THE OS/2 WARP WEEKLY - A production of PSP Worldwide Marketing Support Covering information relevant to OS/2 Warp and LAN Server The 7/28/95 Issue ----****----$$$$----****----$$$$----****----$$$$----****----$$$$----**** ----****----$$$$----****----$$$$----****----$$$$----****----$$$$----**** The OS/2 Warp Weekly is now available on the Internet at gopher://os2info.austin.ibm.com/11/nl/os2news/os2news.70. ----****----$$$$----****----$$$$----****----$$$$----****----$$$$--- ----****----$$$$----****----$$$$----****----$$$$----****----$$$$--- CONTENTS 1. ONCE AND FOR ALL, OS/2 IS HERE TO STAY 2. IBM TO MARKET ORACLE POWER OBJECTS 3. GETTING WARPED THE SCANDINAVIAN WAY 4. ANOTHER OS/2 WARP SUCCESS STORY 5. GAME PUBLISHER RAVES ABOUT IBM DEVELOPERS ASSISTANCE PROGRAM 6. USING MAINFRAME DASD AS LAN DISK SPACE 7. LET YOUR VOICE BE HEARD IN OS/2 DEVELOPER MAGAZINE 8. TALKLINK HERE TO SERVE YOUR NEEDS 9. THE COLUMBIA CONCISE ENCYCLOPEDIA FOR OS/2 COMING SOON 10. NEC OFFERS OS/2 WARP 11. WARP'D HUMOR ----****----$$$$----****----$$$$----****----$$$$----****----$$$$----**** 1. ONCE AND FOR ALL, OS/2 IS HERE TO STAY IBM has no intention of abandoning OS/2. And everyone is saying so... John M. Thompson, IBM's senior vice-president in charge of software, says: "We are committed to OS/2 in 1995 and 1996 and beyond. We are unambiguous. Our commitment is unwavering." Jerome York, IBM's chief financial officer, explains the reasoning behind the company's position: "OS/2 is doing quite well in our large corporate accounts .... It's pretty obvious we would not abandon these customers." Chairman Lou Gerstner also stated his views in a letter to attendees of the July OS/2 World Conference and Exhibition: "We are proud of OS/2 and its progress. While the world waits for Microsoft to deliver its 32-bit desktop offering, you and I know that IBM has 'been there, done that.''' It would be inconceivable for IBM to abandon the world's most popular 32-bit operating system for the IBM-compatible PC now, or at any time in the foreseeable future. ----****----$$$$----****----$$$$----****----$$$$----****----$$$$----**** 2. IBM TO MARKET ORACLE POWER OBJECTS IBM has teamed up with Apple and Oracle to jointly market Oracle Power Objects. The product helps software developers create programs that can run interchangeably on different operating systems. Oracle Power Objects is expected to spur the development of new OS/2 applications. ----****----$$$$----****----$$$$----****----$$$$----****----$$$$----**** 3. GETTING WARPED THE SCANDINAVIAN WAY In Scandinavia, IBM runs a special Educational Program in which educational institutions can buy a number of software products at very minimal cost. These products include OS/2 Warp, LanServer 4.0, C-Set++, VisualAge 2.0, and some UltiMedia programs. By the Fall, OS/2 Warp Connect will be part of this program as well. The offer is good for any educational institution, at any level, and for teachers and staff. ----****----$$$$----****----$$$$----****----$$$$----****----$$$$----**** 4. ANOTHER OS/2 WARP SUCCESS STORY I work at a well established game company,Sculptured Software (SSI). We have written games for the PC, SNES, GENESIS, GAME BOY, Saturn, 32X and Sony PS. I have written tools on the DOS platorm for SSI to develop games for those other platforms. I have recently had the opportunity to do a code conversion of a video game to the PC platform. In my work, I have found that OS/2's Crash Protection is great. If you have ever developed software for the DOS platform you know how often you have to re-boot your system during the development cycle. Since I began using OS/2, I have found that it is invaluable. I never need to reboot my system because a program goes astray. I just close the offending application and open up another DOS Session. With OS/2 Warp, I can access our network and compile and do a report at the same time. I can check in a file using RCS while editing another in two sessions. I can test my apps under OS/2 without worrying about rebooting my system. While