[78] in OS/2_Discussion
PC Expo report from user perspective
pshuang@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (pshuang@ATHENA.MIT.EDU)
Wed Jul 7 21:19:31 1993
From: dic5340@hertz.njit.edu (David Charlap)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.misc
Subject: PC-Expo NY - part 1: Presentation, Ultimotion, and PC-DOS 6.1
Subject: PC-Expo NY - part 2: Pens, Voice input, and NetWare 4.0 for OS/2
Subject: PC Expo NY part 3: Peer To Peer, more UltiMedia, and networking
Subject: PC Expo NY, part 4: LAN multimedia, OASIS, AIX PS/2, Microkernel, and SMP
Date: 1 Jul 93 18:39:39 GMT
I spent all day at PC-Expo in New York yesterday. Here are some of my
notes. This will probably be a long file, and I may end up breaking it
into two or more posts. First, I'll explain the IBM stuff, then I'll
mention some of the other things I saw that might be of interest here.
The presentation that was given (in the PSP booth) was about
OS/2 2.1 vs. Windows 3.1 (not NT). They compared MultiMedia,
multitasking, and some direct-manipulation applications. Finally, they
showed off some pen-technology.
First off, the presenters (named Patty, Pat, and Pat (I'm not
kidding!)) showd OLE working under WIN-OS2 3.1. Thy had an AmiPro
document with a full-motion (Windows) video clip embedded in it.
Double-clicking on the rectangle played the video.
Next, they compared Windows 3.1 multimedia with OS/2 2.1's
multimedia. Two identical computers were used. One with Windows 3.1
and MS's MM package. The second with OS/2 2.1 and MMPM. They played a
video of a man playing tennis on the Windows machine - it was choppy,
about 4 or 5 frames of video per second, and the sound didn't remain
synchronized. Then they played the same AVI file with MMPM - a full 30
frames per second were showdn, and the sound was perfect.
Then they tested it under a multitasking environment. For this,
they loaded a multimedia file under Windows (a lower-resolution one, so
Windows could keep up), and ran a very long Excel 3.0 recalculation at
the same time - the window on top ran at full speed, while the
background window slowed to nearly 1/3 of it's proper speed. Then they
ran the identical test on the OS/2 machine - adding in a backup to
floppy to the MM and Excel 3.0 apps in order to show off some more. No
matter which window had focus, all ran properly - the MM window ran at
full speed, and the other two windows slowed down slightly, but it was
barely noticable (I notice these things, most others present did not).
Pat said that this was because of the preemptive vs. cooperative
multitasking.
Then, she used Lotus SmartSuite (!) as an example of the WPS
and SOM. She opened up a cc:Mail file, dragged a text file icon onto
the document - instantly inserting the text. Then she inserted an
AmiPro document - it appended in. After this, she closed cc:Mail and
opened Freelance Graphics and 1-2-3. She pulled up a spreadsheet and
chart in 1-2-3, and DDE-linked the data to a chart in Freelance
Graphics - everything came up as expected. She then changed a value
in the 1-2-3 table, and both charts changed _INSTANTLY_ - without even
the 2 second delay that Windows usually has when doing DDE transfers.
Next, she gave a quick demo of pen technology. The first
demonstration was of the Pen developer's kit. The showed off a simple
phone book program that was written for the demo - all user input was
done via the pen. All printed text was properly recognized.
Finally, the IBM Remote Access device was shown. This device
consists of a flat-screen color monitor with a pen attached to it.
The user writed directly on the screen with the pen. This is a
significant advantage over more traditional pen approaches, since the
user is writing directly to the screen (not to an external digitizing
tablet), and the screen is lying on the desk like a notebook, instead
of being vertical like a monitor (which causes frequent light-pen
users to suffer wrist pains).
Anyway, in addition to the presentation, the PSP group showed
off all kinds of new products. They are: Ultimotion, PC-DOS 6.1, Pen
computing, speech recognition, Netware 4.0 for OS/2, Peer-To-Peer
OS/2, Ultimedia builder, DB & Host connectivity, System Management,
LAN Server 3.0, OASIS, AIX PS/2 1.3, Microkernel technology, and
Symmetric Multiprocessing OS/2.
For the Ultimotion section, two facilities were demonstrated.
The first was a hardware device to play a video signal into a window
on your desktop. This worked as expected. It had one nice feature -
dragging the right-side scroll bar of the window would immediately
zoom in on the movie.
