Arawak OS/2 Shareware/PAKLED.ISO/docs/op102b.inf

OS/2 Help File | 1994-09-05 | 478.8 KB | 1,813 lines

ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 1. News ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 1.1. IBM Names the Day ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

IBM Names the Day!

IBM will launch the latest version of its OS/2 operating system on Tuesday 11th
October, company executives revealed in London at the end of August. Launch
ceremonies all over the world are scheduled to take place at exactly the same
time and users will be able to pick up copies in their local stores on that
day.

 Dave Pullin, IBM UK's Software Director

The announcement came on the day that the company formally announced the
general availability of its second beta at a London press event at which Dave
Pullin, IBM UK's software director, confidently predicted: "It's our newest
star in the sky which will eclipse all others and consign them to a
black-hole". Code named "WARP", this latest version is an upgrade to the
company's highly successful "OS/2 For Windows". But the company is keeping
quiet about the product's eventual name - "Personal OS/2",
"Performance-Enhanced OS/2" and "OS/2 Version 3" have all been bounced around
IBM's marketing department - but given that the latest beta has a version
number of  "2.99", it seems a reasonable bet to assume "Version 3" will be the
winner.

When it is launched, the product will be delivered on two CD-Roms: one will
contain the operating system and its assorted ancilliary products, such as
MMOS/2, whilst the other, entitled "OS/2 BonusPak", contains full working
versions of ten OS/2 applications and utilities. These will include a full
32-bit version of "OS/2 Works", "CompuServe Information Manager for OS/2"
(CIM-OS/2), "FaxWorks for OS/2", a Personal Information Manager, "Person to
Person for OS/2" and a systems information tool.

IBM believes its latest version will incorporate a number of significant
enhancements and improvements including:

  Easy Installation

  New Look and Feel

  OS/2 Launchpad

  Improved Usability

  PlayAtWill

but perhaps the single most important enhancement is its reduced memory
requirement: OS/2 will load and run applications in a four megabyte machine. It
is also fully compatible with Windows 3.1, Windows 3.11 and, apart from network
support, with Windows For Workgroups. In addition, Win32s support is included.

Pricing for the new version has not yet been finalised but is generally
believed to fall in the 49-99 range.

We cover all the major enhancements in our Warp Factor/2 feature


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 1.2. Capone Missing in Chicago ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

Capone Missing in Chicago

Microsoft has revealed that it is prepared to further delay shipment of its
long awaited Windows 4 product, codenamed Chicago, rather than deliver an
unstable and unreliable product. The company's statement is designed to quash
rumours that it was looking at ways to restrict the product's feature-set so
that it could meet its first quarter 1995 delivery deadline: claims it strongly denies.

According to the company, any serious problems its thousands of beta testers
discover between now and January could delay the launch of Windows 4 until June
of next year. In the US, it is widely speculated that Microsoft is dropping
Internet support from Chicago, among other aspects of the 32-bit operating
system. Although the company is strongly denying that it is restricting the
feature-set, OS/2 Personal has learned that Microsoft's new electronic mail
client, codenamed Capone, may not be ready in time to ship with Chicago and is
likely to be sold as a separate product.

A 32-bit version of Microsoft Office is scheduled to ship coincidentally with
the launch of Windows 4. However, possibly not all its components will be
32-bit: a reliable source informs us that the version of PowerPoint included is
likely to be an updated 16-bit version. If this is true, the company will be
going against one of the requirements it has determined in order that an
application can carry the Windows Logo: from April, applications must be
compiled with a 32-bit compiler and be a true 32-bit application.


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 1.3. PowerPC Needs Mac to Shelter from NT ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

PowerPC Needs Mac to Shelter from NT

IBM is reported to be on the brink of signing an agreement with Apple to
license the Mac System 7 operating system for its range of PowerPCs. The
newly-appointed head of IBM's Personal Computer Company, Richard Thoman,
appears to be driving the deal through, a move analysts feel may be a more
acceptable solution for a company faced with few alternatives.

The problem Thoman faces is that IBM's own micro-kernel based operating system
- on top of which OS/2 and AIX can run - won't be ready until sometime next
year. Motorola is shortly to deliver a version Microsoft's Windows NT for the
chip and this might be a popular choice for users but if IBM plumped for it, it
could be viewed as being somewhat embarrasing for the company.


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 1.4. Illegal Porn Causes Chaos ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

"Illegal" Porn Causes Chaos

US entrepreneur David Shapiro, whose "Sexotica Collection" is distributed via
the Internet, admits that his programs have been infected by a damaging virus
known as KAOS4. He further revealed that one Internet user had more than 700 of
his executable files infected with this damaging virus.

Quite how many users have been infected is hard to estimate, but Shapiro's is
one of the network's top five bulletin boards specialising in erotica and has a
readership estimated in hundreds of thousands.

According to some computer virus experts, KAOS4 is one of the fastest spreading
viruses and rivals Form and Monkey in terms of numbers of infected systems, but
Professor Jim Bates - a leading British authority on computer viruses and
Governmental advisor - believes the magnitude of problem may be exaggerated. "I
know of no outbreak in Britain attributed to this particular virus", he told
OS/2 Personal. "One needs to examine the motives of those who claim otherwise."

The Internet was originally set up in the 1960s as a means of exchanging
information between US academic and military installations. Deregulation and
commercialisation of this resource has brought with it opportunists seeking to
make their fortunes by peddling pornography and pirated software. This
particular down side of the Internet's enormous growth - there are now an
estimated 30 million users world wide - has governments unprepared for the
increasing traffic in computer pornography and the computer industry "unhappy"
about increased.availability of pirated programs.

According to a spokesman for the UK's Home Office, anyone who downloads
pornographic files will be committing a criminal offence when a new provision
of the Obscene Publications Act comes into effect this autumn. "The problem
with that", says Bates, "is, if a user catches a computer virus after
downloading any pornographic material, it may well spread beyond that user.
It's going to be very difficult for anyone to trace the source of the infection
- that user is hardly likely to admit to a criminal act."


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 1.5. Novell Questions Patent ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

Novell questions patent...

Novell has petitioned the US Patents and Trademark Office to re-examine the
patent awarded to Roger Billings, the US inventor who claims he originated
client-server technology. Billings has filed a $1 Billion lawsuit against the
networking giant for infringements of his patent rights but Novell claims his
patent is far too broadly based.


...whilst its chairman courts Microsoft...

Robert Frankenberg, Novell's recently elected chairman, is seeking to end the
years-old feud between his company and Microsoft. He's been having a series of
secret meetings with Microsoft founder Bill Gates to discuss ways to make their
respective products inter-operate in a cleaner fashion. The first of these took
place on 6th June and tangible results look like appearing. "M7" - the
code-name for the next Chicago beta release - will have greatly improved Novell
Netware support.


...and ditches Novell-DOS

One of Frankenberg's early acts, after assuming the mantle of command, was to
axe Novell-DOS - formerly known as DR-DOS - which has not been a particular
commercial success despite its technological advances over its principal
rivals, MS-DOS and PC-DOS. According to sources close to the company, its
former chairman and founder, Ray Noorda, is believed to want to start a
separate company to continue developing, marketing and supporting the operating system.


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 1.6. What's in a Name? The Product's the Same! ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

What's in a name? The product's the same!

Yes, folks, it's still summer and the Silly Season. Journalists in Britain were
recently invited to attend "a very significant announcement" by WordPerfect's
media relations consultancy. After much cajoling, some 40 hacks assembled in a
lecture theatre at Novell's Bracknell offices to hear the earth-shattering,
stop the presses news that WordPerfect Office would henceforth be known as
"WordPerfect Symmetry". Same product, new name.

If that wasn't bad enough, a couple of weeks later, the same hacks were
telephoned by the same media relations people. The conversation went something
like this: "Apparently WordPerfect is unable to use the name Symmetry - the
name is owned by another British company - so it's being changed to WordPerfect
GroupWise, Ok?"

You'd think a company the size that WordPerfect was - this took place
immediately before the merger with Novell was finalised - would check that it
could use a name before making a world wide announcement, wouldn't you?


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 1.7. Online Happenings ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

Online Happenings
Edited by Julia Hamilton

Warner's Musical Stars Chat on AOL

Warner Bros. Records has teamed up with America On Line (AOL) to produce a
weekly chat session called Cyber-Talk. Every Monday, at 9:30 p.m EDT (6:30 pm
PDT), one or more of Warner's recording artists will be available to converse
with users. Press kit information with tour schedules and biographies of the
stars will also be available for download.


Sample Musical New Releases Online

Again from Warner Brothers: a preview program for new releases with 30-second
sound bites from new albums is now available on both America Online and CompuServe.


CompuServe Announcements

CompuServe Information Services (CIS) has announced several new services:

Firstly, there's CNN Online, which is slated to include forums geared towards
CNN's most popular news/talk programs. Also planned are weekly online
conferences with CNN journalists.

