21 replies to this topic

[pmshah]

I have OS/2 warp which boots & installs from floppy disks. Nowadays the drives & floppys are both practically extinct. Am looking for boot cd image so that I can go back to OS/2 on my old pc for nostalgia sake.

[Brito]

I've never even saw how a warp 3 OS looks like, would you care to post a screenshot?

Can you create images from those floppies?

Seems fun to try to adapt them to CD..

[pmshah]

I've never even saw how a warp 3 OS looks like, would you care to post a screenshot?

Can you create images from those floppies?

Seems fun to try to adapt them to CD..

The CD actually does include floppy images.

Where & how do I upload the images? Each one will be at least 1.44 mb.

[wendy]

The CD actually does include floppy images.

Where & how do I upload the images? Each one will be at least 1.44 mb.

These images are actually diskette images, such as you might copy to a floppy disk.

Seriously, vers 3 is the most complex to install, because there are so many varieties of it, viz vers 3 with or without winos2, on salmon or blue diskettes, along with varieties of warp connect.

In the older time, one could get a copy of os2 that used the windows installed under dos, adding files to this. WinOS2 has a lot of stuff not actually used (eg winoa386.mod), but are useful under DOS.

Here is how to lay out the cdrom, from the floppy disks.

Make a directory \os2image and make directories under this as follows.

• debug: Debug diskette (if you have one)
• Disk_0 : setup disk
• Disk_1 to Disk_15 : disk 1 to 15 of base product
• disp_1 to disp_4 : display diskettes
• dmpd1 and dmpd2 dmpd diskettes
• sym_1 to sym_5 symbols (if you have these)

You then need to fiddle with diskettes 0,1,2 so that it will look for the cdrom, rather than further diskettes.

Here's a pretty good site to start at:

http://www.geocities...oadCDBoot2.html

It has all the goodies needed to do this.

[pmshah]

Thanks.

I will try it out out some time in next couple of days.

[Dhilip89]

I've never even saw how a warp 3 OS looks like, would you care to post a screenshot?

Can you create images from those floppies?

Seems fun to try to adapt them to CD..

There has some screenshots of OS/2 Warp 3 : http://www.guidebook...nshots/os2warp3

[Brito]

Thanks for the link.. OS/2 seems pretty advanced for it's time, I personnaly like the attention they gave to little details, it almost resembles some features that later appeared on NT systems..

[wendy]

You can get a reasonable view of OS/2 vers 3, from the Win31 shell "Workplace Shell for Windows". This uses the OS/2 v 3 icons quite extensively, as well as being able to set backgrounds to folders other than the desktop.

I used a very large number of win31 shells in my time, but this was one of the better ones.

The task manager that came with it allowed you to close many proggies at once, as in OS/2. Also, you could apply different wallpaper to different folders.

It also has a lot of interesting windows secrets, such as the commands to open individual control panel applets. (the control panel in OS/2 is an ordinary folder: you can add your own stuff to it.)

The help system can be implemented by a proggie called "xview", which one finds on hobbes. This will read not only OS/2 help files, but the PC-DOS files. It is an older format than OS/2 itself, like REXX.

One can get an idea of how OS/2 feels from this proggie.

W

[pmshah]

You can get a reasonable view of OS/2 vers 3, from the Win31 shell "Workplace Shell for Windows". This uses the OS/2 v 3 icons quite extensively, as well as being able to set backgrounds to folders other than the desktop.

I used a very large number of win31 shells in my time, but this was one of the better ones.

The task manager that came with it allowed you to close many proggies at once, as in OS/2. Also, you could apply different wallpaper to different folders.

It also has a lot of interesting windows secrets, such as the commands to open individual control panel applets. (the control panel in OS/2 is an ordinary folder: you can add your own stuff to it.)

The help system can be implemented by a proggie called "xview", which one finds on hobbes. This will read not only OS/2 help files, but the PC-DOS files. It is an older format than OS/2 itself, like REXX.

One can get an idea of how OS/2 feels from this proggie.

W

I got my first copy of v 2.01 way back in 1992 with a UK magazine. v 3.0 Warp I got from my cousin in Canada. I was very happy with it running it on a 486 with VLB graphic & hdd controller. I also had the bonus CD (win31s) & Hobbes collection. Version 4.0 was far too advanced for its time with Internet & email facilities built in. Unfortunately Internet itself was not easily accessible.

The biggest turnoff for over 95 % of users was VERY difficultnon installation & availability of decent addon software at reasonable price. If I remember correctly the Word Processor alone cost close to US$ 450/=. It was so very much unix like. One could do everything at the command prompt to recover your system or very fancy rexx batch files.

With deteriorating driver support on new hardware it sank into oblivion. IBM could still simply make it Free/OSS with some driver support on new hardware & it can still give Windows run for its money.