The other device was software video recording and playback.
First, some AVI files were played. The Ultimotion player would play
back files in both Ultimotion and Indeo format. Indeo is a competing
format for full-motion video that seemed to be all over PC-Expo.
Next, a beta of the forthcoming Ultimotion Recorder was shown - a
video camera was attached to the computer, recording video and sound
directly to the computer's hard disk - producing an Ultimotion AVI
file. The image was not perfect - putting occasional horizontal white
lines through the image, but this was a beta program, and this bug is
known and will be fixed before the product's release.
When I asked about the hardware requirements, the
representative said that any OS/2 comptible computer with a sound card
could run this, although coprocessed video and a fast processor is
strongly recommended. Their policy is to ensure that the audio
portion is without interruption, and sacrifice video quality if
necessary. So a slow computer will play the sound fine, but will have
a very low frame rate on the video. The PS/2 Ultimedia model 77
computer that they were using played back a full 30 frames per second
with no problem.
Next, I looked at PC-DOS 6.1. It was for sale at the show for
a $59 upgrade price. Anyway, here are the features of PC-DOS 6.1:
- All the features of DOS 5.0
- Significantly more of DOS and drivers and TSR's may be placed in
high memory, allowing more room below the 640K barrier.
- Available as a low-cost upgrade (to DOS version 2.1 and later), as a
base product for new systems, or as a pre-installed OS.
- Bundles utilities include:
o SuperStor technology from AddStor for disk compression.
SuperStor is not ready yet. It will be available in September as
a part of the DOS 6.1 package. Packages sold before then will
include a coupon to get SuperStor for free when it's available.
SuperStor's features include:
- DoubleSpace compatibility
- Automatic mounting of floppies for ease of use
- The ability to share compressed data on floppies with other PC's
- Automated de-install and compression preview
- Safe and reliable operation with DOS and Windows.
When I asked, SuperStor drives will not be readable by OS/2.
They recommended the Stacker package which works for OS/2 and DOS.
o A full-function full-screen backup utility from Central Point
Software. It will backup to floppies, tapes, or a network drive.
A Windows interface is included.
o An anti-virus tool from IBM Research. Includes a Windows interface.
o A program scheduler from Central Point. You can schedule any DOS
program (such as backup or virus scanning) to execute at a specified
date and time. A full-screen calendar-based interface is used.
A Windows interface is provided.
o A full-featured E editor. This editor is "Synergistic is OS/2
2.1 Enhanced Editor".
o PCMCIA support. Drivers by Phoenix Technologies Ltd. Provides
"Hot Plugability".
o Pen extensions. Mouse emulation and pop up "soft keyboards".
Handwriting recognition is available separately.
o Improved SMARTDRV
o Defragger
o Improved commands. UNDELETE replacing MIRROR, providing
full-screen usability and protection levels. Over 20 new or
enhanced commands, including CHOICE, DELTREE, MOVE, INSTALLHIGH,
and FDISK.
o Dramatically improved EMM386 manager. Allows shared EMX/XMS
memory utilization.
o Memory optimizer - making more UMB's available. A Configuration
Watcher keeps the system optimized.
o Low-end UMB support - specific 8088/286 setups can get an extra
60K of memory.
o Installs from any drive.
-------- cut here --------
This is part 2 of my series of posts on PC Expo in New York.
The next thing I saw in the IBM PSP group was on Pen Computing. I
didn't get a good look at Pen for DOS, unfortunately, although I do know
that handwriting recognition is available as an add-on for PC-DOS 6.1.
Pen for OS/2, on the other hand, I got a close look at. According to
their brochure:
- ThinkWrite Recognition technology recognizes standard and individual
variations of character. A trainer facility allows hand recognition
to be tuned to a user's particular writing style.
- Electronic inking
- Keyboard and mouse emulation
- Uniform gesture support across applications
- Customizable tools for creating user-assignable gestures
- Write-in windows for text entry
- Telepen applet - electronic chalkboard for graphic communication
over a network.
- National language keyboard support - keyboard layouts and
handwriting recognition are provided for: English, German, French,
Italian, and Spanish.
- Compatible with DOS apps in an OS/2 window, Windows apps in a
WIN-OS/2 window, and OS/2 16 and 32-bit apps.
- A pen developer's kit is available from IBM's DAP.