CIS announced it will begin providing coverage of the BOC Challenge in its
sailing forum (Go Sailing). The BOC Challenge is a single-handed,
round-the-world yacht race scheduled to begin September 17th, and end sometime
in May 1995. CIS also plans to include race information such as sailors' logs,
daily position reports, news updates and graphics.

Experienced consumer advocates, says CIS, will head up its new Consumer Forum,
which is designed to help consumers save money, avoid scams, and obtain
resolutions to problems and complaints.

CIS members can access USENET Newsgroups via their CompuServe accounts. CIS
also hosts an Internet Forum where members can ask questions and find out more
about the Internet (Go Inetforum).

Sometime this month, CompuServe plans to begin testing ISDN access into its
network. CIS says the ISDN digital connections will bring much faster service
to its members.


Samaritans online

The Samaritans, which has been offering emotional support by phone, personal
visit and by mail for more than 40 years, can now converse privately via the
Internet. The charity says that fully-trained staff will be able to reply
promptly to electronic mail messages sent to its [e-mail] address.


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 1.8. Information on the Move ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

Information on the Move

IBM UK has just announced a wireless LAN system designed to enable mobile users
to access centrally held information and keep in touch with colleagues on the
network. The wireless LAN adaptor is available in two versions: a dual bus
ISA/MCA adaptor for desktop PCs and a PCMCIA card for portable computers.

As IBM's adaptor is using the Industrial Scientific and Medical (ISM) reserved
bandwidth around 2.4 GHz which is available in most countries, there's no need
for a special license. The adaptors are capable of frequency-hopping within the
2.4GHz bandwidth, thus providing maximum security and protection from
interference - crucial in the transmission of data. They also provide
compression and encryption features and allow a throughput of four million bits
per second (4Mbps) - up to 10Mbps with compression enabled.

"Now, LAN users can use portable computers, like those in IBM's ThinkPad
family, to get information on the spot, thereby increasing their productivity",
said Ron McCall, IBM UK's product manager. "For instance, a fork-lift driver
could get information on the whereabouts and destination of his next load while
sitting in his cab. Or hospital staff could receive and update patient
information from the ward, giving doctors and other colleagues more up-to-date
information and enabling them to better look after their patients."


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 2. Features ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 2.1. Editorial ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 2.2. Through the Looking Glass ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

Through the Looking Glass
The Other Side of Windows
by Hershel Chicowitz


"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom,
it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of
incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it as
the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us,
we had nothing before us, we were all going straight to Heaven, we were all
going direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present
period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received,
for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only."

My lord, did Dickens ever hear of a run-on sentence?!!

Last month I offered a brief look at WordPerfect 6.0 for Windows, from the
viewpoint of a former DOS user. As you may recall, I concluded that WordPerfect
6.0 for Windows is very slick, indeed. (But then, so is Bill Clinton, and you
don't hear me raving about him, do you?) This month, I'm going to explain why
you can forget all that - from the viewpoint of a reformed DOS user. Slightly
ambiguous? You ain't seen nothin' yet! And I should warn you, this isn't going
to be easy. Portions of this article may be too intense for some readers.


Easy To Be Hard

If the folks controlling this insane industry (a shady, mideast cartel, no
doubt) were trying as hard as they could to make the personal computer industry
more complicated, they could not have done a better job. As if the computer
concepts themselves aren't hard enough, they had to mess with the language and
terms, and make them as confusing as possible - just to keep us from finding
out the real truth. (Come to think of it, this could be the work of the Clinton
administration. But that's another story.) I think it started with the term RAM
- which of course is an acronym standing for Random Access Memory. No, they
couldn't call it "main memory," or "primary memory"; they had to concoct some
high-tech buzzword, and then abbreviate it. So, we got RAM; big deal. But that
was just like the 1993 tax increase - it was only the beginning.

Next they came up with ROM. Now, the origin of ROM, I am positive - was merely
a typographical error in a large technical manual, discovered only after 30,000
copies had been printed. Rather than admitting their error, the cartel choose
to make up something else (much like the Mitchell health care plan: the same
thing, just another name slapped on it). Thus we have ROM - or supposedly,
Read-Only Memory. But then, just as we digested that, along came PROM:
Programmable Read-Only Memory, followed shortly thereafter by EPROM: Erasable
Programmable Read-Only Memory. I'm not kidding, folks! And that was all I could
stand. I figured if I couldn't beat 'em, I'd join 'em. So I started using the
term VEPROM: Very Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory. So when you come
across that term in your science books boys and girls, you'll know where it all
began. The Chicowitz has left his mark.

The use of acronyms does indeed find its derivation in the federal government.
I am extremely leery of most all three-letter abbreviations: FBI, CIA, FOB,
DOD, NOW, ARM, IRS, SEX - well, you get my point. But at least, for the most
part, the government has limited it to 3-letter abbreviations, rather than
entire words. Of course, there are exceptions. In 1972, the Nixon re-election
committee, the Committee to Re-Elect the President, was called CREEP. And
today, with President Clinton's approval ratings so low, we have the Committee
to Rally Around the President - well, you can figure that one out on your own, friends.

But the term that fascinates me the most is the arcane acronym, "TWAIN." No,
this has nothing to do with the nineteenth century author by the same name.
TWAIN is some type of standard format for scanned images as they are stored in
RAM (or ROM, or perhaps VEPROM - I don't know.) Anyway, when you buy a scanner,
you should ask the salesman if it is "TWAIN-compliant." Not "TWAIN-compatible";
don't say that; you'll just show your ignorance. Be sure to ask for
"TWAIN-compliant." And just what does TWAIN stand for? - inquiring minds want
to know. As Bill Gates is my witness, I swear it stands for Technology Without
An Interesting Name.


Digest that!

But if you want to leave your mark with the salesman, ask if the scanner is "
TAFKAP-compliant." No doubt he will say yes, his eyes glazed over in ignorance.
If you want to find out what TAFKAP stands for, you'll have to read on. If I
told you now, you simply would not believe me.


Back to Business: Task Switching

One of the major features of Windows is the ability to load several
applications into memory at one time and switch from one application to another
with a single keystroke or two. (Or maybe three or four... but just like the
Clinton / Mitchell / Gephardt / Barnum / Clinton health care plan, who cares
about the numbers, anyway?) For instance, you could load WordPerfect 6.0 for
Windows into memory, return to the Program Manager, load Lotus 1-2-3 for
Windows into memory, return to the Program Manager again, and load PaintBrush
into memory. Then, you could press <Alt><Esc> to switch between applications
without having to save your work and exit. That way, if you get bored working
on one task, or if you have a multi-tasking mind (and what a handicap that is),
you can just switch to another. Neat, isn't it? Oh, sure it is... until Windows
crashes. Does the term "General Protection Fault" (GPF) mean anything to you?
(For the uninitiated, GPF is a synonym for "employer mandate" - another way of
saying you're about to get the shaft.) Of course, you can do the same kind of
thing in OS/2. But why do it the easy way when you can make it so hard for yourself?


Forget All That: Part 1

Now, if you're expecting me to tell you that you can also do the same thing
using WordPerfect 5.1 or 6.0 for DOS, this will be like "universal health
care": you'll have to wait a while - like 20 or 30 years, perhaps. But if you
are using the WordPerfect DOS Shell program, you can indeed do just that.
Without getting into too many horrendous details, the WordPerfect Shell is much
like the Windows Program Manager - except that Bill Gates doesn't get a cut on
the action. You use the shell as a menuing system to access your DOS-based applications:

The shell runs in background, without interfering with your applications - for
the most part. You can create your own shell menu, and use it to access
DOS-based applications. Also, you can easily switch between any DOS
applications by using the keystroke combination that you selected when you
installed the shell. By pressing <Ctrl><Alt> and a number, you can switch
between applications. Prior to WordPerfect version 6, the DOS shell program was
offered a separate product; but it comes bundled along with WordPerfect 6.0 for
DOS - guaranteed menu-care that can never be taken away from you.


Curiouser and Curiouser

Another nice feature of most Windows applications is the ability to load files
within a specific application and easily switch between them. For instance, you
can load (or retrieve) several WordPerfect 6.0 for Windows documents simply by
using the file menu to open them, one at a time. After you have opened two or
more files, you can switch between them using the WordPerfect Window menu.


Forget All That: Part 2

Now here's where WordPerfect 6.0 for DOS is real nice, and you don't need any
other software to make use of it. As you are probably aware, you can switch
between any two documents in WordPerfect 5.1 for DOS. You can press <Shift>F3
to switch between the document 1 and document 2 edit screens. Version 6.0 for
DOS allows you to load and switch between as many as nine documents. When you
use the File Manager to open (or retrieve) a document, you automatically load
the document into a new document window. While you can still use <Shift>F3 to
switch between two windows, you will probably find it easier to press F3 to
display a list of the file names in all nine windows.

