MarketWire - TwirlPix · Computing seminar on October 7th. ... last issue of MarketWire. ... decode...

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MarketWire1September, 1992

MarketWireSeptember, 1992News From MarketWare Computer SystemsVolume 3, No. 2

By JACK IVERS

MarketWare has recently made itsbiggest move since becoming aNetWare reseller: As of July 12th, weare the local reseller for NeXT Com-puter, Inc., makers of the revolutionaryNeXT computer and NeXTstep object-oriented operating system.

Bob and I have brother Bill to thank (orblame, depending on the outcome) forour initial introduction to NeXT. Bill ispresident of Software Clearing House(SCH), a nationally-known marketer ofsoftware products for mainframe andUNIX systems. Bill saw the NeXTmachine at one of the UNIX tradeshows, and immediately fell in love.SCH is moving ahead with NeXT ontwo fronts: they plan to develop bothcustom and shrink-wrapped softwarefor the NeXT marketplace, and theyintend to migrate their in-housecomputing environment to NeXT.Towards this end, Bill hired TylerGingrich away from Ohio State. Tyler isone of the sharpest individuals you’llever meet, and he’s one of the topNeXT gurus in the country.

MarketWare Signs With NeXTBut Bill isn’t into hardware, so he gotBob and I all fired up, and here we are.MarketWare hired Bob Fuge as thefounding member of our ConsultingServices group, with NeXT being asideline. But based on the ground swellof interest we’ve been seeing on theNeXT, Mr. Fuge may end up with NeXTas his full-time job.

Some of you are probably wondering, asBob and I did so recently, “What thehell is a NeXT and why would anyoneever buy one?” I think you’ll find someof the answers elsewhere in thisnewsletter, some in the videotapes thatwe have available on NeXT, and someat our regular NeXT seminars (see theschedule) and the big Open NetworkComputing seminar on October 7th.

One thing we can say for sure: whatevertime you spend checking out the NeXTwon’t be wasted. You’ll be lookingthree years into the future of criticalemerging technologies, most notablyClient-Server Computing and ObjectOriented Programming. You may electnot to pursue NeXT or NeXTstep, butyou’ll have seen the future.

What's Inside

By JACK IVERS

If your organization is serious aboutnetwork computing, mark you calendar:

What:MarketWare’s Open Network

Computing Seminar

When:Wednesday, October 7th.

9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

Where:The Phoenix, downtown

Cincinnati, 812 Race Street

Our last seminar, Everything YouAlways Wanted to Know AboutNetworking, worked out well for bothContinued on page 3

By JACK IVERS

We extolled the virtues of Palindrome’sTNA intelligent backup system in ourlast issue of MarketWire. Anotherplayer in the intelligent backup game isARCserve, from Cheyenne Software.The latest version of ARCserve (4.0)incorporates many of TNA’s intelligentbackup concepts: intelligent backupwith backup library, management oftape rotation, file grooming, etc. Weneed to do more testing before we cansay which product does these things

better, but ARCserve is certainlycontending for supremacy with TNA.What makes ARCserve especiallyattractive is that it is a server-basedsolution, running as an NLM underNetWare 3.11. Server-based operationmakes reliable unattended backup areality, and increases backup perfor-mance, at least for the server the tapedrive is attached to. With a nice serverbox like the Everex Megacube, you canmount the tape subsystem internally,Continued on page 2

Major-leagueNetworking

SeminarOctober 7th

Technology News

MarketWare Computer Systems Fax: 574-4293574-4222

MarketWire 2 September, 1992

SAA onto the NAE’s hard drive, andyou’re up and flying with an unbeliev-ably clean solution.

One of our larger customers recentlyevaluated NetWorth’s Series 4000concentrator versus Chipcom’sOnLine, a high-end product. Chipcomhad a few high-end features thatNetWorth couldn’t match, but on thewhole NetWorth compared extremelywell, matching Chipcom’s importantfeatures (multiple backplanes in eachchassis, automatic fail-over), andhaving its own unique features like theNAE and a strong commitment toNetWare and Novell’s NetworkManagement System. Price aside,NetWorth might have won on features.

But NetWorth’s cost per port wasand estimated 60% lower thanChipcom’s. So, while NetWorthmay look expensive compared tolow-end products, they’reactually an extremely good valuecompared to high-end vendorslike Chipcom, Synoptics, andCabletron.

Gus Nader, a Novell SE out ofNovell’s Columbus office, recently camevisiting with his magic diskette box. Hedropped off a number of neat newNovell goodies for us to play with.LANalyzer for NetWare is a reason-ably-priced Windows-based productthat provides many of the features ofmore expensive hardware/softwarenetwork analyzers. When you crank itup, LANalyzer brings up a “dashboard”with three real-time gauges: totalnetwork load in packets/sec, percentagebandwidth utilization, and errors/sec.You can watch for specific problems,zoom in and look at the content ofspecific packets, etc. LANalyzer candecode NetWare and AppleTalkpackets, but sees all packets (includingTCP/IP, LAT, etc.) in its dashboarddisplays. Neat. For minimal dollars($995 list), you can get much of whatyou’d see out of a Sniffer or comparablenetwork analyzer.

Novell’s Network Management System(NMS) is not really a product—it’s moreof an umbrella standard, with Novellproviding some of the underlying

Technology...Continued from page 1

saving the cost and hassles of anexternal enclosure. ARCserve canback up servers anywhere in theinternetwork, not just the machine thetape drive is attached to, and, likeTNA, it handles all file types,including Macintosh and NFS.ARCserve can also perform worksta-tion backups. All of these features,and unlimited backup capacity, comestandard with the product. We stilllike TNA—we still use it in-house,and Palindrome has just shipped ustheir server-based solution fortesting—but ARCserve is worth aclose look.