doing a code conversion, the debugger sometimes crashes while I'm testing the code. Under OS/2 I just close down the session and start another. I have found that closing a session and starting a new one is much faster then rebooting my machine. My colleagues and I really appreciate the safety that OS/2 brings to the desktop. Nothing compares with OS/2 Warp's true multitasking and Crash Protection. As a developer I would strongly recommend using OS/2 as a development platform for both DOS and Windows. You can't beat the protection you get with OS/2. And another plus is that once we have debugged our app, we can change the DOS session settings to test low memory situations. Under OS/2, we can produce apps that will run on any DOS platform. Craig Matsuura Tools Manager/Software Engineer Sculptured Software Salt Lake City, Utah ----****----$$$$----****----$$$$----****----$$$$----****----$$$$----**** 5. GAME PUBLISHER RAVES ABOUT IBM DEVELOPERS ASSISTANCE PROGRAM A developer for Merit Studios, a small software company based in Dallas, TX, had wonderful things to say about the IBM Developers Assistance Program. His comments came from the OS2ARENA forum on CompuServe: IBM has been a great help in getting our games OS/2 Warp certified. After signing up for the IBM Developer's Assistance Program we were allowed to do the following: - Send 2 copies of each game to the National Software Testing Labs. IBM paid the NSTL to certify that our product will run in OS/2. - During the certification process we received the latest Developer's Connection CD set and a copy of OS/2 Warp and OS/2 Warp Connect. - Now that our products have been certified, IBM has sent stickers to put on our packaging that states "Ready for OS/2 Warp, NSTL Tested" - IBM has also sent IBM Technical Connection and OS/2 Online Library Collection CD-ROMs. In addition, we get an 800 number to ask an IBM tech support person if we have a problem. - IBM has offered our developers the tools needed to port our Windows and DOS games to OS/2. All of the above cost us nothing other than shipping charges to send our apps to the NSTL. These Merit Studios games have been certified "Ready for OS/2 Warp:" Fighter Wing World Hockey '95 Reunion Tom Landry Strategy Football '94 Deluxe Psychotron The Fortress of Dr. Radiaki. We plan to certify our future games "OS/2 Ready to Run." Marlo Casabar ----****----$$$$----****----$$$$----****----$$$$----****----$$$$----**** 6. USING MAINFRAME DASD AS LAN DISK SPACE For many years IBM's mainframes (VM, MVS, VSE) DASD have provided fast and reliable data storage for our large corporate customers. The ability to have automated backup, recovery and archiving are well known and understood by their MIS departments. Today there are many ways to make this disk space available to LAN users. Here are the major ways: 1. As an extension of a PC Disk. This is just like adding a large drive to an Intel-based system. You add a 390 channel card to your MicroChannel PS/2, then add software. The 390 disk functions just like another disk on your PC. LANRES is the software product for NetWare servers; LAN File Services (LFS) is the product for IBM LAN Server. The users can just MAP or NET USE the host disk as a server disk. There are components that reside on MVS, VM or VSE (LANRES only), and on NetWare or LAN Server. LANRES is a no-charge feature of the latest releases of MVS, VM and VSE. LFS is a no-charge feature of the latest releases of MVS and VM. Both LANRES and LFS are available as a low-charge licensed program for earlier releases of MVS and VM. The LFS feature on MVS is now called LAN SERVER FOR MVS to highlight the fact that it is part of the IBM LAN Server family. 2. Using TCP/IP. You can access the mainframe via FTP or NFS. FTP is File Transfer Protocol. You can retrieve and store files, or multiple files to mainframe disk, but this technique is not very easy to use. NFS is Network File Services, this allows you to MOUNT a mainframe disk as a PC disk. You would MOUNT a 3390 disk as your X: drive, then copy files to and from that disk. To do this requires TCP/IP on the host (with something like a 3172 controller) as well as TCP/IP and NFS on the PC workstation. 