You can select a number between one and nine to access a specific document
window. (And yes, for you people who insist on working with your mouse glued to
your hand, you can click one of the numbers to access the desired document
window. (Take Madam Red Dot, for instance. madam Red Dot is my personal editor
and spiritual advisor. If it weren't for one small technicality - the alphabet
- she'd do away with the keyboard altogether! But that's because Madam Red Dot
has always worked with a mouse - even before she used a personal computer. As a
teenager, she won first prize in the annual the mouse-catching contest in Clear
Lake, Iowa - three years in a row. Imagine what her trophy wall must look
like!) And if you want to take a walk on the wild side, you can select the
Cascade option (<Ctrl>F3, 1, and then 5) to show all open documents layered
behind one another:

Note that the document number and file name appear at the top of the document
window. Madam Red Dot clicks on the desired document number to bring it to the
front in order to edit it. I press <Ctrl>Y to switch from one document window
to the next. You can do either of these; or, you can press F3 to display the
document selection dialog box, and select a document to move to the front.

And if that's still not enough for you, you can select the Tile option
(<Ctrl>F3, 1, and then 4) to divide the screen into as many as nine separate
parts, one for each document:

So as you can see, WordPerfect 6.0 for DOS is exactly like WordPerfect 6.0 for
Windows - only it's totally different. So, even in the wide, wide world of
OS/2, you can have it your way - either way - with the DOS way.


The Last Word - Tying Up Some Loose Ends

Did you pick up on the reference to "Barnum" earlier in the article? You need a
clue? OK; the clue is: "every minute." As my old buddy, Willard Scott, says,
"Check it out"; and the Chicowitz adds, "Think about it - and, have a nice day."

Oh, and as for TAFKAP - it's so simple you'll wonder why you didn't think of it
yourself. As Michael Jackson is my witness, I swear on the grave of Elvis,
TAFKAP stands for The Artist Formerly Known As Prince. "TAFKAP-compliant" -
makes sense to me.

"'Begin at the beginning,' the king said gravely, 'and go on until you come to
the end. Then stop.'"

Hershel Chicowitz is the Director of Creative Services for Thornton &
Associates, a computer auditing and PC consulting firm in Tampa, Florida. The
firm offers a series of software training classes, and markets a complete macro
command library (WordPerfect: Perfectly Simple) for WordPerfect. You can reach
Hershel and his trainer on CompuServe at 74473,3532, or by voice telephone at
[phone].


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 2.3. Above a Doorway: HyperACCESS/5 ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

Above a Doorway
HyperAccess/5
by Jules Allen

I've been using electronic communication systems in one way or another for
about five years so I think I've seen quite a few of them. Many do scripting,
they all send and receive characters and they all have some kind of file
transfer utilities built in. So when I got my paws on HyperACCESS/5, my
thoughts were "here we go again." Wrong. As we've stated before, if you don't
have a modem, get one. And if you get a modem, make sure you get a copy of
HyperACCESS/5 if you're serious about communications.


But It's Not a PM App.

I'll admit it, I like GUIs. A lot. I like pretty colours and I'm a big fan of
cool graphics. But I really hate PM Terminal. It sucks, like most of the other
productivity tools that shipped with OS/2 2.1.

HyperACCESS/5 will become a PM app when the Chicago coding cycle is finished,
according to a Hilgraeve software company spokesperson. Speaking off the
record, an unofficial source within the company mentioned he'd love to have
done the PM coding by now, but Chicago was the first rule of business. Of
course, the sheep in this industry will vacuum up Chicago like lint when it's
available - and those who have native apps ready stand to make a lot of money.

"The codebase for PM apps and Chicago apps are a lot closer than you may think,
and with decent structured, modular programming, the PM version shouldn't be
too hard to get out the door." our source continued.  Anyway, enough of the
future and more of the present.


Built in BBS and Scripting

Ever been away from home and forgot a file? Much to my wife's dismay, I do this
more or less every time I leave town. Usually I have my wife switch on my PC
and load a terminal emulation program. She then has to set it in answer mode
and wait for my call - easy so far. Then comes the feat of remembering the
exact name of the file and what disk it's on. Not so good. Not to mention it's
usually three in the morning and, bless her, she's not very awake.

HyperACCESS/5 allows a host mode. Simply set the host machine in answer mode
and dial in. After a successful connect, you have an OS/2 prompt. "Go back to
bed, honey, I'll find my own files!" Of course, one could even create a
rudimentary BBS system with the macro language.


Give Me HyperProtocol or Give Me Death.

HyperACCESS/5 has the usual slew of transmission protocols such as various
flavors of X-modem, Y-modem and a robust implementation of Z-modem. It even
includes the infamous CompuServe Slow, sorry, Quick B+ protocol (which I hate).
Now for the really cool stuff. HyperACCESS/5 has its own transmission protocol
called HyperProtocol. HyperProtocol can deliver amazing throughput on even an
standard, no frills or compression 9600 baud line.

We set up a couple of PCs, both running HyperACCESS/5. On the host machine, we
loaded a few small word processing files, some compressed font files and some
rather large database files. On the smaller files, HyperProtocol is only
marginally faster than Zmodem but the magic really happens when you have big files.

Look at the number at the bottom of the screen - 72kbps! Amazing! The whole
database file took four and a half minutes to transfer with HyperProtocol while
Z-modem took 26 minutes.


Powerful scripting and learning.

If you're one of those types that likes your PC to logon automatically and you
like to store your passwords on disk rather than in your head, you'll love
HyperACCESS/5's logon learning capabilities. I belong to the paranoid variety
of hacker who doesn't even acknowledge the fact I have a modem.

When logging on to a service, simply instruct HyperACCESS/5 to learn your
logon. When you're connected, tell it to stop. HyperACCESS/5 will then compile
a script file for your next logon. It's that simple.


Goodies worthy of a mention.

Virus checking and automatic unpacking of .zip files are standard with
HyperACCESS/5 as are multiple security levels for your callers when in host
mode.

Hilgraeve Technical Support are Gods and offer support via phone, CompuServe
and the net - I dug up an obscure Racal-Milgo 3221 modem for our tests and
initially had problems with it. Technical Support offered to write my init
string if I faxed them the relevant pages from the Racal manual! My advice is
contact them via email if you can - the responses I received were of a much
higher quality and, obviously, the more detailed you make your message, the
better the reply.


On the downside.

I don't have much to complain about with HyperACCESS/5 but one thing that
really gets to me is the 8.3  naming structure it imposes. It is smart enough
not to overwrite files and we've been assured this will be fixed as soon as
possible.

My only complaint with HyperProtocol is it doesn't autostart like Z-modem does.
A Hilgraeve company spokesman mentioned the protocol will be functioning in
that manner in a future release.

Contact Information

Hilgraeve, Inc.,
Genesis Centre
111 Conant Ave, Suite A,
Monroe, MI 48161
United States of America

CompuServe: 75226,2411 (or [e-mail] from the internet)
BBS: [phone]
Telephone: [phone]
Fax: [phone]


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 2.4. At the ForeFront of Hypermedia Authoring ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

At the ForeFront of Hypermedia Authoring
ForeHelp 1.0
by Mark Hamilton

Windows - and for "Windows" you can also read "Win-OS/2" - has really a rather
powerful help system. Actually, I should say that it's potentially powerful
because, in all my years of journalism, I've noted that very few applications
have really good on-line help. "Why?", you might ask. Well, the reason is
simply that until fairly recently, there's been a dearth of what I would term
industrial strength authoring software.

Microsoft was the company that came up with the Rich Text Format (RTF) in the
mid-eighties as an alternative Page Description Language, or PDL, to
PostScript. Ever since Microsoft Word for DOS was launched at that time, every
word processing product that company came out with, supports Rich Text. Over
the years, the RTF specification has been modified and updated, most notably to
include specialist features required by the Windows Help engine and its
upmarket big-brother, Multi-media Viewer. Unfortunately, Microsoft did not
provide any easy-to-use authoring software, relying instead on Word for Windows.

Now, I have to say, using Word for Windows as-is to write any hypermedia
document is about as friendly as a flash-flood; easy and intuitive are not the
best descriptive nouns I'd use. But to the rescue has come a limited
third-party cottage software industry which provides a range of solutions. Most
of these, I have to say, still require the use of Word for Windows as the main
editing engine and they range from libraries of WfW macros to applets. But a
couple or three are full-blown applications in their own right. I've looked
closely at two of the more recent, the French-designed WYSI-Help and ForeHelp,
from a company called ForeFront in Boulder, Colorado.

ForeHelp is ForeFront's first commercial product in its own right. The company
has been around for several years and, as a contractor, wrote many of
Symantec's word processing products. In consequence it has quite some
experience in writing good word processor-based applications.


Installation

The product is delivered on two high-density diskettes and is accompanied by a
three-quarter-inch thick manual. The manual itself is well thought-out, clearly
written and is a very good source of information. As well as a Table of
Contents, there's an excellent index and the text is illustrated by
screen-shots. As a reference book, it's one of the best I've seen.