Having become increasinglyfamiliar with the tape drivemarketplace, MarketWare isnow integrating its ownPremium SCSI Tape Sub-systems with backup capaci-ties from 250MB (QIC-based)to 5GB (DAT-DC-based).We’re matching top-qualityhardware (Archive and WangDATSCSI tape engines, Adaptec SCSIhost adapters) with software likeTNA, ARCserve, and ARCserve/Solo, the entry-level tape softwarefrom Cheyenne. Because we do theintegration, our prices are well underother premium brands, such asMountain and Tecmar, even thoughwe’re using the same tape enginesand better software. For example, a5GB DAT-DC unit set to install in afile server using Cheyenne ARCservegoes for as little as $2,765 dependingon configuration.

Everex has an exciting new serverproduct on the way—the STEPMPFT. The MPFT part stands forMulti-Processor Fault Tolerant. Thismachine has two of everything—processors, memory banks, EISAperipheral buses—connected via ahigh-speed internal bus. The MPFTis the first server designed fromscratch to run Novell’s SFT III, anenhancement to NetWare 4.0 whichallows mirrored servers, much alongthe lines of today’s mirrored hard

drives. What we really like is that Everexis doing all this inside one box—youwon’t need two separate servers. WhileSFT III is not scheduled to ship until early1993, Everex is expecting to get a highpercentage of the SFT III beta users, sincethey’ve got one of the few SFT III-readysolutions available. Everex will also bereleasing the Everex RAID Disk Arraywith the MPFT.

Everex’s new notebook, the Carrier 25/SL, looks like a winner. Fast cached 386/25SL processor, hot-swappable batteries(base system comes with a spare), built-intrackball, nice keyboard, removable harddrive, excellent display, external VGA andkeyboard connectors, intelligent powermanagement, field upgradable. I used our

demo unit to write much of this newsletterusing Word for Windows, and it’s the firstnotebook that comes anywhere near theproductivity of a desktop system. Thetrackball really works.

NetWorth keeps innovating. They’veannounced the NetWare ApplicationEngine (NAE), a double-slot module fortheir Series 4000 chassis. This baby is afull-bore 486/33—it includes a hard drive,two 16-bit ISA expansion slots, and twodirect Ethernet attachments to the Series4000’s backplane—that fits inside yourconcentrator. The NAE is designed torun NetWare NLMs, and can be purchasewith or without NetWare Runtime. In fact,NetWorth was the first hardware vendorto license NetWare Runtime. So what doyou do with it? The NAE can run anyNLM that your heart desires. Bridging,routing, gateways, whatever makes sense.Here’s en example: let’s say you own anAS/400 and want to link it with yourEthernet LAN. Just buy an NAE, Novell’sNetWare for SAA V1.2, and an IBM ISA-bus Token Ring card. Stick the NAE inyour Series 4000 chassis, stick the TokenRing card in the NAE, load NetWare for

When you crank it up, LANalyzerbrings up a “dashboard” with threereal-time gauges: total network loadin packets/sec, percentage band-width utilization, and errors/sec.



products, and third-party vendors fillingin with additional product-specificsolutions. Gus brought us theNetWare Management Map for OS/2,which autodiscovers the configurationof your network and displays it graphi-cally on the screen. We recently hadseven servers up on our bench,network, and Rick (our OS/2 geek)found a major glitch on one of theservers using the Management Map.The Extended Management Mapactually allows you to add your ownfeatures to the drawing created byNMM. Neat neat. CommunicationServices Manager is another graphi-cally-oriented product, this timedesigned to manage NACS, SAA, andother communications-oriented NLMs.(Did you know that there is now anNACS NLM, allowing you to dooutbound modem pooling on your fileserver? Great idea, although theimplementation on standard serial portsis weak.) Neat neat neat. Novell isreally doing some great stuff, combiningNLM and GUI technology in veryuseful ways.

MarketWare is getting smart about faxservers—the hard way. We’re a betatest site for the 2.1 version of Alcom’sLanFax Redirector. Our apologies tothose of you who got faxes shifted allthe way over to the right—this was oneof 2.1s beta features. (One of myaccounts got the Fax From Hell—29pages, all blank except the cover sheet.)We now appear to have a solid productin our hands, and we’re using itconstantly. We’re beginning tounderstand the important differencesbetween low-end products like Intel’sNetSatisfaction and higher-end solu-tions like Alcom. Although we useAlcom in-house, we’re quite familiarwith most other major players, includingOptus (FacSys), Craccioli and Feder(NetFax), Gammalink (GammaFax), etc. Ifyou’re looking, give us a call, we’ve gotknowledge than can help you.

If you have a VAX and NetWare, youneed to look at Leverage for NetWarefrom Interconnections. Where otherVAX connectivity solutions force youto implement an additional protocol(LAT or TCP/IP) in addition to

NetWare’s IPX protocol, Leverage forNetWare lets the VAX recognize IPX.Fast, simple, efficient. Features includeterminal emulation (DOS and Windows),file transfer using Kermit, and printerinteroperability. Looking for creden-tials? These guys wrote NetWare forVMS, as well as DEC’s PathworksNetWare Interoperability Module.We’ve got this product running at adowntown account, they love it.

MarketWare is in the process ofimplementing a major upgrade to ourTSP support plan: direct e-mail connec-tivity. We’ll be installing an MHS e-mail hub, so that we and our majorcustomers are just an e-mail messageaway. Let’s say you’re having anintermittent problem on your network—not critical enough to required an on-site visit, but something you want us tobe aware of. Just pop up your e-mailsystem, address a note toMWARE:BOB, and fire it off. Your e-mail hub calls ours, and the messagegets delivered within five minutes.Need a quote on a file server upgrade ornew workstation? Same deal. On theother side of the coin, let’s sayMarketWare turns up an important techtip. With a few minutes of work, we caneasily e-mail it to the system administra-tors at all of our connected TSPaccounts. We could even attach files,such as new drivers. We’re excitedabout the possibilities, as are most ofthe customers we’ve talked to about theidea. Hands-on feedback next issue onhow the connection is working.

