From: "Stanley Sidlov" <os2-wireless_users@2rosenthals.com>
To: "OS/2 Wireless Users Mailing List" <os2-wireless_users@2rosenthals.com>
Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2007 00:47:00 -0500 (EST)
Reply-To: "Stanley Sidlov" <stanleys@cybernex.net>
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In-Reply-To: <list-880264@2rosenthals.com>
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Subject: OT: New Hardware was(Re: [OS2Wireless]Re: PCI..)
Message-ID: <auto-000561361116@admin.nni.com>

On Wed, 14 Feb 2007 18:41:49 -0500, Lewis G Rosenthal wrote:

>Yes, the basic support for SATA and PCI Express is there, but we are 
>still on the usual catchup trail to the newer stuff (of course, so are 
>the Linux guys - and gals). I think sinfosar as th PCI Express stuff is 
>concerned that our biggest problem is not with the PCI-X architecture 
>per se, but simply the same old "new hardware" issues.

I'm sure that at some point Dani drivers will be updated. But isn't there a larger issue 
looming? If a T60 has video not supported by SNAP and SNAP is up for sale, what's the 
chance of OS/2/eCS continuing to be a supported platform?

[soapbox mode on - unless you're bored you can stop reading]

As someone from OS/2's early days, video was one of our biggest problems, and SNAP and 
IBM's generic drivers were the solution to a lot of the problems once we were abandoned by 
the vendors, and since OS/2 was not considered a gaming platform (and had few games) 
really good video was not an issue, but SNAP made most chipsets very workable under OS/2. 
Is it possible to convert Linux source code based drivers to OS/2? Is our *NiX subsystem 
support good enough?

[BTW, speaking of 'nix- I don't know if anyone read the article this week on IBM's plans 
to rollout Linux http://www.theregister.com/2007/02/13/ibm_open_client/ This vaguely 
sounds like the same plans that OS/2 was once a part of. Except that it's possible that 
this one could work, since they actually developed applications for it and are willing to 
support it.]

Going further, Warpvision and Uniaud are also currently 'stopped' projects. The code is in 
'subversion' according to http://blog.netlabs.org/?p=6 which I take to mean, is not the 
latest versions and without adequate saved copies of prior releases (unless someone has 
them on their own machines). Sound drivers have also been our big problem in the past. The 
ongoing lack of 'modern' and 'common' video stream support was supposed to be solved by 
Warpvision.   

The problems today are the same problems that we had in 1991 or 1999. We're okay so long 
as we have something that makes modern hardware work and modern content (media, documents, 
website, etc) usable in full. I don't need to finish the other part of that statement.

The interest that is being shown the Comes vs MS case, is fascinating to me, while it does 
show that everything we (the OS/2 community) has been saying about MS is true, and that MS 
continues it's own path without regard to the so-called settlement, it serves no purpose 
as there is nothing that can take windows OS away from everyone or any court ruling that 
will crush the company or split it into 5 or even 2 companies. Even a cash settlement to 
every computer user in the world would not stop MS and it's much more likely that they 
order a free upgrade to VISTA than breaking up the company. In short, while OS/2 users 
like to read the documents and say, 'there! what we said back then was true' and read 
about how MS outsmarted IBM and made sure that OS/2 would not be a 'better Windows than 
Windows' for long, it does us no good what-so-ever and IMHO, serves no purpose. Better the 
ones among us who can program, and the ones among us who can sponsor such programming with 
living wages not dependent on the low-wage earnings of former soviet republics or the 
asian subcontinent - ante up. Brad Wardell has now made MILLIONS EACH YEAR CLONING 
OS/2-like FUNCTIONS ONTO WINDOWS. But we've not done anything as integrated, and as glitzy 
as Object Desktop (and yeah, I have eCenter and eStyler and it's not as slick, IMHO). And 
face it, VISTA is about glitz, even if it's annoying glitz as it is about security or 
functionality. Even in his latest product for VISTA he mentions his old OS/2 Object 
Desktop functions. He must keep a computer running it just so he remembers how the new 
windows stuff is supposed to work. 

OS/2 users are some of the cheapest PC owners, and we have a startling number of us who 
say, "I don't need that feature." I don't need "Flash," I don't need sound, I don't need a 
DVD player, I don't need anything but my 20 year old dos-based text program. And while 
that may very well be sound fiscal management, it's anathema to people developing 
software....    

[soapbox mode off]