Installing the product is quick and simple and you'll find that, in addition to
the program executable, its link libraries and help files, a complete tutorial
is installed. The tutorial - which deals with skiing in Colorado - is
comprehensively covered in the manual and serves as a good starting point for
creating hypermedia documents. ForeFront does not bundle the Microsoft Help
Compilers - the company assumes that you already have these - they are supplied
with all Microsoft's developement languages and the Windows SDK; but it does
ask you which of the two versions you wish to use. In general, you should
always use the protected-mode compiler (HCP) unless your help projects are
particularly small.


Entering and editing text

ForeHelp stores most of its data in a network-model database, yet this is
presented in a way that is totally transparent to the user. What you see and
use is a fully-featured word processor - albeit one that has extra
hypermedia-oriented functionality.

The screen-shot above shows the main editing window.taken during the
preparation of this article. Now, I should say at this point that you don't
have to type each hypermedia topic using ForeHelp's word processor, if you
don't want to. You can import complete help projects - provided you have all
the project files to hand - and you can import single topics saved as normal
text files. It will also import Rich Text files and will optionally divide
these into separate topics if you wish.

The button bar contains the most often used functions of this program, some of
the buttons are pretty-much self-explanatory, others less so. (Mouse around the
screen-shot and select any of the buttons for a description of what it does.)

ForeHelp's word-processing functions are tremendous and exploit the help
engine's functionality to the full. It employs the style-sheet paradigm: each
project contains two pre-defined styles, Base and Banner Base, which are the
basic styles for the topic text and the Banner (if one is defined); and, you
can define and edit your own styles quickly and easily. Here we see the style
that we use to define the sub-headings in OS/2 Personal. Rather than define a
style completely from scratch, you can take an existing style, modify that and
save it as a new style. That's exactly what we've done here. (You can see the
Character and Paragraph option dialogs by clicking on the Character and
Paragraph buttons.) As you can see, most of the format-control options present
in good word processors are provided. There are some notable omissions - such
as 'justified text' and 'drop capitals' - but they're not supported by the help engine.


Linking the topics

There are two basic links you can use: jumps to new topics and popups. When you
want to insert a jump, you simply highlight the text that, if clicked on, is to
initiate the jump and select the 'Insert Jump' function from the toolbar, the
Text menu or by pressing the Ctrl-J key combination. You can then either select
an existing topic or create a new one. The topic can be physically stored in a
separate help file, and you can have control over which pre-defined help window
is to hold the topic and whether or not the linking text is to stand-out by
being coloured.(green) and underlined. Popup topics are similarly defined.

Alternatively, text links can run macros. The help engine provides a fairly
comprehensive, but by no means extensive, range which can be supplemented by
the use of custom-written link libraries. ForeHelp makes it easy to code these
macros and include them in your project.


Graphics

Hypermedia files can contain graphical images - as evidenced by this
publication. These can contain hotspots - or hypermedia links - which can do
everything a textual link is capable of. The "old" way of converting bitmap
files to be used in this way was to use the Microsoft-supplied Segmented
Hypergraphics Editor - known simply as 'shed'. If you've ever tried using the
standalone 'shed', you'll appreciate why I say it's clunky, quirky and fraught
with problems. ForeFront includes a built-in 'shed' editor which is
automatically invoked whenever you double-click the mouse when its cursor is
over a graphical image.

When you bring a graphic into ForeHelp, it stays there on screen and where you
want it - the product is fully WYSIWYG. This can, at times, be annoying because
it does slow down the screen update process. I'd like the ability to
right-mouse click on an image and have it replaced by a frame 'marker' of the
same dimensions as the image. The image itself could then re-appear by a second
right-mouse click.

The graphical files are not stored within the database during the authoring
stage. This is important to remember, they are read off disk - where they are
stored as either bitmaps or metafiles - as needed. It's important to remember
this in case you decide to clean-up 'redundant' files from your hard disk.


Neat features

A very nice facility is the creation of a backup set: this includes the
database files and can also include all the images your project uses. There is
a degree of compression employed so a backup file is normally quite a bit
smaller than the sum size of its constituent parts. To recreate the contents of
the backup file, you simply use the File|Open command.

The tools menu contains a spell checker and thesaurus, both supplied by
Microlytics. The company supplies the American English language version as
standard; however, you can order a variety of other language versions including
British-English and all the European languages. As you can see from the
screen-shot, you have full control of how much of the project, as well as which
objects, should be checked. Both are nice and really useful additions -
particularly from my point of view as Editor of hypermedia magazines.

Also in the Tools menu, you'll find a very comprehensive 'Find' function. As
well as simply finding or searching for and replacing text, the function
provides a few really useful features. I've written the odd help file or two
using ForeHelp and made extensive use of the 'Add Topic Keyword' option.
Although this function provides the same choices for scope and choice of
objects as the spell-checker, it is dogged by a small bug. The 'Find' function
does not look at topic-level macros. This is a serious omission which needs
rectifying at an early date.

If you are in the business of writing hypermedia documents, you'll really
appreciate the reporting functions offered by this product. One of them, the
Navigator, allows you to move around your project in a graphical manner. In
this shot, the current topic is highlighted, with the previous and next topics
in the browse sequence shown above and below it. To the right are some of the
many popups this topic calls upon. By clicking on one of the boxes, you make
that topic the current one and the display changes to reflect that. Clicking on
the eye-glasses within the topic box brings that topic into the edit window.

In addition to the Navigator, there also a Grapher which displays the project
in a textual hierarchical format and a very comprehensive report-writer.


Conclusion

ForeHelp is a very powerful hypermedia authoring system which takes full
advantage of the Windows environment, the capabilities of its database manager
and exploits the features of the Windows Help engine. It does all this in an
easy to use, well-documented manner. It is also the only Windows application
that I've yet to break and believe me, that's quite an achievement for
ForeHelp's authors. If something does go awry and ForeHelp's databases are left
open, the product will attempt to repair the database so you might not lose
more than a few minutes work. Currently, the only way to ensure database
integrity is to close the database and then re-open it. Needless to say,
ForeFront have received a number of complaints about this and the next version,
due out later this year, will have a database rolling-save option.

As the Editor of Hypermedia magazines, this product offers me everything I need
in order to include, layout, proof-read and produce the issues. It is a truly
excellent product and one that IBM, in particular, should take note of: the
features and reliability of its own equivalent product - also reviewed in this
issue -  pale into insignificance, compared to this product.

I can reveal that ForeFront are looking at other 'platforms' but currently have
no plans to port ForeHelp to the native OS/2 format. This is a crying shame and
I would heartily recommend someone in IBM contacts ForeFront and cuts a deal
with them pronto.


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 2.5. The OS/2 Shareware Games Scene ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

The OS/2 Shareware Games Scene
Or RoidsFest '94
by Paul B. Monday

Hi. I'm Paul. I play games.

With those introductions over, I'll bring us to the topic of the month: OS/2
shareware games, what are they all about, and where does one enter the Infobahn
to locate a good OS/2 shareware game? Scouring the net should never preclude
possibilities of the sneakernet (passing diskettes between friends), since word
of mouth is the best way to get software.

I quickly found maneuvering the Infobahn for games was much quicker than my
latest journey from California via I80, and there is much better coffee to
enjoy at the rest stops. My one suggestion: arm yourself with the latest PKZIP
utilities from PKWARE Inc. (DOS and OS/2 versions if possible).

My travel vehicle of choice was ftp using archie as a roadmap. I tried my four
major OS/2 exits: ftp.informatik.tu-muenchen.de (/pub/com/os/os2/games),
software.watson.ibm.com (not), hobbes.nmsu.edu (/os2/all/games), and
freebsd.cdrom.com (/.1/os2/2_x/games). I downloaded quite a few toys via the
Monday Selection Criteria(c) or MSC (not to be confused with the Minnesota
Sports Channel). The criteria is "Does it look cool?". Well, the results will
follow this rather lengthy discussion on how to obtain toys.

Next entrance onto the bahn was via my new home away from home, CompuServe.
Although initially I had a few problems locating the games, I quickly found
more than I could deal with. I lost my cool and started hitting the download
option. I found everything from a replacement icon for my shredder (which is
now in the form of a 3d toilet bowl) to new DOOM icons for my desktop. (You can
access the Fun and Games area on Compuserve via 'GO IBMOS2', menu option 1 'IBM
OS/2 User Forum', option 3 'Libraries', and finally option 16 for Fun & Games.
Remember, you are no longer in basic services at this point and you will be
burning money. Make sure you get the latest on charges from your local
CompuServe guru).

Much of what I found on CompuServe is also available via ftp to the four sites
I listed (well three if you take out the IBM site which has no games!). Often
the filenames are slightly different depending on how out of date the site is.
The reviews of three shareware downloads follow, if there's interest in
continuing shareware reviews in the future, so be it, just drop me or my editor
a line via email (or remote mind meld) and it shall be done.


Zap a Klingon!

Filename: ROIDS2.ZIP (ROIDS21B.ZIP if using archie)
Name: Roids 2.1 Beta - adds MMPM sound!
Author(s): Leonard Guy
 3415 Bangor Pl.
 San Diego, CA
 92106 USA
Registration: $6 (no seriously, this is only $6)

Summary: Excellent.