If you’ve got to network ‘em, might aswell join ‘em. MarketWare is now anApple Macintosh Value AddedReseller. Our vertical market isnetworking. We’re looking forward togetting a Mac of some kind in the demoroom—anyone have an SE they’d liketo get rid of cheap?

Major-league...Continued from page 1

of us. You evidently liked the seminar:it over-filled, and we got lots of positivefeedback on the presentations. Thisdespite a last-minute room change thathad NeXT and Windows fighting amultimedia battle (“I feel good . . .”)over the room divider.

MarketWare benefited because thefixed deadline of the seminar gave us areason to get projects done that mightotherwise have slipped. The last issueof MarketWire, for example, existsbecause the seminar date forced theissue. The same is true for our AlcomLanFax fax gateway—we figured webetter have it installed if we were talkingabout it.

Based on the benefits, we’re going todo it again October 7th with the OpenNetwork Computing Seminar. Here’swhat we have on the agenda:

Open Network Computing: We set thestage by taking a look at the DesktopOperating System war developingbetween Windows NT, OS/2, variousUNIX products, as well as the DesktopHardware War developing betweenIntel’s 486/586 platform and alternativehigh-performance platforms. We thenintroduce the concepts of OpenNetwork Computing, and explain how,with a well-designed Open Network,desktop platform choices are far lesspainful than in the past.

Understanding NetWare 4.0: What isit, how will it affect our enterprisenetworks, how can we prepare.

Server Multiprocessing and Fault-tolerance: A look at current andemerging server technology, includingmirroring and duplexing, RAID-baseddisk arrays, server multiprocessing, andthe hardware and software that make upa System Fault Tolerant Level III server(SFT 3). Everex STEP MP and STEPMPFT systems used as a case study.

NeXTstep—Objects in Action:NeXTstep is two years ahead of anyother Object-oriented OS, and thissession will show you why. We’ll takea deep look at Object technology, and



show hands-on why Object OrientedProgramming is such a hot topic incomputing today.

Novell Product Update: A brief run-through of recent Novell productannouncements and their significance.

Managing the Open Network: What isnetwork management, an overview ofhub-based network management usingNetWorth’s EtherManager as anexample, a look at Novell’s NetWareManagement System (NMS) as anumbrella standard for network manage-ment, with discussion of the developingRMON standard.

UnixWare: Explains the current state ofthe UNIX market, its important draw-backs. Introduces Univel as a partner-ship of UNIX Systems Labs and Novell.Outlines the concepts and features ofUnixWare as a desktop and serveroperating system.

Assisting MarketWare with thesepresentations will be Novell, NetWorth,and Everex. We’ll also have a separatedemo room, with a full-bore multi-protocol network and lots of neatequipment to touch and feel. All in all,well worth attending. Cost is $75 ahead. Call early—we might overflowagain.

Zen and the Art of OpenNetwork Computing

By JACK IVERS

I’d like to share with you MarketWare’sdeveloping philosophy of OpenNetwork Computing. This philosophyhas been fermenting for about 12months. It all started when we finallyadmitted that UNIX had a place in thecomputing world—as part of a network,anyway. Our network diagrams beganto include UNIX boxes, as well asnetwork-aware mainframes like VAXesand AS/400s.

Our decision to pick up NeXT wasanother milestone. The NeXT machineis neither fish nor foul—it’s neither aPC, nor a Mac, nor a typical “ugly”UNIX workstation. Yet the NeXT

machine is clearly the one of the mostpowerful Network Computing machinesaround. So our definition of a “client”system had to expand to include thisbeast.

A final step in the process was ourrecognition of the power of client-servercomputing, with client machines makinghigh-level data requests to back-endSQL database engines like Sybase.NeXT’s dbKit software, part ofNeXTstep 3.0, showed us how powerfulsuch an environment could be.

So we had to expand our networkinghorizons—radically—to encompassthese new concepts and components.The result is our new philosophy, OpenNetwork Computing.

The Network is the Center of theUniverse. Not the mainframe, UNIXhost, or file server. When designing acomputing environment, start with thenetwork. Don’t neglect its care andfeeding. [diagram — network alone]

Every Computer is either a Server or aClient on the Network. Servers provideshared services; clients interface withthe user. Avoid servers than can’tnetwork (i.e., old-generation main-frames), and clients that can’t compute(i.e., dumb terminals). Avoid mixing

client and server functions on a singlecomputer. [diagram—clients on oneside, servers on the other]

May the Best Open Computer Win.When selecting a server or client,eliminate non-open solutions, thenselect the best fit. A mixed bag is OK,so long as the benefits of mixedplatforms outweigh the drawbacks ofsupporting and interfacing thoseplatforms. [diagram showing a mix ofservers and a mix of clients]

Empower the Masses. Never lose trackof the mission of the open network: toput tremendous yet effortless power inthe hands of the user. Power to get thejob done faster, better. Every stepshould be in this direction.

Empower the Developer. Customapplications can be the key to empower-ing the user. With high-powereddevelopment technology—object-oriented programming and client-serverapplications in particular—custom appsno longer need be time-consuming todevelop, slow to arrive, and expensiveto maintain. Empower the developerand you will empower the user.

Buy from MarketWare. Thought I’dslip this one in while you were stillhypnotized.

Diagram for ZEN



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NeXT UsersGroup (SONG)6:00 p.m. atMarketWare

Info Expo, CincinnatiConvention Center

1 (October)

Corny or not, we really believe in thisstuff—we’ve seen it work, and we’reseeing it gather momentum. And thetechnology to make it work even betteris arriving as we speak. I’ve read thatonly now are computers having anysignificant impact on the productivity ofso-called “knowledge workers.”Windows 3.1, System 7, NeXTstep3.0—these recent steps in technologyare making the “Empower the Masses”concept start to fly. It will be aninteresting decade in the computerworld.

