Technical White Paper:  OS/2 ala Text Based Interface


Purpose:  To assist members of the BBS community with OS/2


Disclaimer:  This document is not designed to be a guide for moving to the
OS/2 operating system!!!  It is merely an attempt to share the path we have
taken with respect to utilizing OS/2 with a text based interface -- we spent
a considerable amount of time working from the README files provided by the
Monte Copeland.  FYI, this setup has been in use on our BBS for just about
one (1) year now.


Requirements:  BBS Package [DOS]
               OS/2 from IBM Corporation
               SIO by Ray Gwinn
               STARTD by Monte Copeland (STARTD.ZIP)
               TSHELL by Monte Copeland (TSHELL.ZIP)


Author:  Eddie Rowe @ Fidonet#1:136/1

Last Updated:  October 22, 1994

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PMShell vs TShell:

Monte Copeland, an IBM employee, has written a text based shell to replace the
PMSHELL and give OS/2 2.x a text only interface -- its name is TSHELL.  With
Monte's TSHELL our Binkley/BBS combo runs in a lowly 4 megs of memory FASTER
than it does under Novell DOS and/or DESQview!

Following the instructions included in the TSHELL archive, extract the
TSHELL.EXE file and place it in the root directory of the OS/2 partitian.

Changes to OS/2's CONFIG.SYS to use TSHELL:

Search for:   PROTSHELL=D:\OS2\PMSHELL.EXE
Replace with: PROTSHELL=\TSHELL.EXE

Note:  If you remark (REM) the line referencing the PMSHELL and add a line for
TSHELL you can easily use PMSHELL at a later time without having to spend time
searching for the appropriate changes.  Be sure to read the README in the TSHELL
archive to ensure you do not need any of the services of PMSHELL before
replacing it.

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STARTD (StartDos) Installation:

When abandoning PMSHELL in favor of TSHELL you lost the ability to use OS/2's
START feature for launching DOS sessions, among other things.  Monte Copeland,
author of TSHELL, also has released the STARTD to allow TSHELL users to launch
DOS sessions from an OS/2 session.

Here's how we launch the BBS's Node 1:

STARTDOS BBSNODE1.CMD /K C:\OS2NODE1.BAT

 - BBSNODE1.CMD is a REXX script which we use to set the DOS settings for this
particular DOS session.

 - /K tells STARTDOS that we wish the session to remain after the application
exits (In this case it is a batch file).

 - OS2NODE1.BAT is a copy of the same batch file we used for starting Node 1
of Binkley/BBS when under Novell DOS/DESQview.

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SIO:

We use the SIO package which includes a driver for FOSSIL based communications
under OS/2 DOS sessions.  SIO replaces the drivers included with OS/2.  Here is
how we load SIO in our CONFIG.SYS:

DEVICE=D:\SIO\SIO.SYS (COM2:115200,2F8,IRQ3) (COM1:57600,3F8,IRQ4)
DEVICE=D:\SIO\VSIO.SYS

Note:  The VX00.SYS driver is loaded via STARTD in the DOS sessions launched
for Binkley/BBS.

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OS/2 Warp v3.0

In the days ahead OS/2 Warp v3.0 will begin arriving in North America!  We
have been in contact with Monte Copeland about possible considerations and
an update of his utilities with the arrival of the next version of OS/2.  At
the present time Monte doesn't anticipate the need to update TSHELL/STARTD
for OS/2 Warp v3.0.

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