The idea of checking out Roids came via a suggestion on comp.os.os2.games
(which should be replaced with
comp.os.os2.galciv-galciv-galciv-and-some-games). The only reply from an
inquiry on favorite games was "Roids is cool". (After checking out Roids, I
later found another message posted from the creator of it, he's asking for
input for future games and enhancements, a good sign the shareware market is
taking off.)

The game Roids is, as expected, similiar in many ways to one of those first
arcade games that I was entranced with as a child, Asteroids, by Atari. Roids
goes much further than any version of Asteroids this hack has ever seen.

My suggestion is throw away that sloppy version Microsoft did and put this one
straight onto the desktop. The new version of Roids has serious MMPM sound
built in (though sometimes flawed in the beta) and a scrolling universe (do you
think our real universe scrolls?). You actually do your hunting in a small
sector of the universe with a radar-like display showing the wearabouts of evil debris.

The bad guys are the Tetra, Bulb, and Snipe, though I still don't distinguish
between them, you are welcome to shoot at anything so a name or two isn't going
to help.

All options are easy to set with the use of PM dialogs, and the help text is
brief and to the point, important for shareware.

This is one excellent piece of work Leonard! It gets a prime place on my desktop.

Filename: TRSH12.ZIP
Name:  TrashMan OS/2 PM
Author(s): CoralSoft, Inc
Registration: No info, assumed to be freeware.

Summary: Minesweeperesque type game, good for the category

The idea of having to take a job as a trashman often comes around about the
time those pink slips are being bucked around the ol' computer industry. I
thought I'd check out if I had the stuff with TrashMan. While it doesn't offer
fast paced graphics, blood, gore, explosions or catchy sound clips it does have
its charms. It's innocent, and surprisingly environmentally friendly!

The object of TrashMan is to roam the city streets sweeping mounds of garbage
to the cans. The catch is you can't move more than one piece at a time, and it
can't go around corners.

Immediate frustration set in on me, "HERE IS THE GARBAGE, THERE ARE THE CANS!"

The first level took a half hour to finish and I was ready to pan the game.
Then the reward popped up, environmental facts on the output of CFCs over the
years. Hmmm...the environmentalist in me came out and I went after the second
round. I'm embarrassed to say I never made it through level 2. Though the
solution was at my finger tips when I slipped up.

My plea to CoralSoft is to please give me a way to take back a move. My plea to
my readers is please send me the facts that pop up between rounds.

Filename: HELR20.ZIP (HELR21.ZIP if using archie)
Name:  Heli Rescue with MMPM sound
Author(s): KSOFT ([e-mail])
Registration: $15 + $4 for US shipping and handling

Summary: Excellent potential marred by gross copy protection

An old affinity for Choplifter sounded the MSC alarm on this one. Heli Resue,
as a whole, kept the Choplifter theme, the tanks and planes were replaced with
a multitude of anti-Chopper guns on the ground and various angry hordes coming
at you from the air. Perhaps the problem was that there was too much going on
for my poor system to keep up with.

While the graphics and sound for the game were excellent, the game as a whole
was choppy and not smooth to play (I run on a 486 DX2-50 with 8 Meg). I suspect
with additional RAM the game may have become easier and more fun. My suggestion
for Heli Rescue is to wait for a later version, then try on your system before
you buy.

My main issue with Heli Rescue comes with the 'copy' protection. 85 seconds or
3 lives of play per open with the version snatched off of the net. To get more
you have to send in your order form and $15. I found this extremely annoying,
especially for a game that was so difficult to get used to the slowness.
Although I agree that developers need some way to protect themselves from
giving away the store, I must advocate a more doom-like approach.

Game players are allowed a couple of levels to enjoy, then have to send for
more. This allows gamers quite a bit of time to get familiar with the toys
before committing. There are 20+ levels to Heli Rescue...give me infinite time
on one before I send my check in and I'll be a happy pilot!

The Shareware market

The OS/2 shareware biz is hopping with a great initial set of games. There
seems to be a little of everything if you look hard enough on the net.

To the many many developers who are working hard, keep the great OS/2
programming up. To all the shareware users, make sure you register your copies;
the fees are minimal and the return to the developer is small. With enough
registrations for a game we can help put pizza and coffee on a couple
programmers keyboards.

Paul B. Monday is a programmer and is addicted to caffeine. He assumes the
world generally revolves around him and really believes that the meaning of
life will eventually be found by Juan Valdez.


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 2.6. Ask Timmy ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

Ask Timmy

OS/2 Personal's child-prodigy, Little Timmy, is not a happy chappie: no one has
written to him. Restore peace and harmony to his parent's household by writing
to him today!

Last month we asked our readers to send Timmy their OS/2 questions.
Unfortunately, so far Timmy has not received any mail. This paucity of
correspondence has Timmy banging his rattle on his crib, crying incessantly.
Please make Timmy happy again and send your questions on OS/2 to "Dear Timmy,"
c/o OS/2 Personal, ... If Timmy answers your question in this column, you will
receive a free "I Love OS/2" bumper sticker, while supplies last.

The OS/2 Personal staff has managed to stop Timmy's temper tantrum long enough
so that, this month, he covers some of the essential tips and tricks every OS/2
user should know about.

Even though I'm one of the youngest OS/2 users around, it amazes me how many
older people miss some of the great features built into OS/2. Many of these
features are even documented in the online help and printed manuals.

Now, most people know that, when you open the settings for program objects
(such as that icon for Stickybear), and you click on the Window tab, there is a
selection for 'Open object behavior.' Try changing that setting to 'Create new
window.' When you double click on that program object a second time (or third,
etc.), another copy of the application will be started.

This setting works particularly well for the OS/2 Window (located in your
Command Prompts folder, which is located inside the OS/2 System folder). Of
course, I like using the command line about as much as I like eating strained
peas, but those OS/2 Windows sure are handy. I like having lots of them around.
And changing the 'Open object behavior' really helps.

Still, I hate having to wade through several folders to find the OS/2 Window
icon. So I could pull up the pop-up menu for OS/2 Window (by clicking on it
with the second mouse button) and select 'Create shadow.' But there's a
keyboard shortcut that you can use to create shadows. My little hands have
trouble here, but you can hold down the CTRL and SHIFT keys while you drag the
object. When you drop it, a shadow will be created, ready to use wherever you
need it. (I like putting OS/2 Window on my desktop.)

Yet even a shadow may not be handy enough, which is why those elderly
twenty-somethings at IBM have added drag and drop menu item creation to the
Workplace Shell. Suppose you want OS/2 Window to appear on the list of items on
your desktop pop-up menu. Simply click on the desktop background with the
second mouse button, select Open - Settings, then click on the Menu tab. Drag
the OS/2 Window icon (or any other program object you wish to add) to the lower
(bottom) scroll box and drop. Close up the settings notebook, and you now have
a new menu option when you bring up the desktop's pop-up. You can also create
cascading and conditional menus, but I'll let you read about those in the
online help.

When you select OS/2 Window from the desktop pop-up menu, sure enough the
command line starts. But you get a strange error message. That's because the
Workplace Shell is starting the CMD.EXE program (to run the command line) with
a parameter (namely the desktop directory). CMD.EXE doesn't understand (or even
need to know) where the desktop is located. If you don't like looking at the
error message, open the settings for the OS/2 Window icon. Then, in the
optional parameters section, just put a single percent sign (%). Close the
settings notebook, and try starting the OS/2 Window from the desktop pop-up
menu. You should be spared the nasty error message.

By the way, I don't like chicken puree, strained peas, or the blue 'help' line
that appears at the top of all my command line sessions. If you want to remove
that line, edit your CONFIG.SYS file so that

SET PROMPT=$i[$p]

is simply

SET PROMPT=[$p]

You can perform similar surgery on AUTOEXEC.BAT if you want to get rid of the
'help' line for DOS command lines, too.

Finally, did you know you can execute a short REXX program using the REXXTRY
command (from an OS/2 command line)? Try typing the following in an OS/2 Window:

REXXTRY DO I=1 TO 10;SAY I;END

REXX is a great language. Far easier to master than English, which I'm still
working on. You should spend some time reading the REXX Information document,
located in your Information folder.

Remember, you get a free 'I Love OS/2' bumper sticker if I answer your OS/2
questions here. So send them in. If you don't, I'll keep banging my rattle.


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 2.7. Warp Factor/2 ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

Warp Factor/2
OS/2 Personal's unique coverage of all the features expected to be in the next
release of OS/2 for Windows, scheduled to ship on October 11, 1994.
by Mark Hamilton

I believe this new version of OS/2 for Windows will have great appeal to the
existing Windows user-base, particularly those who need to move on to a more
stable operating system platform but can not wait any longer for a solution to
appear from Microsoft. It should also appeal to those users who are stuck with
4 Megabytes of memory and for whom neither Windows/NT nor Chicago are viable
solutions. There is a growing band of users for whom the message of the single
vendor solution is wearing mighty thin, those fed up with companies who are
long on promises and short on delivery and those intrigued as to what a real
32-bit operating system is all about. And this soon-to-be-launched version
should have greater appeal to the hardware OEM market who have resisted
pre-loading OS/2 on their machines due to its greater than 4MB memory
requirement; maybe now OEMs will now offer OS/2 as a viable alternative.