NetWare 4.0By JACK IVERS

NetWare 4.0 is a-comin’—better get

ready. 4.0 changes the rules that we’veall become accustomed to in earlierNetWare versions. (By the way,NetWare 4.0 is just a new name forNetWare 3.2. Novell isn’t playing anygames with their free upgrades—if youwere entitled to get NetWare 3.2 due toan upgrade or promotion, you’ll get 4.0instead.) NetWare 4.0’s advantages aresubtle compared, for example, to whatNetWare 386 had to offer when it wasfirst released. You aren’t going to seehuge performance gains, or whiz-bangfeatures like modularity and dynamicloading. But while 4.0’s advantagesmay be subtle, they are every bit as bigand important as those seen inNetWare 386. Let’s take a look.

With current NetWare products, user

login and security information ismaintained server-by-server. As aresult, when you log in to the network,you are actually logging on to a specificserver. If your network encompassesseveral servers, you have to specificallylog in (actually, attach) to each separateserver. The system administrator mustmaintain a separate account on eachserver for each user. As you addservers, the effort to administer theseindependent servers increases exponen-tially until it becomes practicallyimpossible.

I’ve seen two get-arounds used tominimize the difficulties of managingmultiple servers, and I’m not happy witheither. First, almost everyone withmultiple servers separates their users



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NeXT for theDeveloper, callfor location

along departmental lines, and puts eachdepartment on a specific server:accounting goes on server A, sales andmarketing on server B, etc. The problemhere is reduced flexibility: accounting,for example, might put a huge load onthe network, and it might make moresense to have their work split over twoservers.

Second, some companies reduce theirserver count by purchasing super-powerful monsters—NetFrames,Tricords, Parallans. Superservervendors emphasize that one of theirmachines can replace five or tenconventional servers. This is true, and Ican see many nice applications forsuperservers. But networks are, bydefinition, groups of computers. My

feeling is that any step in the directionof having one big computer as thecenter of the universe is a step back-wards. In many important respects,having multiple servers is a good thing:fault tolerance through redundancy,and the ability to balance and sharenetwork loads, are just two among manybenefits.

What it boils down to is that NetWare’sindependent-server philosophy,common to both 2.X and 3.X, isseriously flawed. Enter NetWare 4.0with a new philosophy: the network, notthe server, is the center of the universe.(Sound familiar? Check out the Zenarticle elsewhere) Servers exist only toprovide shared resources to thenetwork. Users log in to the network,

not specific servers. The systemmanager manages the network, notspecific servers.

With this new philosophy in place,multi-server networks are no longer anadministrative nightmare, and we nolonger need get-arounds to function.Now, for example, we can splitaccounting’s network load over twoservers—or six for that matter. We cango with a superserver because we needthe extra power, not because we need toreduce our server count.

How does 4.0 implement this newphilosophy? First of all, with globaldirectory services. Each server on thenetwork will now contain a copy of thenetwork-wide user and security

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directory, managed by the DirectoryService NLM. This way, when I log inas JACK, every server knows all aboutwhat I’m allowed to do. In addition tomanaging the local copy of the globaldirectory, the Directory Service NLMalso knows how to keep it updated—synchronized, to use the properterminology.

Another big change with 4.0 will be inthe client shell. Since you are no longerlogging in to a specific server, thewhole foundation that IPX and NETXare based on crumbles. While wehaven’t yet seen exactly what NetWare4.0’s shell will look like, we’ve heardrumors that an enhanced version ofNetWare Lite will be NetWare 4.0’sshell. This would make a lot of sense,

and would add peer-to-peer capabilitiesto the NetWare environment.

NetWare 4.0 will certainly have en-hancements in other areas, such asintegrated support for imaging technol-ogy, but my feeling is that the change inNetWare’s core philosophy will end upas the most important. Many of youwith just one server are probablywondering whether 4.0 really offers youany benefits. Unless your network istiny and your business stagnant, I thinkthe answer is yes. 4.0 will give you thefreedom to expand your network downthe road without having to hassle withget-arounds.

What can you do to prepare? Thebiggest thing is to start organizing yourservers. If you’re going to take

advantage of NetWare 4.0 by loadingthe Directory Services NLM on eachserver, you’ve got to start thinkingglobally in three areas: users, groups,and printers. Users must have a uniquename across the network: if you have aJOE on server FS1 and a different JOEon server FS2, you’ve got problems.Groups are the same way: if the groupname LOTUS on FS1 is exactly equiva-lent to LOTUS on FS2, you’re fine; ifnot, you’ll have to differentiate thenames. Finally, printer queue names willneed work. No more PRINTQ_1s onevery server.

We’re looking at Preferred System’sOrigen 2.0 as a potential aid to thisserver reorganization. Origen reads theNetWare bindery, creating a database



file with all the users, groups, trusteerights, etc. from the bindery. You canmanipulate this database withouttouching the live bindery on yourserver. When you’re happy with thenew setup, Origen recreates the binderyfrom its database file. Origen 2.0 mightbe just the ticket for 4.0 upgrades; we’lllet you know.

What’s the best way to buy NetWare4.0? First, those of you still runningNetWare 2.X should look at upgradingto 3.11 before year-end. This will getyou a free upgrade to 4.0—anyone whoupgrades to any version of 3.11between 4/1/92 and 12/31/92 gets 4.0free. As of today, there is no directupgrade path between 2.x and 4.0: youneed to move through 3.X as an interimstep.

If you currently own 3.X and you havean upgrade on the horizon—to increaseyour user count, for example, or to movefrom 3.10 to 3.11—do the upgradebefore year-end to get your free 4.0.

If you are licensing 3.11 for additionalservers, purchase the NetWare PremiumBundle. This bundle gets you theupgrade to 4.0, and a pile of othergoodies, including the very usefulNetWare Management Map for OS/2.Yet the difference in price betweenstandard NetWare and the PremiumBundle is far less than the upgradealone will cost next year.

Last but not least, if you own 3.11 anddon’t need any upgrades or newlicenses, you can now buy NetWarePremium as a separate package. Again,you’ll save money and get some usefultools in addition.

