It has a Intel Celeron 2.4 GHz processor, SoundMax audio, Intel Pro 100 Lan, Intel i845 G graphic, 40 GB hard disk, CD and so on.
It does not have a DVD drive.
It has 128 MB ram. I added 512 MB ram to give a total of 640 MB ram.
It had a Intel Celeron sticker on the front. I took it off.
It had a Windows XP something sticker on the front. I took it off and burnt it.
It had a Microsoft something number on the side. I took it off and burnt it.
I have a Sony RW from my old machine and a IBM 13.5 GB hard disk, which I moved to the new machine. That was not easy. There is absolutely no room for messing about in the cabinet. But I managed it in the end.
I will keep using my Xerox XL775 17" LCD screen, my Epson Stylus 660 printer and my Logitech Cordless wheel mouse.
When I started the machine something Windows XP install whatever started. So I formatted the whole hard disk.
Now to install OS/2, or rather Aurora CP 2.
But no!
And no.
And no.
And no.
I tried about 50 times all the different ways I could. But it would not install. TRAP this and TRAP that.
What now? On the net I found a mention that somebody else had problems with 1 GB ram. He said when he removed 512 MB ram it would install. So I removed 128 MB ram to see if it would work.
And yes!!!!!!!!! No problems.
IBM why haven't you told anybody that OS/2 won't install with more than 512 MB ram?
After installation I had to install 3 drivers.
I installed in VGA mode and then had to install Scitech Snap drivers.
I installed without NIC drivers and then installed Intel Pro 100 drivers.
I installed SoundMax drivers.
And now for the interesting part. I have heard that OS/2 can run with more than 512 MB ram - AFTER INSTALLATION. So I put my 128 MB ram back in the PC. Now I have 640 MB ram in my PC and it works fine.
IBM????????????????????
Found it!
What did I find. I found a fixfor Intel Pentium 4 motherboards with more than 512 MB memory.
My desktop with my own new warp centre. I took the ecentre from eComStation and decompiled it. I then took the OS/2 warp bitmaps from Warp Center, moved them to ecentre and recompiled it. I also took the Icon Manager and Theme Manager from eComStation - just for fun:
eComStation 1.2
As I have invested in a new PC I have decided to also invest in a new version of eComStation, version 1.2.
As always quickly and efficiently delivered from Mensysin Holland.
I didn't know what to expect.
Installation was a breeze. I have installed many times now in many different configurations, and all works fine.
It sits on a partition of its own. No problems with my other OS/2 partition or my Linux partition. It found my LAN card without any problems. It tried to install the "uniaud" sound driver, but this did not work. Therefor I had to change the setting to Soundmax. It found my Logitech USB wheel mouse without problems. All in all it was so boring (in comparison to installing OS/2) that I installed it many times just for the fun of it.
I like that they have made the Ecentre more like the original Warp centre. It now feels like OS/2 again. They have also changed the position of some of the program icons. Not that I understand why. But some of the new locations work.
Some of the extras on CD 2 are very outdated. The games ?
What I don't like about eComStation is that it tries to emulate Windows. With this I mean all the Windows programs and directories that they have included. I know a lot of people think that Innotech is doing a good job porting these programs to OS/2, but I feel that they are only making OS/2 more vulnerable to viruses and the usual Microsoft bloat. There is now a lot of unwanted things floating around in eComStation that I for one would like to see removed. They have made it more streamlined in comparison to version 1.0 - which I thought was very silly. So maybe I am not the only one with these thoughts, and maybe they have got a lot of feedback from users.
Another ting I think is totally unnecessary is the installation serial. Why?
And if you must have one - why so big? It takes a lot of fun out of using OS/2.
OS/2, Unix, Linux and Apple Macintosh don't use them. ONLY Microsoft Windows AND eComStation??????
IBM Aptiva sound problems with OS/2 Warp.
My IBM Aptiva 2142-S44 machine came pre loaded with Windows 95. But being me, Windows had to go in favour of Warp 4. This gave several problems as Aptiva machines are not usually Warp compatible. I could not get any sound. On the motherboard are 2 CRYSTAL SEMICONDUCTOR chips. These are 4236B and 4610. I tried every type of driver that IBM had to offer without luck. I then tried every driver that CRYSTAL/CIRRUS had , also without luck. I tried to configure my MMPM2.INI file in the C:\OS2\MMOS2\ directory, still without luck. I sent e-mail's to both IBM and CRYSTAL SEMICONDUCTOR, also without result. Not to mention that I was also in contact with several OS/2 news groups.
Then I got the following from Joe Nord of CRYSTAL SEMICONDUCTOR:
Aptiva system has external amplifiers - outside Crystal Semi chip. Power to these amplifiers is controlled via distrete general purpose outputs of the CS423x chip.
XCTRL-0 => Sub woofer power
XCTRL-1 => Normal speaker power
These pins default to OFF which on the Aptiva means "turn off the power to the amplifiers" --> Mute everything. Some would argue that the default should be "audible". How to fix: Expressly turn these bits on and all should be good.
I hope this information can be of help to others in the same situation.
13 March 1999
OS/2 Warp with a cable modem.
This is how I connected to our local LAN internet with a cable modem.
After a many of years with really bad telephone connections to the internet I decided to go for the local councils LAN connection. They however do not support anything but Microsoft Windows. So I had to figure it out myself. The only information I could get was a user number and a password. I use OS/2 Warp version 4.52 with an ACCTON EN1207D-TX PCI lan card and a MOTOROLA SB4200i Surfboard cable modem.
First I tried to use TCP/IP configuration (local). I sat the connection as LAN 0. But that didn't really help.
No connection. What now? By looking at the DHCP client monitor I found the servers IP, Router and DNS numbers.
I then began to use these numbers in the following pages of the TCP/IP configuration notebook.
That was all.
Next time I started my machine I got this!!!!!!!!! The login page.
Desktop On-Call
Just some pictures of my desktop from a Windows machine. It can only show 256 colours so the desktop doesn't look so good, but file transfer works perfectly.
As seen from my PC.
As seen from a Windows PC.
File transfer.
Some useful OS/2 links.
OS/2 is licensed to Serenity Systems and is sold under the name eComStation (PDF file).
