Subj : Networking modems
To   : Dorothy Denn
From : George White
Date : Mon Jul 31 2000 03:50 pm

Hi Dorothy,

On 26-Jul-00, Dorothy Denn wrote to George White:

 DD>>> A friend of mine (and Richards') is looking at making me some
 DD>>> sort of switch box, that might do it. So I'm hoping:-))
 GW>> Quite possible - I could build a basic one for you very easily
 GW>> and fairly cheaply. It does mean an extra cable though...

 DD> That would have been very kind of you.  My problem, as always is

I've been doing some checking since my last post...
It would in fact be much cheaper to buy a ready made mechanical
switch, the cabling required would probably cost more than the switch
box. Suitable switch boxes are available for less than 10 pounds (+
VAT and delivery) from people such as Action (0800 333 333).
Certainly the components to build one would cost me more than buying a
ready made one.

 DD> getting these things fitted, being in a wheelchair has its
 DD> drawbacks. At the moment I am having trouble with a broken writer,
 DD> and when I'm told to "take of the cover and disconnect the SCSI
 DD> cable unscrew the card"  and all that sort of thing I go and hide
 DD> beneath the bed :-))

LOL, the prospect of you, in your wheelchair, hiding under the bed...

 DD>>> I've heard a lot about OS/2, but never really understood it.
 DD>>> Though in my BBS Chat echo, someone was saying "what a pity
 DD>>> about OS/2" whatever that meant.
 GW>> A pity that IBM have given up on it as a consumer product - the
 GW>> MS conditions imposed on developers to get early access to
 GW>> information essential for product development meant that very few
 GW>> developers could produce OS/2 versions of their products. It's
 GW>> supported for the next seven years, then it becomes yet another
 GW>> dead product.

 DD> Without going back to check, I believe my sysop was saying he runs
 DD> his Board on OS/2 without any problems.

If it's up and running it gives very few problems. It's just that it
doesn't get upgraded to support the latest hardware, so one has to be
very careful when sourceing hardware such as video cards, sound cards
etc to make sure they have OS/2 drivers available. Very little current
hardware does have drivers:-(

 GW>> A pity as technically it is in many ways far in advance of
 GW>> anything MS have produced to date.

 DD> Can one have it on the same computer as Windows?

Yes, I have had in the past... One uses boot manager software (OS/2
comes with one called - suprise, suprise - Boot Manager) to control
which OS is booted.

 GW>> A pity as there is one less alternative to Windows and it's
 GW>> never-ending cycle of costly bug fixes (MS calls them new
 GW>> versions...).

 DD> Isn't there another one out now?

Due out soon is the bugfix for Win 98 OSR2.
Win 2000 was the upgrade for Win NT 4, but NT _does_ get bugfixes
(it's targeted at commercial use, especially servers, and commercial
users won't usually buy server software without the availability of
bug fixes). I'm running it at SP5, I'm waiting for my sister to get
round to letting me have the CD with SP6 on it.

George

--- Terminate 5.00/Pro
 * Origin: A country point under OS/2 (2:257/609.6)

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