Windows ReduxBy TOM IVERS

You may recall that I had some smalldifficulty aligning my CUI 386/33 towork in harmony with DOS 5, Windows

Coach's CornerSeptember, 1992

Call 574-4222 to get a free sub-scription to MarketWire.

but can't exceed 65,536 blocks or2,097,152 entries per volume. When anew server is installed, many custom-ers notice that the maximum number ofdirectory entries looks frighteninglysmall. We tell them not to worry,NetWare 3.11 allocates directoryspace on the fly, preserving the diskspace that NetWare 286 would havewasted.

NetWare 3.11 has another optionalfeature built in that played an impor-tant part in this experience. Not onlydoes NetWare keep track of live filesand directories, it also keeps track ofall deleted files. This feature allowsthe user to recover files that havebeen accidentally deleted or overwrit-ten. The files that are deleted remainon disk until the disk fills to maximum.When more disk space is required forlive files, NetWare takes the oldestdeleted files and “purges” or removesthem entirely them from the drive,making room for the live files. Eachdeleted file takes up one directoryentry, as does one live file.

When we arrived on site, we foundthat the number of live directory andfile entries were well within maximumlimits. We also noticed that there wasplenty of disk space, over 100MB,available. A quick check of thevolume status with CHKVOL indi-cated that only 33MB of the remaining100MB of available disk space wasoccupied by deleted files. But wewere still getting “No DirectoryEntries Available” errors. Basically,the server appeared to be functioningproperly, it just couldn’t create anyfiles.

After running a program calledVOLINFO, we decided that theproblem must be related to deletedfiles. There were only 8,000 or so livefiles, but VOLINFO showed us wewere near the directory entryCoach's Corner...

By BOB IVERS

Of Mickey Mouse, Mops andBuckets of Water

One morning, we had a call from anas of then unknown to us NetWare386 3.11 user asking for help on aproblem they were having with theirfile server. Although there wasplenty of disk space available,programs would get “Disk Full” or“No Directory Entries Available”messages. From our experience withNetWare 286, these errors usuallymeant that the limit had been reachedrelative to the number of files anddirectories allowed on the server. Adefault number, set by NetWare 286during installation, determined themaximum number of files anddirectories that could reside on agiven volume. The number wasdependent on the amount of memoryavailable at the time of installation.The installer had the choice ofchanging this number up or down,but usually NetWare did an adequatejob estimating the limits. Even so, ifthe server ran out of directoryentries, the installer could re-installthe last portion of NetWare andincrease the number by a couple ofthousand files. The re-installationwas easy, providing that the old 286install diskettes were available and ingood condition (many NetWareinstallers never provide the customerwith a full set of working diskettes).If the installer happens to set thelimits too high, more usable diskspace gets allocated for directoryentries than is needed, wastingprecious disk space.

NetWare 3.11 works a bit differentlywith regard to directory entries. Itwill automatically allocate moredirectory blocks that hold 32 entrieseach as needed until it reaches amaximum. The limit is determined bythe amount of memory in the server,



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limit. We decided to manually purge thedeleted files to free up some directoryentries. When you run a purge ofdeleted files, a list of files being“purged” scrolls down the screen. Youcan easily make out familiar file namesand directories as they scroll by—a bitscary if you don’t understand thatpurge is only removing files that havealready been deleted, not your activefiles. In this instance, we saw thenormal files go by, and several dupli-cated names (NetWare may keepseveral old versions of deleted files, notjust the latest). There was nothing outof the ordinary until we hit one filenamed something like CHECK.BIN witha file size of zero. It scrolled up until allfiles listed on the screen wereCHECK.BIN. The scrolling continued,as indicated by the frantic cursor at thebottom of the screen, purgingCHECK.BIN versions for another 45minutes! Holy Ex-Lax, Batman! Once allof the deleted files were removed, wedowned the server and brought it backup. All directory entry errors disap-peared.

How in the world could something likethis happen? Was there a FAT tableproblem? Disk corruption? Why didn’tNetWare, in its ultimate wisdom,automati-cally fixtheproblem?Theanswer is,every-thingworkedas it wasintended to, except for one small detailthat the NetWare programmers eitherforgot, discounted or never dreamed of.Let’s analyze the cause of the problem.The culprit was a file namedCHECK.BIN. This file was a temporaryfile created every 15 seconds by aprogram which polled several manufac-turing machines on a shop floor. Thetemporary file probably held no databecause it was always zero length.When the file was present, other usersof the multi-user system probably were

locked out of doing something while thepolling station gathered informationfrom the shop floor. When the pollingstation finished gathering, it deleted thetemporary file. Seeing that the file wasgone, the other workstations wouldcontinue processing whatever theyprocessed until the next CHECK.BINshowed up 15 seconds later.

Up until this point, there is nothingwrong with this method of programmingat all. On a stand-alone PC with nopreservation techniques, this wouldwork flawlessly. The same is not truewhen NetWare implements its deletedfile feature. Each time the fileCHECK.BIN was deleted, (every 15seconds since the start of the year, 24hours a day, 7 days a week) it wascollected into NetWare’s “deleted filebin.” , NetWare did what it was told andtreated CHECK.BIN like a normaldeleted file and preserved it, along withevery other version of it, just in casesomeone wanted them again. Thou-sands upon thousands upon thousandsof CHECK.BIN files were populating thefile server, each one created just 15seconds apart. When NetWare neededmore disk space to hold more directoryentries for all of these deleted files, itjust allocated it on the fly. Because thehard drive never actually filled up,

(remember,CHECK.BINwas a zero-length file)theautomaticpurgefunctionneverkicked in to

remove these files entirely from thesystem (remember, we still had 100MBavailable!) It brings visions of MickeyMouse, mops, and buckets of water,doesn’t it? Had the drive filled upbefore the maximum directory entriesdid, the server would have automati-cally purged the oldest files first, but inthis instance, the overhead of purgingso many files each time disk space wasneeded would have brought this serverto its knees. The machine was doingexactly was it was designed to do, but

got a little constipated in the process.

