OS/2 1.1EE on a Model 70 PS/2

[Unknown_K]

On my weekly trip to the recycler I found a beat to hell model 70 (386). I was going to pass on it but it had a nice 386-20 cyrix FPU on the board and I figured if the floppy worked it was worth the $5.Well the floppy is dead, so I had to use my olny good spare.

Anyway after some major cleaning and hammering (to get the screws to line up with their tabs) and spare parts I have a working unit. 386/20, 6MB RAM, and a 30MB ESDI HD I got out of my parts box. I stuck an Irwin tape drive in the unit, do those need special QIC formatted tapes?

Since the thing works I decided to install an OS I had for years but never found a good machine to install it on (OS/2 Version 1.1EE). Install was easy enough, this version looks like a DOS program switcher then anything else. If you have used OS/2 2.x or later this is quite a different look.

Anyone else mess with OS/2 of this vintage? Are there any OS/2 native apps for this or is it just 100% DOS?

[Chuckster_in_Jax]

I remember when it came out. Text mode only. No graphical interface. Still a multitasking OS. It will probably be hard to find any OS/2 applications written for that version.

[saundby]

Presentation Manager (the GUI) did come out for 1.1. It was pretty crude, about equiv to Windows 2.0. Monochrome icons, very subdued color scheme, but it'd run on any graphics card (Hercules, CGA, etc.) The EE version adds some extended database support to the base edition, SNA connectivity, SQL support, and some other things I don't recall offhand.

That version of OS/2 does not have a lot of native apps. Database apps, LANMAN, some graphical apps and front ends for IBM software, Excel and Word (there's no built-in graphical editor), DisplayWrite, at least some of the Borland stuff like Sidekick. It'll run multiple DOS apps in separate memory spaces, very nice for development (what I was using it for when it came out, I passed on 1.0.) Windows apps are a pain to port, as its graphics system is very different--different coordinate sytem, to start with (lower left origin), different calls and set-up of windows and gadgets, etc.

It's a good OS to work under, though, especially if your hardware is basic. It's great for networking. It looks a lot like DOS to the programmer, except that it has good libraries for hardware calls--no more BIOS calls or direct access code for screen, keyboard and mouse. It also had process management.

Give it a decent 10Base NIC and you can talk to your current network via LANMAN.

The filesystem for 1.1 was still a crude FAT-based one, HPFS came with 1.2, which also added TCP/IP (worth upgrading for, IMO.)

It was a good OS. Not much for shrink-wrap apps but a lot of database, horizontal apps, and dev tools.

[Unknown_K]

I have a basic MCA network card installed, is LANMAN a seperate application or is it included with 1.1EE?

[krebizfan]

I think Lan Server was included but the early versions only supported Token Ring cards.

For software, also look for Microsoft's Windows Libraries for OS/2. This was used to move Excel to 16-bit PM. Ports of most of the Windows 3 applets (Paint, Write, etc.) were freely distributed with a copy of the WLO DLLs. Nevermind, WLO needs 1.21 or 1.3.

[Chromedome45]

Ahhh the first version of OS/2 !. With the DOS like program selector shell. One slight problem with it is it leaves to many files in the root directory. Other than that it's very simple to use. LANMAN can be downloaded from microsoft. It's on 4 disks check here for some good info: http://www.jacco2.dds.nl/samba/lanman.html and the lanman.zip file. I have a freeware program like PC-tools/Norton utilties which will run under 1.0 it's of course text mode only. It's called Overview and it's attached for you to try out. Just add to the program selector or run from an OS/2 prompt. Filename is OV.ZIP And if you ever get a copy of OS/2 1.2 or 1.3 I have Microsoft Word and Excel for it and a bunch of simple games to go along. Oh I just remembered I also have Excel for OS/2 version 1.1! IMHO 1.3 is the best 16 Bit version! Warp is probably the best 32 Bit version.

[saundby]

Actually 1.1 was the second version--1.0 came out a year or so earlier.

As I recall 1.1 would do SMB/Netbeui with LANMAN, and though I had an IBM either/or NIC I don't recall having to use token ring, just peer-to-peer transports. (Well, I tried out token ring once to check out the speed claims.) With 1.2 I left LANMAN on netbeui, as I didn't have to leave my subnet to get to my MS fileserver, but I did most everything else over TCP/IP to cross a router. When 1.3 came out I moved LANMAN to TCP/IP as I had an app server on the far side of a switch I started to use (Lotus suite, as I recall.)

1.3 was definitely the best of the early versions. It was far more polished and better supported than the earlier versions of OS/2. In many ways OS/2 2.0 was a disappointment by comparison. Warp was the best of the later versions, but OS/2 1.3 was the best OS ever released for the 286. though 1.2 ran a bit faster if you didn't need anything that 1.3 added.

[Chromedome45]

You are correct Saundby I goofed. I thought he was using 1.0....What a dork I am