- Device driver support is free to OEMs who wish to develop a Pen for
OS/2 device driver for their hardware. Sample code is provided in
the DDK, and assistance is available.
- Hardware Preload - Pen for OS/2 is available to PC manufacturers to
preload on their pen-enabled Pc systems and to independant hardware
vendors (IHVs) to include with their pen-enabled devices.
- Compatible with: Appoint, AST, Calcomp, Dauphin, FTG Data Systems,
IBM, Kurta, Telepad, Wacom, and more are yet to come.
- Requires an OS/2 2.1 system with 2MB additional RAM and 5MB
additional disk space, a VGA or better display, and a a digitizer
tablet with a pen.
In addition to that was IBM's speech recognition demonstration. They
had two different packages. The first was a user-independant speech
package. This package allowed anyone to be recognized by the computer
with no training, for a small number of keywords. The demonstration
machine had a stock market simulator with 20 companies - you could
tell the computer to "buy", "sell" or "request information on" each of
these companies. I tried it out. Speaking normally, I said "sell one
thousand shares of Microsoft" into the microphone, and a second later,
a window popped up saying "Sell 1000 shares of microsoft".
The second speech package was a user-specific tool. This package
required that the user train the software for his voice first (about
one to two hours, I was told), after which, the computer would
recognize any word spoken. I saw this hooked up to a Word Perfect
package. The operator was talking into the microphone, and the words
were appearing in the word processor document a few seconds later.
Commands, such as for formatting text, were also properly interpreted.
The only problem I saw was that the operator had to pause for about a
half a second between words or the computer would not properly
recognize the speech.
After the voice recognition I saw some other products.
Netware 4.0 for OS/2 was demonstrated. The file server was running as
a windowed application on an OS/2 desktop (among other applications)
while other computers were accessing it's files. Not being too
interested in networking, I didn't pay too much attention. I did get
a white paper on it, though. Some interesting things in this paper are:
- Netware 4.0 servers can be non-dedicated, sharing the server hardware
with OS/2, Dos, and WIN-OS2 applications.
- It is native NetWare 4.0, using the same source code and providing
the same functionality as a dedicated NetWare 4.0 server. NetWare
for OS/2 is a set of add on drivers that permit the native NetWare
4.0 modules to be loaded in the OS/2 environment. NetWare 4.0 NLMs
can be run unmodified. NetWare 4.0 device drivers can be run
unmodifieid. NetWare's reliability and performance is not sacrificed.
- Since NetWare 4.0 for OS/2 is an add on to the native NetWare 4.0
package, all features of NetWare 4.0 are provided, except for NLM
memory protection. - The DOMAIN NLM, which provides memory
protection for NetWare 4.0 NLMs can not operate in the OS/2
environment.
- NetWare 4.0 servers running on OS/2 platforms can be accessed from
the same platforms as ordinary NetWare 4.0 (including OS/2, Macintosh,
Unix, DOS, and Windows). As far as the workstations are concerned,
the OS/2 server looks identical to a dedicated NetWare 4.0 server.
- Performance is 90-95% of the native NetWare 4.0 performance. The
small overhead of 5-10% is from OS/2's handling all hardware, IRQ,
and I/O services.
- Performance may be tuned by specifying what portion of CPU time is
available to NetWare - using the remaining time for OS/2. This may
be tuned while the system is running.
- A graphical monitor utility is provided to monitor the server's
activity. It provides some of the same statistics provided by the
MONITOR NLM. Stats are displayed in graphical and numeric format.
It can also be used to adjust performance parameters, memory
parameters, and operational parameters.
- Future changes include IFS support (allowing the user to mount any
disk partition in the server and not just NetWare formatted
volumes), unattended server installation, and NLM memory protection.
Questions answered in the white paper include:
- Q: Is NetWare running on top of OS/2?
A: No, it is a ring-0 process and can not be preempted by OS/2. It
uses it's own algorithm for sharing CPU time with OS/2. The
only user-level code is interface program, NWOS2.EXE.
- Q: Does OS/2 need to be running to use NetWare 4.0 for OS/2?
A: Yes. NetWare for OS/2 servers are non-dedicated and require OS/2.
- Q: If a NetWare 4.0 NLM crashes, will it bring down OS/2?
A: No. You will need to close the session in which NWOS2.EXE was
running (if it didn't close itself) and restart NWOS2.EXE.
- Q: If an OS/2 application crashes, will it bring down NetWare 4.0
for OS/2?