 Throughout this examination of the second "Warp" beta, you will find icons on
the left hand side of the page. These indicate that there is screen-shot of the
product that illustrates the current text. Double click on the icon to display
the screen-shot.

Installation

The "Warp" package consists of 13 diskettes which contain the operating system:
the Install and Disk-1 disks are recorded using the standard 1.44 megabyte FAT
format, the balance are recorded using a new technology known as XDF. Ten more
(XDF-recorded) diskettes contain device drivers for printers (3) and displays
(7) and a further four contain the "OS/2 BonusPak".

As before, the installation process installs the basic operating system files
using a text-mode display following which OS/2 boots into the graphical part of
the installation process. The first noticeable change in this new version is
the OS/2 logo is now animated whilst the device drivers are being loaded and
initialised. IBM still has not removed the necessity to disable ROM-caching and
de-selecting "Turbo Mode" on certain ISA-bussed PCs. Also, if you are
installing this beta on a PC that currently is running the first beta, you must
reformat your OS/2 partition; no explanations are provided for the necessity of
this " safeguard".

 When Presentation Manager is active, the "OS/2 Setup and Installation" program
is automatically started. This will be a familiar "friend" to existing users,
but it does contain a number of changes, all of which are useful enhancements:

 Support is now provided for a total of 22 different video chip-sets. These
include chip-sets from S3, ATI, Cirrus Logic, Tseng Labs, Western Digital and Weitek.

 With more and more PC manufacturers now including PCMCIA slots, OS/2 now
supports 18 classes of these directly.

 All the most popular CD-Rom drives are now directly supported including those
which are directly attached to audio cards - such as those from Creative Labs
and Media Vision - for a total of 86 different CD-Rom drives.

 Boca labs have been busy examining printers and device drivers for more that
700 have found their way into this beta version.

 There's also support for more than 25 varieties of audio card, including
Business Audio, as well as all the popular - and some less popular - brands.

 And the SCSI adaptor card support has been beefed-up to include the latest
vendor offerings. Most, if not all, the SCSI adaptors from Adaptec and Future
Domain as well as those from BusLogic and IBM are included.

 Multi-media installation is now part of the main installation process

During the graphical part of the installation, you can now open the System
folder and open a Command prompt from the Command Prompts' folder. However,
don't attempt to do what I tried: opening either the A or B drive from the
Drives' folder whilst either drive is working, is guaranteed to hang your
system. The brand-new XDF drivers do not allow multiple processes to access
floppy drives. This could have serious implications elsewhere and is something
the Boca engineers need to fix before release.

All in all, IBM's installation program has been improved but it still has a
long way to go. The fact the product can't be installed from CD-Rom without
having to create at least two installation disks is less than
novice-user-friendly. As is mentioned elsewhere in this issue, IBM should take
a leaf from Microsoft's book and come up with a product that installs cleanly,
effortlessly and without the user needing to know video chip-set numbers or
CD-Rom drive names - I know I have a Creative Labs CD - but I couldn't tell you
what the particular model drive number is.

Changes to the Desktop

Some changes are not immediately apparent whilst others leap off the screen at
you! The Desktop's background colour has been changed from grey to a
bluish-green. I suppose the programmer responsible for the Workplace Shell got
bored with the old shade - which, incidentally, is the same as the default
Windows background colour. I'd much prefer to be able to select my own
background colour, thank you, and I'd like the same level of configurability
for the Desktop as Microsoft provides Windows users, please.

 The "Settings" option on the Desktop menu has been moved to the main body of
the menu from the "Open" cascade menu; and, a new option has been added. You
can now cause open folders to automatically close when something is opened from
within them. This new option, "Folder Automatic Close" sets that modus
operandi. The "Open Parent" item can then be used to re-open the folder quickly
and easily. IBM has been repeatedly asked to provide an "Undo arrange" - which
replaces the icons where you left them - well, it's now in and working.

"Lazy drag" is now available such that you can drag objects without having to
hold down the mouse button. You can perform most system operations whilst
objects have been 'picked-up', such as moving and opening folders. The pointer
changes to a combination pointer-cum-suitcase whenever items are 'picked-up'.
Pick up or Drop can be initiated from either the mouse or the object's pop-up
menu. The second mouse button (normally this will be the right hand one) is
used in conjunction with the Shift, Alt and Ctrl keys for all these operations.

 The settings for the Desktop have changed: some of these are common to folders
and I'll deal with these in a minute. The Desktop now allows you to archive the
Desktop at every system restart. This archive facility, together with an
intelligent restart, allows you to switch between desktops and configuration
files when the system starts.

 If you do not wish the Workplace Shell to save your Desktop when you shut down
- so that it can be restarted in the same state - a new "Save Desktop settings"
option is provided which you can uncheck.

For Folders - and the Desktop Folder - you can now set, on a per folder basis
or through a scheme palette, globally, the icon text colour, the icon text
background colour and whether or not the icon text should be visible.

 The second page of the Windows tab in the Settings notebook contains the
"Folder Automatic Close" setting I mentioned earlier. As you can see on the
screen-shot, this has three possible values:

Never - This makes folders behave as they currently do in OS/2 2.1 and is the
default setting.

Subfolders only - This causes the current folder to close when you open a child folder.

All Objects - Closes the current folder when you open any object contained in
that folder.

A new system setting has been added which selects the default open view for all
folders and can be Icon, Tree or Details.

When folders are opened, the icon for them changes to show an open folder as
well as the familiar hatched background. This IBM calls "icon animation" and is
designed to provide further visual feedback as to the state of the folder - as
if any were really needed. The company expects to include further examples of
animated icons in the release version - will the printer icon throw out sheets
of paper or the shredder deposit representations of finely cut waste paper in a
pile at the bottom of the Desktop? The mind boggles.

Comets and Launch Pads

The cursor can now be made to automatically leave an 'evaporating trail' of
blob-like shapes as it moves over the screen. This ability will be particularly
welcomed by notebook PC users. The "Comet" cursor, as it's known, is currently
in somewhat of an experimental stage in this beta but will be a setting of the
Mouse object in the final product, if all goes to plan. If you experience
difficulties in resetting the Mouse cursor, shadow it to the Startup Folder
will force it to reset.

You can now change system pointers (or Mouse cursors) both individually and in
sets. This is controlled by the Pointers page of the notebook for the Mouse
object. Currently, four pointer sets are included: Black (the default), Big
Black ( the default for notebook PCs), White and Big White - the latter two of
which are similar to the Windows pointer. You can edit existing pointers or add
new ones - either individually or in sets - each set consists of 12 pointers.

 The LaunchPad is a tool bar that provides access to frequently-used objects.
It can be used to open objects with a single click and is a slightly different
way of accessing objects than by placing them in "my frequently used bits and
pieces" Folder. Objects can be dragged to the LaunchPad itself, or to the
LaunchPad's 'drawers' which can then be clicked open. Dragging an object to the
LaunchPad's own Shredder from elsewhere on the LaunchPad deletes them from the
LaunchPad. Don't drag these objects to the Desktop's Shredder - they really
will be deleted even though they will be left on the LaunchPad!

Push buttons have been added to perform the common system functions of lockup,
shutdown, find and open window list and the LaunchPad has many of its own
settings, such as 'float to top'. Finding a free space on the LaunchPad to
click with the right mouse button is a bit problematic though. If you
double-click on any free space in a Folder or the Desktop, the LaunchPad comes
to the fore.


Other changes

 The OS/2 Tutorial has been completely updated and presented in a new format.
It now takes account of the numerous changes and enhancements OS/2 has
undergone since version 2.0 was released.

DSOM is now fully integrated into the base product and is functionally
equivalent of the DSOM workstation client enabler that IBM currently ships as a
separate product.

A number of the productivity applets have disappeared and will be replaced with
'industrial strength' applications. So, if you currently use PMDiary, or any of
the other applets, then you'll need to take a copy of them from your current
OS/2 system. Also, Serviceability and Diagnostic aids have been removed from
the Kernel - although you can now optionally install them. If you do not elect
to install these, then items such as TRACE and PSTAT are not available and the
programmers among you will not be able to run code debuggers.

When Warp is booting, one of the first things it does it to display a white
'blob' in the top left corner of the screen. Whilst this 'blob' is present, you
can press Alt+F1 to display a dialog that allows you:

 Start one of the last three archived Desktops, or,

 Reset the system to VGA resolution, or,

 Boot to a command line.

You can also save additional Desktop configurations and assign a letter to
each. This allows up to 24 different Desktops - 'C' is reserved for the command
prompt and 'V' starts a VGA system. Pressing Alt+F2 whilst the 'blob' is
displayed causes the OS/2 loader to display the name of each device driver as
it is loading. This allows you to see which one fails on problematic systems.

