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June 2000
editor@os2voice.org

Letters, Addendum, Errata

If you have any comments regarding articles or tips in this or any previous issue of the VOICE Newsletter, please send them to editor@os2voice.org. We are always interested in what our readers have to say.

May 16, 2000 - Following is a correction to my article in the May newsletter RealPlayer7 and Odin. Do to a change in the way both the WarpIn install version and now the newer ZIP archives for Odin are installed, all executables and DLL's are placed into the SYSTEM32 directory under the main Odin directory, so the batch script to start Real Player7 will no longer work. Here is a new version with the C:\odin\system32 directory added to the LIBPATH and PATH:

REM this will start RealPlayer7 under Odin */
SET WIN32LOG_ENABLED=0
set beginlibpath=C:\Odin;C:\Odin\SYSTEM32;
set oldpath=%path%
set path=C:\Odin;C:\Odin\SYSTEM32;C:\Real\RealPlayer;C:\Real\Common;C:\OS2\SYSTEM;C:\OS2\Mdos\Winos2\System;C:\OS2;
PE C:\Real\RealPlayer\realplay.exe %1
set path=%oldpath%
set oldpath=

You should also add C:\Odin\SYSTEM32; to your CONFIG.SYS PATH and LIBPATH if you prefer to execute win32 apps from the command prompt.


May 16, 2000 - Here are a few letters sent in response to my editorial "The IBM Two Step" in the May newsletter http://www.os2voice.org/VNL/past_issues/VNL0500H/vnewsf1.htm :

Hello Mark,

Totally agree with your editorial on the IBM 2 Step.
Just as frustrated,

Chip

And this from John J. Urbaniak:

To Mark Dodel,

I real your latest piece "The IBM Two-Step" in the current VOICE
on-line newsletter.

http://www.os2voice.org/VNL/past_issues/VNL0500H/vnewsf1.htm

Well done. Well written. It's time for someone to sue IBM or at the very least to collectively contact the DoJ to begin an inquiry into possible (probable) MS-IBM collusion.

1. MS has a monopoly on the desktop and has abused that monopoly.
That's what the judge found.

2. IBM has a competitor to that monopoly, a superior competitor, according to *consumer advocate* Ralph Nader, yet IBM adamantly refuses to compete, promoting exclusively the monopolist's products to the detriment of its own.

Something is very, very smelly here.

"How much do we have to pay you to get you to screw Netscape?"

John

This from Thomas V. Anderson:

To the Editor:

It is a sad thing to see people whose choice in operating system I share give support to the enemy, which is, in this case, the federal government. A company who engages in what many believe to be sharp business practices--even unethical practices--is not necessarily a company that has done anything illegal. The problem with the antitrust laws, which I believe should have been repealed long ago, is that the offending (illegal) conduct is not specified, giving a carte blanche to the holders of political power to victimize an unpopular company or industry and redistribute the spoils to those who failed, for one reason or another, to become successful in the marketplace.

If OS/2 has failed, the blame surely belongs squarely to IBM, and, indirectly, to the federal government, which by pursuing a vindictive antitrust suit against IBM for twenty years cut off that company's balls as far as marketing was concerned.

OS/2 is good enough, that it emphatically does not need the support of those who are so insecure in their own abilities that they refuse to compete with MicroSoft and thence seek succor from the ignorant
bully-boys in the DOJ.

The only good thing that might come of the antitrust suit is if MicroSoft fights it all the way, is vindicated, and does so in a manner that will create public sympathy for it and political support for repeal of the unjust, immoral, anti-capitalistic antitrust laws in this country.

My position is not merely an opinion, but an informed opinion, which you may judge based on the evidence. I suggest you or your readers begin with a little book just published by the Ludwig von Mises Institute, entitled Antitrust: The Case for Repeal, by Dominick T. Armentano, at http://www.mises.org. You may also find the magisterial treatise, Capitalism, by George Reisman, of considerable value in grasping the issues at stake in this struggle.

Whatever offenses you may think were committed by MicroSoft, they pale into insignificance to the threat posed by the federal government to the entire economy if antitrust is not defeated.