3. Backup Recovery using ADSM. ADSM can be used to backup and restore PC disk on the mainframe. It supports many protocols. Servers and clients can run on multiple platforms with this technique. The use of ADSM is different than the first 2 methods, as it is better suited to backup/recovery than live data storage. It does require additional software on the servers and clients, and has a different end user interface. 4. 3270 File transfer. This method has been around for many years. It is easy to use, and requires no particular setup or software (host file transfer). It is not considered very robust though. With these techniques, IBM customers can use the DASD they've known and loved on the mainframes from their desktops. They will not be restricted to one server platform. Instead they can pick the platform that best suits their needs. If you have suggestions, comments or questions about these techniques, contact Dave Young: DEYOUNG at LSAVMIC1 or young@vnet.ibm.com ----****----$$$$----****----$$$$----****----$$$$----****----$$$$----** 7. LET YOUR VOICE BE HEARD IN OS/2 DEVELOPER MAGAZINE OS/2 Developer Magazine is planning a special issue aimed at OS/2 application programmers in the corporate environment. IBM employees and customers are invited to nominate articles. The articles selected will be published in the December 1995 issue, and are due by August 31. Potential topics include: Migrating from the mainframe Distributed database applications Lotus Notes as a development platform The multi-platform corporate environment COBOL - alive and well? Communications across the corporation Launching an in-house application Evolving standards and what they mean What's IBM up to (directions, strategy)? Getting the most from IBM support ...and more If you are interested, send a short abstract or outline of your proposed article to Dick Conklin at OS2MAG@vnet.ibm.com or CompuServe 76711,1005 or VM: BCRVM1(CONKLIND). ----****----$$$$----****----$$$$----****----$$$$----****----$$$$----**** 8. TALKLINK HERE TO SERVE YOUR NEEDS TalkLink is IBM's official electronic support offering and is an integral part of IBM's "Families of Service" offerings. Originally available only with a 3270 interface, TalkLink can now be accessed via the internet with web browsers in the popular HTML format. Since it's beginning in the spring of 1992, TalkLink has grown to 40,000+ users in 20+ countries around the world. Usage has also grown to exchanging 15,000+ messages and downloading 12,000+ files each month. IBM customers can preview/register for TalkLink by selecting IBMLink/Martlink when dialing in via Advantis or by opening document URL http://www.ibmlink.ibm.com. To register by phone, please call 1-800-547-1283 in the USA. ----****----$$$$----****----$$$$----****----$$$$----****----$$$$----**** 9. THE COLUMBIA CONCISE ENCYCLOPEDIA FOR OS/2 COMING SOON The Columbia Concise Encyclopedia for OS/2 will be released August 25 on CD-ROM. The encyclopedia is an up-to-date new look at the changing details of our world, including recent geographical and political events. This authoritative work continues a tradition of excellence, covering all disciplines, including politics, law, international relations, history, art, sports, geography, science, and medicine in 17,000 entries. It also has hypertext that allows you to search the text without losing your starting word. To order or for more information, contact DUX Software at 800-543-4999 or e-mail: sales@dux.com ----****----$$$$----****----$$$$----****----$$$$----****----$$$$----** ** 10. NEC OFFERS OS/2 WARP Japanese computer giant NEC Corporation has begun selling "OS/2 Warp Ver. 3, Japanese" and related software. ----****----$$$$----****----$$$$----****----$$$$----****----$$$$----**** 11. WARP'D HUMOR Does fuzzy logic tickle? ----****----$$$$----****----$$$$----****----$$$$----****----$$$$----****