anything else if I didn't need Uncle Billy's software to
 EH> deal with the %(^&$ Web effectively. You'd get no argument
 EH> from ME about OS/2 being the best OS, but this is the LAN
 EH> echo, and I was answering the lady's question about HOW to
 EH> effectively use OS/2 to connect with her old Dos machine.
 EH> IMHO Lantastic does it admirably. and at practically no cost
 EH> as regards system overhead.  The OS/2 machine certainly
 EH> doesn't notice the overhead, and a properly set up Dos
 EH> machine is hardly affected at all.

Is the Windows stuff needed for Netscape? Netscape 4.x under OS2 is just as
buggy as Netscape 4.x under Win95/98 and more stable than Internet Exploder.
What other net tools you need are probably available via free ports of Linux
tools. 

 EH> Actually, I guess the LAN software isn't as important as
 EH> properly utilizing a memory manager that lets it all load hi
 EH> for Dos. QEMM-386 _NON_ stealth lets Lantastic, DesqView, a
 EH> spelling checker, a couple of Professional Write windows and
 EH> a thesaurus all run on a Dos box (Literally, housed in a
 EH> plywood box nailed to my porch wall) a 386-40 with four megs
 EH> of RAM (Eight is better) for MONTHS at a time. It hasn't
 EH> been reboooted since the last power failure last August. 

I had difficulty getting Lantastic to stabilize with the SCSI ROMs more than
anything else. With the extra ROMs in the memory map there was even less space 
available for stuffing things high and as a result I was running out of memory 
or seeing problems. Don't get me wrong, the BBS ran on two or three systems
for several years to allow me to have the SCSI drivers, CD drivers, WORM
drivers etc on one DOS system and enough network loaded to access it from the
rest of my system(s) where no matter how many drivers I needed to access my
devices that only the network client was required to be able to access them
all. Moving to OS2 I was able to move all the devices (except the WORM but I
stopped using that long before for other reasons) into a single box and still
have it run the BBS flawlessly. 

-> news pullers, ftp clients and other detritus and even handle your
-> wife's business

 EH> Yep!  It's interesting to watch IREX bring in the mail,
 EH> while a caller is online with MAX (Two modems) Squish
 EH> tossing, Seal in it's Dos window stashing files and me
 EH> online via the LAN looking at the logfiles, or writing
 EH> NetMail on FrontDoor's Editor.  OS/2 's definitely cool. 

And you haven't even started stressing it yet ;)

-> found that the biggest thing is more memory is great but having a
-> huge fast pipe for tossing makes the most improvement in speed.

 EH> Which brings us to the subject of moving the stuff around
 EH> the system.... 

 EH> Planet Connect. I know you remember that.  Remember how
 EH> picky the downlink software was?  Didn't  even like to share
 EH> with a VGA card. 

Not directly, I was a downlink of a PC customer. 

 EH> Well, I ran Tommy Brown's downlink software on a 386-33
 EH> using DesqView (And QEMM-386) with Squish tossing
 EH> SIMULTANIOUSLY across the LAN to the machine that actually
 EH> hubbed the mail out. I was getting the mail out to the nodes
 EH> by ten thirty or eleven oclock from the morning mail run,
 EH> and the ONLY way I could do it was via Lantastic.

 EH> BTW, KA9Q was the only software I ever ran that absolutely
 EH> refused to stabilize with Lantastic.  We probably COULD run
 EH> it under OS/2 but there are much better programs out there
 EH> now.......

All of KA9Qs features (except it's ability to drive HAM radio packet modems)
is built into Warp (all flavors). 

Do you share the TCP/IP connection among all the systems on your LAN? If not,
consider spending about $40-50 for InJoy which will allow you to use IP
masquerading to allow all your systems to see the internet from a dialup
connection made from the OS2 box. All it needs is the IAK or the full TCP/IP
if you are running Warp4 or a connect/server edition. 

Dave Calafrancesco, Team OS/2
dave@drakkar.org

... They got the library at Alexandria, they're not getting mine! 
--- 
209/7211
633/260