The solution: we disabled the "savedeleted files" feature of NetWare at thecustomer's request. The drawbackswere

1) NetWare cannot de-allocatedirectory entries, which translatesinto slower mounts and degradeddisk performance. Once NetWareincreases the maximum number ofdirectory entries on a volume, thannumber cannot be decreased,unless you backup, delete thevolume, recreate it and restore thedata.

2) The customer is also without thebenefit of the deleted file feature. Iam certain that this feature alonehas saved the jobs of more than afew careless users.

NetWare allows for files to be flaggedas PURGE. This means that once thefile is deleted, it is PURGED automati-cally. The same is true for directories.A directory may be flagged as PURGEwhich causes all files in the directory tobe purged when deleted. In this case,minor program changes could be madeto flag the CHECK.BIN file just aftercreation, or it could be stored in aseparate PURGE-flagged directory.Once these changes have been made tothe program, the customer could safelyre-activate the "save deleted files"option.

The case of theCrashing Windows

It all began in 1986 when I installed myfirst copy of Windows on a Tandy 3000,8MHz 286. I think the version was 1.2or something like that. Anyway, it wasthe one that had no icons, no fancygraphics, just a list of files and directo-ries on the screen. When you wantedto run something, you scanned thedirectory for EXE, .COM or .BAT files,which were highlighted in a darkercolor, and double-clicked on theprogram name. Sometimes the programran, but more often than not, it didn’t.Back then, Windows users were

Thousands upon thousands uponthousands of CHECK.BIN fileswere populating the file server, eachone created just 15 seconds apart.



pioneers. There were no expectations.If your program worked under Win-dows, fine. If it didn’t, no big deal—nobody in their right mind usedWindows anyway, or at least admitted itto anyone.

In the spring of 1987, I saw a new typeof program while at a UNISYS conven-tion in Switzerland. Crowds of peoplegathered around a PC running aprogram called PageMaker. Itran under a newer version ofWindows, directly usingfancy pull-down menus andsome simple icons just likeWindows itself used. Thedemonstrator used an imagescanner and imported intoPageMaker photographs ofthe leaders of the UNISYS user’s group.He was then able to size, move, dropand even stretch these photos on anelectronic piece of paper. Adding textto the images, and printing the finaloutput on a laser printer, the demonstra-tor was able to create announcements,meeting schedule changes, signs, orwhatever, in just a matter of minutes. Iwas fascinated. I also had to have thisnew toy.

About $9,000 and several months later, Ihad an Apple LaserWriter Plus, an HPScanjet scanner, PageMaker 1.0 and anew version of Windows. Installationof the software was easy—a simpleupdate program changed my oldversion of Windows into the new,preserving any settings I had made toWindows in the process. I bumpedalong with the first release of Page-Maker for about six months, amidsystem crashes, lock-ups, lost docu-ments, the works. Then Aldus releasedan update for PageMaker, version 1.0a.An auto-install feature of this version ofPageMaker made all of the manynecessary modifications to my Win-dows .INI files so that the installation,again, was a breeze.

I can’t recall all of the changes mysystem went through for the next 3years, so I’ll mention just a few impor-tant ones. Running low on disk space, Ihad to add a new hard drive. I up-graded to Windows 3.0, then to 3.1,

each time using the update programs. Iupdated PageMaker several times toreach the current configuration of V4.0,each time allowing PageMaker toupdate the .INI files automatically. I putmy PC on a Local Area Network andtold Windows about it so that it wouldrecognize drive F. I got rid of my 286and bought a Everex Tempo 386/25 witha 200 MB Maxtor IDE drive and 8MB ofmemory. I installed Micrographics

Designer, Corel Draw, Publisher’sPaintbrush, Ansel, Lotus 123, MicrosoftExcel, PowerPoint, Norton Desktop,SoundBlaster Drivers (so my PC wouldtalk to me), golf games, game packs,Quick Basic, Quick Pascal, MS Word forWindows, ReadRight (OCR), andtwenty other programs I can’t evenremember. Each time I let the programdo whatever it wanted to all of myWindows .INI files. I’m sure all of theprogrammers involved did their jobsperfectly.

It could have been the free fonts I gotfrom Adobe, or possibly the FAXsoftware that broke the camel’s back.Gradually, Windows 3.1 got slower, andslower—DOS applications would freezeunpredictably and my screen wouldturn funny colors. Nothing that I couldtell in the 200 or so lines of my WIN.INIor my SYSTEM.INI looked out ofplace—but things did look a bit bulky.For example, there were maybe 25 Corelfont listings I no longer used, andmention of Micrographics Designerdrivers from 1989. I saw PageMakerstuff, Norton stuff, all kinds of 386memory settings, screen fonts, printerfonts—who knows what should havebeen there and what shouldn’t. I wasembarrassed to call Microsoft-—youknow, .INI files are kind of personalthings. I could just hear them say, “Youactually bought Micrographics De-signer??!”

I was reluctant to reinstall Windows 3.1

from scratch because many of the olderprograms such as PageMaker and CorelDraw require entries into the WIN.INIfile. If I installed Windows fromscratch, all of those .INI entries wouldhave to go, which meant that I wouldalso have to install all of those applica-tion programs again. I not only wasfaced with installing the software frompainfully slow floppy disks, but I had tofind all of the disks first, and then hope

they were all still readable. Ifigured a day’s worth of work,easy.

But I had little choice. Windowswasn’t working right. I was deadin the water without it.

Not only did I reinstall Windows,but I reinstalled my entire machine. Ibacked-up, reformatted my drive intoone large partition instead of 3, andreinstalled Windows and my applica-tions one at a time. It took about a dayand a half to set everything up the wayI like it, but it was worth it. I haven’thad a similar crash for three weeks. Ialso saw about a 3 to 1 improvement inperformance. I don’t know what it was,but one of those .INI files had a realproblem.