[CWorks]

I liked "Workplace Shell for Windows" so much i used it for 95 when it came out
I've got os/2 warp 4 installed in ms vpc and it takes longer to boot up than win xp does on real hardware

[wendy]

OS/2 4.0 is the same vintage as Windows 95. One does not expect either of these to recognise modern hardware etc. None the same, later versions of OS/2 (eg eComStation 1.2) do recognise later hardware. When i installed 4.52 (ie eCS 1.2) on my recent box, it had no probs with either the promise card, the zip drive, the cdrom and dvdrom, not the NVida card or the Lucent Modem.

[CWorks]

actually it supports everything in ms vpc
even got on internet with it with web explorer

most of the time it tells me no viewers availble and would i like to save it

there sure are a lot of folders full of files everywhere
it's kind of hard to find things

I feel like a newbie using it
it's a lot like unix\linux file and folder wise with all the bin folders and such

of course using winfile to navigate is a pain
so i linked the virtual hard drive to a win 98 vpc to make it easier to look around

oh one thing i did like was the icon edtor that comes up when creating or editing a shortcut
something ms never cared to add

[pmshah]

I liked "Workplace Shell for Windows" so much i used it for 95 when it came out
I've got os/2 warp 4 installed in ms vpc and it takes longer to boot up than win xp does on real hardware

Since you are using vpc I would be interested in your comparison of boot timings for booting xp and/or othes OSes in this vpc & real hardware boot timings. Perhaps you can guestimate hardware booting times for Warp 4 on real hardware.

At the time I received my Hobbes CD (1994/5 I believe) it contained a lot of very interesting software from ISDs. It also contained a partition/disk cloning over network utility, far ahead of the times. If IBM had lured a few of M$ developers specialising in "OS installation" perhaps IBM would be in the position of M$ & windows would be just another has been.

[pmshah]

OS/2 4.0 is the same vintage as Windows 95. One does not expect either of these to recognise modern hardware etc. None the same, later versions of OS/2 (eg eComStation 1.2) do recognise later hardware. When i installed 4.52 (ie eCS 1.2) on my recent box, it had no probs with either the promise card, the zip drive, the cdrom and dvdrom, not the NVida card or the Lucent Modem.

How does eComStation compare in basic pricing, paid support and TCS? I visited eCom site for more information but only found links to hardware vendors who supplied complete systems with OS2 installed.

The current PCI bus is a ripoff compared to VLB. With VLB I could have full 16 bit access to attached hardware albeit slowly. With the drivers installed you had fast access & high performance. It ran at 33mhz. Even today your PCI bus for add on cards runs only at 33 mhz. So what was the big idea if not to simply to flex its muscle in the chipset market?

[ktp]

There is a LiveCD for eCommStation (successor of OS/2 Warp4) at this link :

http://www.ecomstation.com/democd/

It works well with Virtual PC but not with VMWare which does not support OS/2.

[MedEvil]

There is a LiveCD for eCommStation (successor of OS/2 Warp4) at this link :

http://www.ecomstation.com/democd/

It works well with Virtual PC but not with VMWare which does not support OS/2.

That's because VirtualPC emulates a real graphics card while VMware does not. That makes VPC more compatible, especialy to strange OS!

[ktp]

@MedEvil

Thanks for the information. I believe the new VirtualBox supports also OS/2 (and Windows, Linux) of course.

[bearwindows]

It is possible to make an updated (and of course, BOOTABLE)
installation CD with IBM OS/2 version 3.0 (not only 3.0,  4.0 and later also).
Use this toolkit: http://xenia.sote.hu...sajat/updcd.htm
Somewhere i've had a chance to test an updated cd (maked using UpdCd program) with 'OS/2 Warp3 Connect' - it boots, install and works perfectly.

[wendy]

Here are some sites for OS/2 boot cd stuff.

http://www.xs4all.nl/~hrbaan/ "bootable" for bootable partitions etc.
http://www.geocities...lley/Pines/7885 Stangl has info on making boot cdroms, both ways
http://home.clara.net/orac/os2.htm ratcliffe's site is worth the visit.
http://kannegieser.n...eit/index_e.htm You will need to visit Viet's site too, for memdisk.


http://homepages.tes...deBoynePollard/ Not really boot stuff, but the utility pack is worth the download.

http://www.netlabs.org/ OS/2's version of sourceforge

[DocKing]

In case y'all are still interested...

[MedEvil]

Did i miss something? In case we're interested, we get a picture?
Can't remember anyone being interested in a picture.

[DocKing]

Did i miss something? In case we're interested, we get a picture?
Can't remember anyone being interested in a picture.

Earlier: Nuno Brito, on Jul 17 2006, 01:24 AM, said:

I've never even saw how a warp 3 OS looks like, would you care to post a screenshot?

Screenshot provided. I believe someone also said you couldn't run a Warp VM with VMWare. Done.
Have a Great New Year!