Multi Tasking DOS

People might argue with me, but IBM's OS/2 has a WONDERFUL
incantation of DOS in a very beautiful network implementation.
The learning curve to manage the installation, plus all that
goes with it is relatively steep, compared to other operating
systems venues, in my view, but the final product in respect to
DOS is absolutely superb for use with PowerBasic 3.5. For this
purpose, I think you'll see server uptimes in the realm of years
without failure.

I have at a reasonable number of sites.

You'll also get a relatively clean and, at this point, really
free IP connectivity, which is free from most evil things now in
vogue. That's not because it can't be pranged, but more from
lack of interest in doing so. As well decent virus protection
tools are available for you at about the same price as WIN tools
in the paid-for realm there.

Importantly, you can also run any variation of WIN on it in a
hosted mode as a guest. The original tool for this from VMware
wasn't then finished to release from Beta, but the Connectix product
which was bought out by M/S does a nice job, although it is no
longer, at this point, available from M/S with OS/2 as a host
and WIN as guests. Per what has been told, they'll only sell it
as a tool to run other things under WIN now..

However, Citrix, VMware, and significantly, Ecomstation are still
there and Ecomstation is in Beta now on a replacement for the OS/2
host operating system variation if you want that. Who cares if you
blow up WIN every day this way? Just restore the whole partition
from tape and start all over, chuckle.

OS/2 is absolutely supported through 4Q 2006 as can be found on
the IBM sites. Not only is heritage hardware supported far better
in my opinion, by OS/2 than some other op system choices you might
make, but you'll get a really decently supported heritage back
into the 70's for what will run on it. And to find that sort of
heritage support guaranteed into the future is awesome, as I see it,
for where we are headed! At the same time a really good array of
USB, very large hard disk, and other hardware drivers is there.

The biggest problem is learning where to get at it, and the manual
work it takes to get there. I also think most people would agree that
raw installation and auto-sniffing of the most current driver needs
still isn't one of OS/2's strong points. Too, out-of-the-box ability
to take advantage of the latest in picture-tools, DVD recording stuff
and thins like that is going to take you some learning to smooth
out. But virtually anything you want to do can be done with it,
except mingle WIN direct operations. And that is getting better and
better with cross-platform assistance tools from Odin and really
decent free-ware C/C++ compilers in the form of both Watcom and GCC
as well.

Missing, sigh, is the one thing really needed for it, Basic, which
really would help the issue, if ... sigh. But if DOS is of use in
this discussion, you can run a dozen simultaneous applications of PB
all on one box in separate sessions, no problem. As well if it gets
too bad you can always step up to full symetric multi-processing with
THREAD orchestration between the CPU's, and not processs limitations
there. The box I am posting this on has over 40 fully server based
processes running now as this is written, several DOS/PB applications
running there and over 700 open files on it as such at this moment. My
telecommunications remote site box has not been re-booted in several
months now; DOS, WIN, OS/2 apps, who cares? Plus OS/2 can actually be
used as an embedded system in a VERY lean boot run, to a complete command
line with nothing but command line full DOS and OS/2 sessions if that
is what your little heart is driving for. Mission critical service.

Fascinating.

An Ebay copy of Warp 4 or for the few bux that costs wherever, should
be your minimal starting point for this adventure. It's like anything
else in this computer technoworld. You really need the latest fixes
to keep up with whatever. But there are virtually all cumilative.
So you'll not wast much time sequentially building on whatever. Free
support for OS/2 ended a few years back. But updating Warp 4 to the
current 4.52 common kerneled MCP2 with the current XRC004 Fix Pack for
it, all the latest TCP/IP and MPTN cumulative fix packs, and the whole
Mozzilla 1.7 (IBM Web Browser 1.6) game is only going to cost you about
$65 for a year's support from IBM, with a fair amount of work to get
them to sell it to you, grin!

An alternative is to spend about $75 with Ecomstation for their different
installer and service support for OS/2 with licensing for that year or
so. Each way to go about this has advantages and disadvantages. But
if you are unhappy with spending that little money for this horrible
stable and clean development platform, I suspect little would make you
happy with how to really bridge the past with the future.

Yes, we will see changes as the future rapidly brings them to us. But if
you are looking for mission critical stability in DOS, spanning all the
way from the 70's into tomorrow for at least a few years of even what
that brings for needed drivers, I'd carefully consider OS/2 as your DOS
development and networking platform. It is a marvelous technical item
when you stop and look both back at the past and into the future.

Again, it's not a trip for the faint of heart. About two years ago IBM
officially noted that of the over 80 Billion of revenue world-wide,
only some 1500-odd customers accounted for over 90% of that revenue, and
they were using less than 2.5% of all the CPU's in the world! Oliver Mark
at WarpStock 2003 in San Francisco last year commented that OS/2 in his
European arena still accounted either directly or indirectly for over
46 Billion of that revenue stream!

More important, the biggest gripe the 'average' customer had with IBM was
that it was taking over $250,000 a year per customer to still do the
needed hardware and support work for OS/2. That despite the really good
job IBM was and is still doing, as I see it!

So your trip won't be necessarily easy. But your DOS platform could not
be better bridged between the past and the future, in my humble view.
I am VERY happy with IBM and what they have given me relative to DOS!

------------------
Mike Luther
[email protected]

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