My response to Thomas Anderson:

So people don't deserve any protection against criminal organizations? Personally I think it's a travesty to try microsoft under the anti-trust laws, since real justice won't be served. Instead they should be tried in a criminal court under the anti-racketeering statutes. gates and his goons belong in prison for what they have wreaked on the world by way of extortion, lies and outright threats. They have corrupted the very system we cherish and they are getting away with it.

I'll take the US government over an illegal enterprise like microsoft any day. The Feds aren't perfect, but they are way too inept to be truly fearful and they aren't driven to world domination the way gates is. microsoft on the other hand is outright scary in the power they have accumulated. gates fears no one. And that is wrong. We all have to obey the law. No one, no matter how rich and powerful is above the law. So it's not about just being unethical, it's about violating laws that exist to protect us all.

Just look at the damage done to the global economy by one little script-kiddie sending out an innocuous email attachment that caused billions of dollars of injury. And this is happening on an ever more grander scale of destruction, more quickly then anyone could ever imagine. Who else has been hurt by the crimes of microsoft? I don't know about you but I have. I can't buy a pc with my chosen operating system. Instead I have to buy one preloaded with windoze. I have 4 windows licenses, yet I run only OS/2, and legally I can not resell, or even use these copies of windoze on any machine other then the one it came bundled with. And despite the legal mumbo-jumbo, no one will recompense me for having paid a tax to microsoft for the right to buy a computer. Where does microsoft get the authority to levy taxes? Even when OS/2 was popular it was next to impossible to find mainstream apps for it, and when you could they cost twice what the windows app did. Then microsoft made developers sign exclusive contracts so no more OS/2 apps would be forthcoming, even those which were completed, but shelved at the direction of microsoft.

Allowing this one company to become so pervasive has led to this nonsense. We need diversity and choices, not windows everywhere. gates and balmer both cry that any punishment will destroy the economy. Why does one company have such power?

What I love best about this country is we are all entitled to our own opinions. :-) Even gates can't stop the truth, though by buying up the media he can slant what most people hear. I'll publish yours even though I strongly disagree with it. The only hope to prevent a microsoft takeover of the world is by way of government intervention, since what is left of their competition is in bed with them and the vast majority of people don't appear to have sense enough to realize how they are being cheated, or simply don't care.

Thanks for writing,

Mark

Finally this letter from Avery Yackel

Hi there. Just read with interest what you said about having people write to the DOJ to complain about the way that OS/2 is being handled. What about a central OS/2 organization such as yourself helping to publicize and organize a widespread letter writing campaign to get the word out from OS/2 users? Do you think it would accomplish anything? Thanks

My response to Avery Yackel's letter:
I've been writing about this for over two years now. I doubt VOICE can do much more then we already are. It is up to the individual to sit down and write to their legislative and legal bodies to do an investigation. If you have something specific in mind, please come to a VOICE member meeting (1st and 3rd Monday of the month) or a Board of Directors meeting( The Sunday before the first Monday of the Month) all on IRC in #voice on WEBBnet at 8PM EDT(00:00GMT). Let Dan Casey (abraxas@os2voice.org) know ahead of time and he will put it on the Agenda.

Mark


May 16, 2000 - Here is a letter from J. S. Prather in regard to my article in the May newsletter RealPlayer7 and Odin:

When I first saw the title of the article, I was elated! Now I can really use RealPlayer to check out CD's before I order them?

Not really. The killer for me is that there has to be a long file name system on Drive C. I still use Drive C for vanilla DOS and Win31 purposes and am loath to change...

Maybe there could be some Odin magic to get around the Drive C problem....??? (Please...)

Jerry Prather

My response to Mr. Prather:

The only restriction for Odin is that Odin has to go on a file system that has long file name support like HPFS or FAT32(assuming you have the OS/2 FAT32 driver). The problem for me was with Realplayer itself installing stuff on C: even though I directed it elsewhere. That was a while ago, so maybe just try it and see if you have the same problem. Install Odin to a different drive and try installing RP7 and see if you have the same problem I did. Maybe try moving the directory structure from C: to a different drive. All of realplayer's files are in the 8.3 format, but they have several directories that are longer then 8 characters, so it might not even try to install to C:. My C: is HPFS so I never encountered that issue.