A: No. OS/2 provides crash protection to NetWare 4.0 for OS/2 as
it does any other OS/2 application.
- Q: Who owns the hardware, NetWare or OS/2?
A: The operating system which provided the device driver is the OS
that controls the hardware. For example, OS/2 controls the
monitor, mouse, keyboard and printer, because the drivers are
OS/2 drvers. Unless you are using a dedicated hardfile, OS/2
also owns this device. NetWare controls the ODI Network Cards,
since the ODI drivers are provided by NetWare.
- Q: Can NetWare be swapped out?
A: No, it's memory is locked.
-------- cut here --------
This is part 3 of my series of articles on what I saw at PC Expo.
Peer-To-Peer OS/2 was demonstrated. Unfortunately, all the brochures
there ware taken, so I didn't get much information on the subject.
Sorry about that.
In addition to the UltiMotion material, IBM has the following
UltiMedia software products: Manager/2, Server/6000, Builder/2,
Perfect Image/2, and Workplace/2.
The Ultimedia Manager/2 is an OS/2 tool to serach for images on your
hard disk based on the content of the image. Images may be classified
by color, shape, and texture features. Custom text categories may be
assigned as well. A Colors may be defined genericly ("purple"), or by
specific color valus on the RGB or HIS scales. Shapes may be simple
geometric shapes ("triangle") or complex shapes ("fish"). Users may
create their own shapes and use them as elementes of any visual query.
Image formats supported are: Audio Visual Connection (AVC), OS/2
bitmap, Windows 3.x bitmap, PCX, Intel and Motorola TIFF, and TARGA.
This package is currently in beta form. While the released product
will support the full capabilities of the supported graphic formats,
the beta only supports 8-bit versions.
The Ultimedia Server/6000 allows one to store, transport, share, and
receive time-based video, audio, and interactive multimedia over
existing client-server networks. Multiple OS/2 clients may
simultaneously access the central server with the "guranteed quality of
service" levels required by the application and user preferences. The
data is stored on a RISC/6000 family server. The server uses existing
API's, networks, and multimedia standards, providing the user
transparent access to the data. Future support includes Windows,
Macintosh, AIX, and other Unix platforms. This package is currently in
beta form.
The Ultimedia Builder/2 is a multimedia authoring tool providing a
filmstrip-like work area for visual prototyping of multimedia
presentations. Programmers may enter multimedia instructions directly
into a spreadsheet-like work area. Graphic and text views are
interchangable, so both can be used on the same project. Image
formats supported are: OS/2 bitmap, Windows 3.x bitmap, PCX, TIFF,
and TARGA. A royalty-free playback module is provided, and MMPM/2 can
also be used to play finished presentations.
Ultimedia Perfect Image/2 is an image enhancement and capture utility.
With it, one can resize, enhance, copy, paste, crop, or rotate
digitized images. Drag and drop images from different sources to
include in applications is also supported. With the Video Capture
Adapter (VCA) installed, still images can be captured from a variety
of video sources. It works with the following images formats: AVC,
single-bit FAX, OS/2 bitmap, Windows 3.x bitmap, PCX, TIFF, and TARGA.
The Ultimedia Worksplace/2 allows one to organize and manage
multimedia files visually. it is an extension to the OS/2 Desktop
that provides multimedia features and database capabilities. The
interface allows the user to work with miniature pictures of the
contents of multimedia files ("thumbnails"). Text is defined for the
thumbnails, and searches can be made against these descriptions. For
it's database work, it can access information from: dBase IV, Oracle,
OS/2 Database Manager, and DB2/2.
After that was a display of new networking products. In the realm of
DB & Host connectivity, two new products were released. The first is
DB2/2 - an OS/2 version of the DB2 database that is used on
mainframes. The second product is a set of 3270 terminal programs for
DOS and Windows: Personal Communications/3270 3.0, and PC 3270
Emulation program entry level 2.0. The entry level package provides
full 3270 emulation, and can turn a PC into a Control Unit Terminal
(CUT) and provide access to a DOS environemtn on demand. Entry
Emulator High-Level Language API (EEHLLAPI) is provided to work with
host applications as needed.