I suppose I could have taken theprogrammer’s approach to solving thisproblem and figured out which line wasthe offending line in one of my .INI files.But that still wouldn’t have allowedWindows or any applications tooptimize themselves during installationdepending on what hardware you have.Maybe if an application sees that youhave a 800x600 resolution monitor/driver, it adds a driver of its own. Whoknows? Who cares? We just want it towork. The only way to be sure you takeadvantage of a programmer’s optimiza-tion is to provide an environment theyexpect to see. If your Windows hasbecome abnormal over a period of time,(think of what Tom’s .INI files must looklike—gag!) it might be time to startfresh.

ODI Shell—Time to Replace IPX?

But I had little choice. Windowswasn’t working right. I was deadin the water without it.



The days of generating new versions ofIPX.COM each time you change aNetwork Interface Card’s (NIC) interruptor memory address may soon behistory. Novell is now shipping with allcopies of NetWare their new ODIdrivers for DOS. ODI stands for OpenDatalink Interface. In a nutshell, ODIwill allow the DOS workstation tosupport more than one protocol on asingle NIC, much like a NetWare 3.Xfile server can support both Ethernetand TCP/IP, as an example, on onenetwork card. This allows a DOSworkstation to communicate to fileservers, UNIX systems, VAXes, etc.without having to reconfigure the NICfor each environment.

NetWare 3.11 and 2.2 both support ODIdrivers. We hear that Novell 4.0 willrequire the use of ODI drivers.

The ODI drivers are easier to use thanIPX. Each NIC vendor will provide adriver.COM file and a NET.CFG file.The NET.CFG file is a text file withinterrupt, I/O address settings, and/ormemory address settings needed for theparticular NIC. To change an interruptsetting, for example, just edit NET.CFGand change the jumper settings on thecard. The .COM file which is suppliedby the vendor (example NE2000.COM)does not need to be altered.

Novell supplies some other filesrequired by ODI:

LSL.COM is the Link SupportLayer which enables theworkstation to communicateover several protocols.

IPXODI.COM and TCPIP.EXEare two of several protocolstacks (drivers) that enable theworkstation to communicate toother network devices.

IPXODI.COM is for IPXprotocols - generally associ-ated with DOS. TCPIP.EXE isthe protocol driver used inmost UNIX environments.AppleTalk is another exampleof an ODI protocol stack.

Replacing IPX.COM with ODI.

Obtain the driver.COM and NET.CFGfiles from the NIC vendor. Alter theNET.CFG file to correspond to theactual hardware settings of the NIC.You can see the current IPX settings bytyping IPX I. Use the same settings ifyou do not alter the hardware itself.

Sample NET.CFG:

LINK DRIVER NE2000INT 5PORT 300

Depending on the NIC used, there maybe other settings such as DMA, MEM,NODE ADDRESS, SLOT (EISA), etc.Within the NET.CFG, the BIND state-ment allows you to specify whichprotocol stack is to be used for thiscard.

Protocol IPXBIND NE2000

Furthermore, any statements that arebeing used in the SHELL.CFG for IPXshould be moved into the NET.CFG file,left justified.

Place these files in a directory (example:C:\NETWORK) in addition toLSL.COM, IPXODI.COM, NETX.COMand any other protocol stack.

Create a BATCH file with the followingcommands:

C:cd \networkLSLNE2000IPXODINETXF:LOGIN

Optionally, IPXODI.COM may beloaded with some of its featuresdisabled to save memory. By default,when IPXODI is run, IPX, SPX andRemote Diagnostics Responder (RDR)

protocols are present. SPX and RDRare used primarily for diagnosticprograms or programs such asRCONSOLE and NVER and are notneeded all of the time.

All drivers may be unloaded withouthaving to reboot the workstation.Drivers must be unloaded in reverseorder.

NETX uIPXODI uNE2000 u

LSL u

We've installed the ODI Drivers onseveral LANs with no problems so far.The only snags we've hit have beenobtaining the vendor-supplied .COMfile for some network cards.

Optional Load Variations - IPXODITo Load: Command MemorySaved:IPX,SPX and RDR IPXODI N/AIPX and SPX IPXODI d 4KBIPX IPXODI a 8KB

3.1, and Stacker. Stacker’s gone fromthat machine but is currently nestledhappily on the Rice Rocket 386/33 withWindows 3.1—the box that ran OS/2 2.0(see OS/2: The Movie elsewhere) for mewith only the gentlest of persuasion.For some reason, the Rice Rocket seemsto run twice as fast as the CUI, butthat’s probably because I still haven’tfound a way to work the CUI’s RAMcache into the picture.

So let me briefly review the hardwarepicture here on the farm before getting



into some of the killer apps I’ve beenwhipping into shape. The CUI nowsports 16MB of memory and a pair of200MB SCSI drives while the RiceRocket holds 8MB of RAM and a126MB IDE drive that is half-stacked,for a total of about 180MB of drive.Meanwhile, Edie’s IBM XT with theIntel Inboard 386-16 card has just a megof memory and an 80MB hard drive andthe Charisma lunchbox portable 286with 1 meg has a Stacked 40MB drive.

Edie’s printer is a Panasonic dot matrixwide carriage and mine is an HPLaserJet Series II—six years old and stillgoing strong—you can’t beat HPprinters. The CUI communicates withthe Series II through the video port anda Truepoint 600X600PostScript booster cardwhile the Rice Rocket islinked to the HP straightthrough LPT1. Stuffed intothe CUI is an Intel Connec-tion Coprocessor for faxingand 2400 Baud modemcommunications, while aMultiTech Multimodem V32handles the 9600 baud communications.Rounding out the array is an old AST/Microtek 300A scanner.

Oh, and a pair of Colorado Jumbo250MB tape drives with compressioncontrollers for the CUI and Rice Rocketand Maynard 60MB tape drives for thetwo wimpy boxes. The only thingsmissing are a multimedia CD-ROMsetup and a video interface for editingthe tapes I produce. And a network, ofcourse (Jack and Bob have promised aneasy-to-install WEB net before we go topress).

