Virtual OS/2 International Consumer Education

April 1998


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OS/2 developer's page


As OS/2 users we are constantly faced with the fact that most applications and hardware manufacturers simply don't want to support our platform. This page is devoted to informing OS/2 users about projects by developers who do want to support their products running under OS/2. If the product interests you, please support these folks. If you know of any other developers fighting to support OS/2, please let us know at editor@os2voice.org

WarpTV developments

The following is from John Rodriguez (jrodriguez@hauppauge.com) about WinCast/TV driver support for OS/2.

OK, now the good stuff. As you may know we at Hauppauge Computer Works have been involved with OS/2 for many years. I started with the company in 1995 and at that point we had OS/2 drivers for three of our TV boards. All three of those boards are no longer made, but if one tries hard enough they can be found. Those of you lucky enough to have a Celebrity have probably enjoyed TV on you OS/2 systems with few problems. That board would not only run in a Win-OS/2 session, but the native drivers were good. Unfortunately those boards sold for around $400. Not the kind of thing that could be widely marketed to the end user.

Back in 1995 IBM was pushing OS/2 with hopes of gaining a modest 20% of the SOHO market. Ah the "Glory Days":-) All of the NRE costs (non recoverable engineering) were put up by IBM. The drivers were written by Abbotsbury Software, and Hauppauge was happy to support this effort. Abbotsbury was given complete access to all technical data and software source code. One of my responsibilities upon joining the staff at Hauppauge was to continue this support.

The drivers that resulted are still in use today. Because the drivers were written for large corporations with technical staffs supported by IBM, ease of use and setup were not priorities. Thus many home users were frustrated with the driver, and even I dread making changes to the setup. Once set up however, the results are impressive. I sometimes feel guilty surfing the net and changing TV channels during the endless minutes it takes to load a page with a bunch of Java Script, frames and graphics on it while no one else can. But is my hope to finally do something about this. After all, why should I be the only one to enjoy TV on my PC?

In July of 1996 we began work on a PCI based TV card. Using the BrookTree 848 video decoder we were able to produce a TV card that today sells for about $100. As soon as production began, sales went through the roof. Video on the PC not only became affordable, it became mainstream. Since I'm in engineering I can't say exactly how many boards we ship per month, but I know it's in the tens of thousands.

Soon after our initial success with the WinCast/TV I began to think of ways to bring this technology to the OS/2 community. A $400 Celebrity may be out of reach, but a $100 WinCast cost no more than a modem and would enhance any OS/2 system. Unfortunately things weren't looking good for OS/2 and IBM was certainly not going to spend money developing a multi media driver. At the same time people began to ask for NT drivers for the WinCast. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise. We approached Abbotsbury and asked them if they would be interested in doing a driver for NT. Abbotsbury had a need to do some single frame capture stuff so when we asked them to do a "proof of concept" they were happy oblige . Basically, the beta OS/2 drivers available at the Abbotsbury site are a result of those efforts. Abbotsbury proved they could handle the complexities of the BrookTree 848.

The WinCast drivers as they exist today can only be considered an early "beta release". They represent what would be the core of a complete driver. They are buggy, difficult to use, not well suited for international use and can lock up an OS/2 system as if it were Windows. (No offense Windows users, but that's the first thing that came to mind) In addition, the driver does not work with WarpTV, IBM's TV application. None of this is due to a lack of technical expertise or information, it's just the current state of things. Since the drivers do what Abbotsbury needs them to do, they are likely to stay in this state unless something is done.

Last September I approached management with an idea that could fund the device driver development costs. The idea was simple. Hauppauge would put aside a few thousand boards to be sold with OS/2 drivers at the normal price, with 100% of the profits put towards driver development. Basically we would make no money on these boards, but we would be serving the OS/2 community. Management agreed. I did the math and figured out how many boards we would need to sell. But I ran into a few issues. First of all, the people most interested in the drivers already had the boards. In addition the number of boards we'd need to sell was very high and I'd have to set up some sort of pre order arrangement. If I thought that ten thousand people would pre order boards, or even send an E-mail saying they'd buy boards when the drivers were done, this idea might have worked. We could then just give the drivers away to all those who already purchased WinTV cards.

Unfortunately finding ten thousand customers is probably not a realistic goal. I think two thousand is even an unrealistic number right now. So on to "Plan B". The only way to be fair to those who already purchased WinTV cards as well as future customers, and generate the capital needed to support OS/2, is to sell a driver. (Yeah, I know...I wish there were another way.) Again, Hauppauge will not "make money" on this deal. My managers are very supportive of me and my commitment to OS/2. I did not need to present a business case showing how Hauppauge will profit from this endeavor, but instead all I need to show is that it will not cost us anything.

Here is what I propose. Hauppauge Computer Works will produce a WinCast/TV for OS/2 driver CD-ROM. The CD will contain the device driver, the latest Warp fix pack (for GRADD support), IBM's WarpTV application for TV viewing as well as whatever shareware multimedia applications I can get my hands on. CUSeeMe/2 is an obvious candidate and I've already contacted the author. This CD will sell for $30 and will be available directly from Hauppauge Computer Works.

The drivers will take about 12 weeks to complete once we start. We have contacted various people inside IBM. IBM is willing to update WarpTV (for a price) to take advantage of the drivers we develop . They will also allow us to spend time in Austin testing the driver's compatibility with all GRADD VGA drivers. I want these drivers to be top quality. I want everything necessary to use them to be on 1 CD. Most of all, I want the OS/2 community to have TV and Video on the desktop.

OK, I've done everything I can. Now it's time to see if we can pull this thing off. Step one is to find out how many of you are still interested in drivers for WinCast/TV. I have set up a mailing list that you should join if you are interested in WinCast/TV drivers. I will use this list to count "potential" customers, as well as issue status reports and news. This may happen once a week at most.

To join the list (and show your support) please send E-mail to:

warptv-request@hethmon.com

In the body of the message put the command "subscribe" (no quotes). It doesn't matter what you put as a subject. You will receive a confirmation E-mail as a response.

If you have questions, you can send E-mail to me at:

warptv.erols.com

Thank you for your interest in WinCast/TV for OS/2. Before I go, I'd like to thank Paul Hethmon of Hethmon Brothers (http://www.hethmon.com) for setting up my WarpTV listserv. Not being a mail server expert, Paul offered to set up and host the listserv.

Thanks,

John Rodriguez


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