PC/3270 3.0 is the high-level connectivity package. It provides
multiple-host connectivity and additional functions. PC's can cat as
Distributed Function Terminal (DFT) displays, supporting connections
over coax, Token-Ring, Ethernet, PC Network, SDLC, X.25, and others. It
also supprots the Enhances Asynchronous (Home3270) connection and CUT
displays. It runs under DOS 3.3 or higher and supprots Windows 3.0 and
3.1. 3270 text modes supported are 27x132 (model 5), 43x80 (model 4),
32x80 (model 3), and 24x80 (model 2). Standard 3270 and ISO and
DIN-capable fonts are provided. OIA symbols and field attributes are
present. Host graphics is also supported, including Record/Play/Pause,
and Rule Line. EHLLAPI and DDE and SRPI are all supproted.
-------- cut here --------
This is part 4 of my series of posts on what I saw at PC Expo.
IBM was demonstrating a LAN multimedia package. I saw a full-motion
video segment played at normal speed (30 frames per second). The file
was located on a different computer, and was being delivered via a
token Ring LAN. I was later told that most of the computers in the
IBM PSP pavillion were using this LAN as well. This makes the
demonstration more impressive.
Also demonstrated was OASIS I 2.0. This package is a software disk array
package for OS/2. It allows multiple SCSI hard drives to be joined
together into one large fault-tolerant disk system. This being done
without extra hardware. Each array can span 1 to 4 SCSI adapters and
can consist of 3-8 drives in a RAID 5 array, 2-16 drives in a mirrored
array, and 2-8 drives in a (R)AID0 array. In a (R)AID0 array, all
drives are simply joined into one huge drive, providing no fault
tolerance, but maximal storage. In a mirrored array, half of the
drives are joined into one drive, with the other half of the drives
containing a duplicate of the data. In a RAID5 array, all drives are
joined into one drive, with data replication so that a drive failure
can be tolerated. OASIS I supports FAT, HPFS, and 386HPFS file
systems. Standard OS/2 FORMAT and FDISKPM utilities can prepare the
array for use.
Next up, I saw AIX for the PS/2 version 1.3. This package is IBM's
entry level package for AIX. AIX PS/2 1.3 and assorted licensed
programs provide full hardware support for all models of PS/2 systems
based on 386sx processors and up, using MicroChannel or AT-Bus
architectures. AIX PS/2 1.3 offers support for selected OEM hardware
configurations (including AST Bravo 4/33, and Gateway 2000 4DX33V),
certifying them on a per-bid basis. It is interoperable with other
version of AIX, Unix, and other IBM and non-IBM systems through it's
TCP/IP and NFS packages. Install, backup, and update procedures are
provided (EZ_UTILITIES) to simplify installation and maintenance. X
Windows (X11-R5) and Motif (1.1.3) are provided. Korn Shell is
provided. Multiple concurrent DOS 5.0 sessions are supported. AIX
PS/2 1.3 comes shipped on a mini-tape for easy installation.
After this, I saw a very interesting demonstration of MicroKernel
technology. As some of you may recally, a Microkernel running DOS,
Windows, AIX, and OS/2 2.0 was demonstrated last year. In that
demonstration, all four systems were loaded, but only one could be
running at a time. This year, that has changed. They had the same
environment - with four systems loaded at once, only this time all four
were running together. The AIX applications were running at the same
time as the OS/2, native DOS, and native Windows applications. Only one
OS could be displayed at a time, however, using a hot-key to switch
between them. Future enhancements will allow all the applications to
run on the same screen, each in it's own window. I think this
technology will be ready by the time OS/2 3.0 is prepared for it. The
brochure on IBM Microkernel Technology implies a binary-compatibility of
applications on incompatible hardware platforms.
Finally, the last software product in the IBM PSP pavillion was their
demo of symmetric multiprocessing. The first computer shown is a PS/2
486/50 system. It is running four applications: two sessions of
AutoCAD continuously repainting a large image, and two text sessions
calculating PI to a very large number of digits (a very CPU intensive
program). The foreground session (PI calculation) was running varily
quick, while the other four sessions were crawling to a halt. On the
second machine (An Everex Step computer with two 486DX2/66
processors), OS/2 SMP was running with the same four applications. On
this scenario, the two PI calculations were running rapidly, with the
AutoCAD repaints running slowly, but much faster than before. On the
third computer (An ALR computer with 4 486/50's), all four sessions
were running at full speed.
--
+--------------------------+------------------------------------+
| David Charlap, TEAM-OS/2 | OS/2 2.1. Not just up and coming. |
| dic5340@hertz.njit.edu | Up and running. |
+--------------------------+------------------------------------+