If you get it to work let me know.

Mark


May 18, 2000 - Here is a letter from Anssi Saari in regard to the article in the May newsletter MindTerm SSH Client by Alex Taylor:

I have to say reading the article about MindTerm and SSH in OS/2 was somewhat sad reading. The reason being, there is a good (shareware) SSH client for OS/2, namely ZOC. Anyone searching for ssh at Hobbes would've found it and if BMT Micro's search engine worked, that would've produced a result too.


May 25, 2000 - I was wondering if anyone would notice my comment in the May editorial about installing SMP support on Warp 4:

Howdy Mark:

Love your editorials. You are right on the mark...no pun intended. I do not currently beloing to VOICE...but when I get back from vaction I will sign up!

I see in your editorial that you reference a way to run SMP support for Warp with FP13. Can you give me a more direct pointer to the information? We have a bunch of machines that we would like to run SMP support on...but we don't want to run Aurora right at the moment.

Thanks
Chuck Levy

My response to Chuck Levy:
Thanks for the feed back.

I read about it on Usenet. here is a copy of the original post. I have read somewhere that there is a problem in that the 16bit TCP/IP doesn't appear to be SMP safe, so it looks like it requires the 32 bit TCP/IP stack. I have not tried any of this. I currently have 3 Dual Pentium Pro's, two running WSeB and this one running Warp4, FP13. I may give it a try to preserve the setup here.

There is a whole long thread on this in Usenet in comp.os.os2.misc. I'd advise reading it before attempting this. go to http://www.exit109.com/~jeremy/news/deja.html and key in the following for
SUBJECT:

Warp 4 Fixpack 13 and SMP

Make sure you have MATCH: All ARCHIVE: Complete Result type: Deja
Classic Language: English Database: Full
Sort by: date Results format: list

Good luck and let me know how it turns out if you try it. Remember this
is totally unsupported by IBM.

Mark

---BEGIN FORWARDED MESSAGE---
> From: "NOSPAMMAN" <no@spam.net>
> Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.misc
> Subject: Warp 4 Fixpack 13 and SMP
> Date: Sun, 30 Apr 2000 21:40:29 +0100 (MEZ)
> Organization: Global Network Services - Remote Access Mail & News Services
> Lines: 33
> Message-ID: <tenuynggtybonyarg@news3.attglobal.net>
> Reply-To: "NOSPAMMAN" <no@spam.net>
> NNTP-Posting-Host: 139.92.12.224
> Mime-Version: 1.0
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=3D"iso-8859-1"
> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
> X-Newsreader: PMINews 2.00.1200 For OS/2
> X-Trace: 30 Apr 2000 19:54:16 GMT, 139.92.12.224
> X-Complaints-To: abuse@prserv.net

re is a little tip to convert a Warp 4 Fixpack 13 PC into an
unsupported Warp 4 Fixpack 13 SMP PC. All you need is 4 files from the
XR_E001 fixpack 1 for Warp Server eB.

Do not do the following or you might get into trouble with IBM when you
call for help<g>:

1.) Do not get the following files from the WSeB fixpack

FIX\OS2.1\DOSCALL1.SM_
FIX\OS2.1\OS2KRNL.SM_
FIX\OS2.1\OS2LDR.SM_
FIX\OS2.1\OS2APIC.PS_

2.) Do not unpack the files using UNPACK2
3.) Do not copy OS2APIC.PSD into OS2\BOOT
4.) Do not replace \OS2\DLL\DOSCALL1.DLL
5.) Do not replace \OS2LDR
6.) Do not replace \OS2KRNL
7.) Do not put PSD=3DOS2APIC.PSD into your CONFIG.SYS

If you run ODIN you also need the TRACE files for the SMP kernel from the
OS2.1 directory or some things might not work (I haven't tried it yet).

Btw. If you are running Lan Server 5 from Warp Server 4 Advanced under
OS/2 Warp 4 with HPFS386 do no do this. You will get a trap in
NETWKSTA.200 during the Server startup. This seems to be a kernel bug
because it works with the UNI kernel. I haven't found a workaround yet.
Using only the Requester seems to work.

Happy Patching

NOSPAMMAN


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