 One of the most significant visible enhancements is the inclusion of ten
complete applications and utilities in the OS/2 BonusPak. These currently
include an OS/2 version of CompuServe Information Manager (CIM) - an
interactive communications program for what professes to be the world's leading
information service; FaxWorks for OS/2; IBM Person to Person for OS/2; and a
System Information Tool. Also to be included in the General Availability
release, but not included on the beta CD-Rom, are IBM Works - an integrated
package with a word-processor, spreadsheet, database and graphics tools; and
HyperAccess 5.

Given that IBM is publicly positioning its next version of OS/2 at the home
user, I find the BonusPak somewhat intriguing. Just what would the home user do
with Person to Person, I wonder, a program that works over normal dial-up
lines, ISDN circuits and across LANs. It is undoubtedly an enterprise computing
product. And, herein lies a clue for what else might be included in the
shipping version of the BonusPak: IBM's TCP/IP for OS/2 possibly paired with
the OS/2 version of Mosaic the latter of which the marketing departments have
been examining. Together they'd provide a marvellous combination for surfing
the net - don't forget that IBM has recently set up World-Wide Web servers with
different "home" pages for its North American and European customers.


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 2.8. Above Wisdom: Hyperwise 1.00 ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

Above Wisdom
IBM's Hyperwise 1.0
by Jules Allen

Rolling your own INF files is much akin to having your wisdom teeth pulled -
it's a pain in the jaw, it takes much longer than you had originally hoped and
you need to lie down for a couple of days when you're done.

Being the publisher of an OS/2 hypermedia magazine, I was naturally thrilled
when I heard of IBM's Hyperwise - no more down-and-dirty bit-twiddling and the
thought of rapid INF development was as close to Christmas as I've been since
they invented sub-notebooks.

Last month's INF version of OS/2 Personal was authored in Hyperwise and if
you're serious about hypermedia development, Hyperwise is a must have. Our
moles in the Windows hypermedia-authoring camps are watching this product very
closely - as you're undoubtedly aware, OS/2 is generating a lot of interest as
Chicago looms on the horizon. I'm assured if Hyperwise "shifts enough units"
they're getting into the INF game too.


Cool Stuff

Hyperwise has some rather nifty built in utilties for converting graphic and
sound files to a format Hyperwise can deal with - these alone are worth the
price of admission. One can also store audio and video - once ISDN and V.34
becomes widespread, I'm sure you'll see a lot more in the way of Hypermedia
magazines containing decent sized video clips.

Out of curiosity, I spliced some video from last Comdex and some audio I'd
recorded with a pocket tape recorder into an INF file and it didn't take too
long to get the file size up around fifteen megabytes!

I was also impressed by the ability to launch other applications and utiltites
from within - such as the reader survey in each month's issue.


"One-Dot-Oh-Itis"

Hyperwise screams version 1.0 -- it's got a lot of rough edges and no doubt the
development team was under a lot of pressure to get it out. IBM software has a
habit of being like this and providing nobody kills it, it will hopefully
mature from a good product into a great one.

A word about creating text in Hyperwise: don't. Use your favorite word
processor as Hyperwise's editing features are positively prehistoric to say the
least. So basic that word processing standards like control left or right arrow
don't move you from word to word and shift left or right arrow don't highlight
text - everything must be done with the mouse.


Of Mice and Men...

Well, as a rule I don't like using a mouse, I prefer the keyboard and hotkeys -
I find I get things done much more quickly. If, like me, you don't use the
mouse much, prepare to be reaquainted with your rodent. If one selects an area
of text and changes its attributes, say colour, the area then becomes
de-selected. So, it's back to the mouse and re-hightlight the area if perhaps a
font change was also required. Very tedious. For headlines and short areas of
text this is a minor inconvenience but for whole articles it's a real pain.


It's a Trap

Hyperwise has a habit of intermittently crashing and bringing the whole system
down unceremoniously with a Trap D. I've sucessfully reproduced this on a
Novell network and on a standalone PC so I think I'm justified in pointing the
finger at Hyperwise. In its own quirky way, Hyperwise does warn you it's about
to die - as I mentioned, I'm a keyboard die hard so when I try to select
Document > Export > INF and compile an INF file, the default Enter key for
Export doesn't work. After switching to the mouse and clicking Export (there's
no hot key for it like many of the dialogs) a few times, I soon picked up on
this! The solution? Quit the application and boot it again.

Tables don't work at all well although they look great on the Hyperwise
desktop. Hyperwise forgets the fonts you've chosen and reverts to monospaced
courier. The bottom line is don't create tables in Hyperwise.

This is how they look in Hyperwise...

...and this is what you really get.

Another minor annoyance is the first paragraph/headline is always the default
system colour even if you specifically change it to another colour.


And finally...

If you create INF documents on a regular basis, your life will include weekends
if you purchase Hyperwise. It's a rough diamond and I'm looking forward to
future releases. If some attention is made to the user interface and some of
the quirks are ironed out this could be a very sucessful product for IBM.

Hyperwise retails for $295 and can be obtained by contacting your local IBM
Sales office.


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 2.9. Gill Bates ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 2.10. Reader Survey ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

Take part in our Readership Survey and You could win a prize!

OS/2 Personal will soon become a Controlled-Circulation magazine: although
you'll still be able to read the magazine free, you do need to register. In
this and future months, we'll be providing you with a combined Readership
Survey and Reader Registration form which we'd appreciate you completing and
mailing back to us.

When you unpacked the archive file containing this edition, an additional file
was placed in the same directory called survey.txt. Load this file into your
favourite editor (OS/2's and PC-DOS's "E", MS-DOS' "EDIT" or Windows Notepad
are ideal) and fill in the blanks. When you've completed the form, simply email
it to us at [e-mail] to arrive by 20th September. After that date, a
response will be chosen at random and the sender of that response will receive
a copy of DeScribe with our compliments.

Although the Readership Survey does ask you to complete your name and street
address, this information is necessary for controlled circulation audit
purposes only (and, of course, we need to know where to send the prize!) The
information you provide in completing the Survey will not be divulged to any
third parties.

 Double Click here to view and complete the Readership Survey

Congratulations to last month's winner, Mr Ian Booth of Brisbane, Australia -
Ian has won a copy of DeScribe!


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ <hidden>  ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

9am in New York, 2pm in London, 3pm in Paris, Copenhagen and Frankfurt and
9.30pm in the Far East.


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ <hidden>  ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

IBM also confirmed that the full version of OS/2 which includes its Win-OS/2
sub-system is also being upgraded to the same level and will be released
shortly


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ <hidden>  ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

Diskette versions will also be available.


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ <hidden>  ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

OS/2 BonusPak will be supplied separately to users who buy new machines with
OS/2 preloaded


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ <hidden>  ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

Formerly known as Legato, OS/2 Works is an integrated word-processor,
spreadsheet, database, charting, graphics and report-writing application.


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ <hidden>  ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

At set-up, users can select an "easy install" and OS/2 will automatically
handle the entire installation process (except changing diskettes!) including
configuring the operating system for the auto-detected hardware configuration.
The installation program has been considerably enhanced to recognise more CD
drive, sound cards and display types than before, more printers and SCSI
adaptors and the full range of PCMCIA cards.

Experienced users can select an advanced installation which provides a full
customisation ability.


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ <hidden>  ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

The user interface - or Workplace Shell - will feature new colourful animated
three dimensional icons. For example, an animated folder will visually confirm
its status: when the user opens it, the icon opens to show it's active. In
addition, updated colour and scheme palettes will allow users to customise
their display desktop.


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ <hidden>  ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

The OS/2 Launchpad incorporates the principles of a customisable floating
toolbar and will provide users with single-click access to the applications,
folders, printers or other objects they most use.


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ <hidden>  ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

A new tutorial designed for both new and advanced users will make it even
easier to master OS/2 capabilities.

A new "comet-trail" cursor - designed for laptop users - will make it easier to
track cursor movement and more pointer sets will allow for cursor enlargement
and choice of styles and colours.


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ <hidden>  ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

"PlayAtWill" is a new IBM trademarked PCMCIA software utility which provides
plug-and-play capabilities. It automatically identifies the type(s) of PCMCIA
cards installed - including communications, modem, memory, hard disk and I/O
cards - and provides a convenient graphical status on the displayed desktop.


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ <hidden>  ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

From the August 1994 edition of OS/2 Personal:

KAOS4 is a non-resident infector of COM and EXE-type files. When an infected
file is executed, the virus searches the Path environment variable for an
uninfected COM file, and infects the first one it finds; then it looks along
the path for an uninfected EXE file, and infects the first one it finds.
Infected files have the seconds field of the time stamp set to 58; the virus
will not infect any file with 58 in the seconds field. Infected files grow by
697 bytes. The virus is carelessly written, and on machines where the path
includes the root of the boot drive, booting from the hard disk may not be
possible after the virus infects the system files (to clean up, it is necessary
to boot from diskette and repair or replace the system files). Some infected
programs will not run correctly after infection. The virus has no intentional
"payload", but the careless coding and general viral behaviour can make it a
definite and costly nuisance.

Like all file-infecting viruses, KAOS4 will happily infect files if invoked in
an OS/2 Dos session.


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ <hidden>  ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

It was then known as the ARPAnet project (Advanced Research Projects Agency network).


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ <hidden>  ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

The UK's Home Office is equivalent in function to the US' State Department.


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ <hidden> Left Editorial ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

We live in increasingly interesting times. I just happen to be out of the
country at the moment and I received some rather surprising news from my home
office the other day. In my absence, a letter had arrived from Microsoft
informing me that they had a copy of Chicago reserved in my name: if I'd be
kind enough to complete and return the attached Non-Disclosure Agreement, that
copy would be dispatched to me.

This is surprising for two reasons. I am and always have been a fairly
outspoken critic of Microsoft, its products and its marketing practices. And -
I'm sure it can't have escaped "their" notice - I just happen to edit an OS/2 publication.

No journalist likes Non-Disclosure Agreements: they severely hamper his or her
ability to report objectively. The specimen NDA I received contains one
sentence with which I have a problem: "Recipient may not disclose the results
of any performance tests on the product, including without limitation, any
benchmark or compatibility tests". It is the last three words that are
particularly contentious: MS wants users to discover those issues for
themselves by trial and error. After all, would you buy a new operating system
if you were pre-warned that one of your core applications either won't run
under it or if its performance would be severely hampered? Exactly, that is
precisely what vendors want to avoid.

As from next May, application developers won't be able to display the Windows
Logo on their products unless those products are specifically engineered for
Chicago and Windows/NT version 3.5. Microsoft has published seven requirements
with which applications must comply to qualify for the Windows moniker. The
most difficult to achieve is the support for OLE 2. For those who don't know
what this means, allow me to explain. OLE - or Object Linking and Embedding -
evolved from Dynamic Data Exchange - or DDE - and allows one application to use
another for the purposes of adding or editing data in the second application's
native format. Suppose you have a document which contains a picture and you
edit that document using, say, Word for Windows. You can double-click on the
picture and bring up that picture pre-loaded into, say, a PC Paintbrush window.
You can then edit that picture, save it and the changes are immediately
reflected in the copy contained in your Word document.

Fine in theory but for the developers of the individual programs, it presents
an alarming nightmare scenario. The OLE 2 API contains around 400 function
calls and the only way to deal with this sensibly, is to encapsulate those
functions into a "container" class.  There, of course, are no standards for
these container layers so it becomes somewhat difficult to ensure that one
application - written by one developer - talks correctly to another which is
written totally independently by another company.

This is precisely why OpenDoc - which has less than one-tenth the number of API
calls and yet manages a far more powerful interface - stands a real chance:
with comparatively so few API functions, the developers' job in producing
OpenDoc servers and clients is that much simpler. IBM, Apple and Word Perfect
are all promoting OpenDoc and have made development kits available for OS/2,
Mac System 7 and Windows. Of course, Microsoft will never adopt nor promote
OpenDoc: it suffers from the "Not Invented Here" syndrome, yet I have a sneaky
feeling that you will eventually see an implementation for Microsoft's 32-bit
operating systems. The day of truly portable data will soon dawn.

By the time you read this, IBM will have completed the launch of its second
beta of its new version of OS/2 for Windows - known as "Warp". I do hope, for
the sake of us all, IBM will take a leaf out of Microsoft's book and produced
an installation procedure that works without having to "de-tune" the target PC
prior to installation. If there's one thing Microsoft got right with Chicago,
it's the nice and easy installation process - or so I'm told. If all goes to
plan - or not, depending on your point of view - "Warp" will be generally
available anything up to nine months before Chicago. Between the release of the
two products, the industry will be in what's best described as a pregnant pause.

Mark Hamilton


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ <hidden> Right Editorial ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

Copyright (c)  Allen-Hamilton Publishing Company, 1994.

10460 Roosevelt Boulevard
Suite 134
St Petersburg
Florida 33716, USA

Publisher: Jules Allen

Editorial Department

Editor-in-Chief: Mark Hamilton, MCIOJ

Editor for Europe: Mike Magee

Assistant Editor: Julia Hamilton

Contributors: Paul B. Monday, Timothy Sipples, John Thornton

Illustrator: Jules Allen

Researcher: Sheila Londo

Advertising Department

North America: Alan Philips

Europe: Mike Hardwidge

Subscriptions

Manager: Sheila Londo

Editorial Enquiries - North America

EMail: [e-mail], or, 100013,600 on CompuServe

Telephone: [phone]

Editorial Enquiries - Europe

EMail: [e-mail], or, 100034,1315 on CompuServe

Telephone: [phone]

Advertising Enquiries - North America

EMail: [e-mail], or, 70750,1431 on CompuServe

Telephone: [phone]

Advertising Enquiries - Europe

Telephone: [phone]

The opinions and views expressed herein are those of the individual authors and
are not necessarily those of the magazine, its editors or publisher.

The magazine can not be held responsible for unsolicited manuscripts. If you'd
like to write for OS/2 Personal, contact one of the editors for a copy of the
Contributor's Guide.

IBM, OS/2, Operating System/2, PS/1, Personal System/1, PS/2, Personal System/2
PS/ValuePoint and Win-OS/2 are registered trademarks or trademarks of
International Business Machines Corporation.

Windows is a trademark of Microsoft Corporation.

Other products, goods and services are trademarks, registered trademarks or
service marks of their respective companies.


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ <hidden>  ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

Al Jolson, orignally; and more recently, Bill Clinton, as he was poised to show
his boxer shorts to an MTV audience.


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ <hidden>  ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

...a weatherman and all 'round good guy on the NBC Today Show. And here's a
piece of trivia for you: Willard was also the first Ronald MacDonald.


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ <hidden>  ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

Alice in Wonderland; Lewis Carroll.


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ <hidden>  ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

Why does it suck? It's difficult to use, has far too many different levels of
menus that confuse the bejezus out of me. It doesn't support Z-modem, either.
Basically, it has a committee-designed feel to it.


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ <hidden>  ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

Why doesn't CompuServe implement ZModem? I'll tell you why: Quick B+ works
better with the packet nature of CompuServe but if I were running CompuServe,
I'd be in no hurry to get you off-line as soon as possible. Quick B+ is slooow
compared to ZModem.


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ <hidden>  ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

For instance, if I download long.os2.or.unix.file.name.1 and
long.os2.or.unix.file.name.2, HYPERACCESS/5 will call them long0.os2 and
long1.os2 on my local drive.


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ <hidden>  ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

XDF: eXtended Diskette Format.

This allows up to 1.8 megabytes of data to be recorded on a normal 1.44
megabyte floppy disk. It is only possible to read these diskettes using the new
base device drivers, xdfloppy.flt and ibm1flpy.add or ibm2flpy.add depending on
whether you're using an ISA or MCA-bussed machine.


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ <hidden> Setup And Installation ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ <hidden> Video Drivers ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ <hidden> PCMCIA ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ <hidden> CDROM Drivers ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ <hidden> Printer Drivers ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ <hidden> Audio Cards ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ <hidden> SCSI Support ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ <hidden> Multimedia Installation ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ <hidden> Desktop Settings ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ <hidden> Desktop Settings II ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ <hidden> Desktop Save ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ <hidden> Folder Auto Close ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ <hidden> Launch Pad ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ <hidden> Tutorial ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ <hidden> BonusPak ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ <hidden>  ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

ISDN: Integrated Services Digital Network.

A telephone technology that supports data transmission at speeds up to 128
kilobits per second.


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ <hidden>  ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

TCP/IP: Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol.

The TCP/IP protocol is a collection of networking standards used by most
Internet-connected networks.


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ <hidden>  ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

Mosaic was originally developed by the NCSA as a World-Wide Web browser and is
available for X Windows, the Macintosh, Microsoft Windows and, more recently, OS/2.


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ <hidden>  ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

World-Wide Web (WWW) is a distributed information service which is based around
online hypertext documents and was developed at the European centre for
research into particle physics (Cem). Mosaic is the most popular browser for WWW.


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ <hidden> Trap 000D ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

For those interested in the trap codes, here they are:

Trap 000d   ERRCD=0000   ERACC=****   ERLIM=********
EAX=000bffff  EBX=7b1907a8  ECX=0000ffff  EDX=0000ffff
ESI=00000000  EDI=7b190008  EBO=00035b72  FLG=00012202
CS:EIP=0650:00004968  CSACC=009b  CSLIM=0000eb23
SS:ESP=0030:00005b4c  SSACC=1097  SSLIM=00004f07
DS=0670  DSACC=0093  DSLIM=0000f18b  CRO=8001001b
ES=0000  ESACC=****  ESLIM=********  CR2=14e64040
FS=03b8  FSACC=0093  FSLIM=00000023  CR2=14e64040
GS=0000  GSACC=****  GSLIM=********

The system detected an internal processing
error at location ##0160:fff5fbd5 - 000d:9bd5.

60000, 9084
048600b4

Internal revision 6.514, 93/04/12

The system is stopped.  Record the location number
of the error and contact your servce