Both the 386 machines boot to Win-dows 3.1, and there’s a good reason forthis: all my main production software isnow Windows based, except for theFoxPro database and my old friend,Ventura Publisher for DOS—becauseVPWIN won’t digest the 350+ fonts Ihave installed in Windows. You mightremember that I was moving fromWordPerfect to a Windows wordprocessor because WPWIN was junk.It was a fight between WINWORD andAmi Pro. WINWORD won because, for

some reason, Ami Pro was very slowupdating screens and paging throughdocuments.

So, I’m a Windows convert and findmyself quite happy with the results.From within WINWORD, I can fax adocument with FAXIT, call up fulldefinitions in the American HeritageDictionary that boots right along withWindows, and print in PostScript at600X600 through the TruePoint cardthat intercepts all jobs going to LPT2.While I’m writing, I can be bringing infiles on the modem through ProcommPlus or Crosstalk for Windows. Or I canhop over to Corel Draw 3.0, Excel 4.0,Harvard Graphics or Powerpoint(haven’t got 3.0 yet, but it sounds

pretty nice).

The killer apps I want to talk to youabout are Corel 3.0 and FrameMaker forWindows. Corel 3.0 is sweet goodnews all the way. The 10-disk installa-tion was as slick as they come—notonly did it go without a hitch, but Corelkindly installed its 153 TrueType fontsinto Windows—they’re available to allmy other Windows apps. Of course, I’dalready moved Corel’s 2.0 fonts intoWindows using Fontmonger (AllTypedidn’t do the job properly), so that’swhy I currently have so many fonts—I’ll have to delete the old ones byhand—I think I brought them in asATM fonts.

But the new Corel is spectacular—it’sHarvard Draw, Harvard Graphics,Powerpoint, Picture Publisher, and a lotmore all bundled together. The CorelGraphics group of applications includesCorelDraw, CorelChart, CorelShow,CorelPhoto-paint, CorelTrace, andCorelMosaic—all a part of the package.That’s like setting up your CD changerwith Stevie Ray Vaughn, The Willburys,

Bonnie Rait, Yo Yo Ma, Janis Joplin,and Horowitz Plays Mozart—manyhours of beautiful music.

I think of CorelDraw as a logo-builder.You can do everything you ever wantedto do with text and graphics. But it’smore—an exceptional color drawingprogram with top-notch import/exportfacilities. With Mosaic, you can importor export Adobe Illustrator, WindowsBitmap, all the Corel forms, EPS, Tiff,GIF, PCC, PCX, or Targa files. You canthen assemble all your images inlibraries that Mosaic will display for youin thumbnail form. Select any drawingand Mosaic will transfer you, and theimage, to CorelDraw for editing. Neat!

CorelChart works a lot likeHarvard Graphics andPowerpoint. There are dozensof chart types which you canmodify—or you can build yourown from scratch. If you findthe chart type you like—andthere are dozens, includingsome very nice 3-D charts—youcan then alter all the parts,

including the data. Corel brings up amini-spreadsheet that looks like Excelfor you to change the data. This is anextremely friendly charting program.

CorelShow is a slideshow program thatis as sophisticated as any I’ve seen.You assemble the graphs and chartsyou’ve produced in the other Corelapps and build a precisely timedslideshow complete with full-actionanimated graphics. There are wipes,zooms, dissolves—I mean, talk aboutrearranging your life! You could spenda lot of time developing neat presenta-tions if somebody was willing to paythe freight.

CorelTrace allows you to do a veryclean trace of Windows bitmaps, GIFs,PCX and PCC bitmaps and Targa (TGA)and tiff bitmaps. Corel Photo-Paint is apixel-by-pixel photo/graphics (.BMP,.GIF, .MSP, .TGA, .TIF, .PCX) retouch-ing program. I’m no artist, so all thetools available are just playthings to me,but I can see where a talented graphicsartist could do a lot with this program.

Anyway you look at it, CorelDraw 3.0 is

You could spend a lot of time devel-oping neat presentations if some-body was willing to pay the freight.



a killer app. Now. More than $1,000 inpurchase price and upgrades—and afew years—later. Ain’t that the way?

FrameMaker comes to us by way of theMAC and NeXT machines.

Wait a minute! I was going to tell youhow wondrous was this Ventura-likeapp. But now it doesn’t like me

anymore. It refuses to load—”errornumber 00000003"— something aboutme being chincy with memory. Hey,you loaded last week, Bimbo! Whilethis is a Beta version, it’s starting to acta lot more like Ventura than I gave itcredit for. Ventura can’t get past one ofits .DLLs.

Here’s the real kicker: with the sameCONFIG.SYS, AUTOEXEC.BAT,WIN.INI, and SYSTEM.INI, Venturaloads on the Rice Rocket. Can youbelieve it? I thought it wasn’t loading.It dribbled up from the hard drive,brought up the opening credits alongwith the hourglass, and then, for allintents and purposes, froze. But today Igot interrupted during an attemptedload and didn’t come back to thecomputer for three hours—voila! It wasup and raring to go.

So I exited and reloaded. Same thing,except I just sat there and stared at it.Long about 3 minutes the drive hic-coughed. At 5 minutes, another littlegoose for the drive. At 8 minutes, thescreen started changing, going throughsome DLLs I guess. At nine minutes on

the mark, there was Ventura Publisherfor Windows all saddled up and readyfor war. And that was after I’d reinvigo-rated it with the 4.01 upgrade that wassupposed to make it load faster. AmiPro is greased lightning in comparison.

I’ll bet you’re wondering whether I’mgoing to move FrameMaker over to the

Rice Rocket to see if it loads as well.Hell, no. I’m going to wait for therelease, get a review copy, and thendrive their support staff crazy—noteven going to tell ‘em I’ve got a RiceRocket. Let them figure out what’swrong with my configs and inis. Maybethey’ll even get Ventura running on theCUI in the process. Then we’ll networkthe machines and call ‘em again.

I’ve already bugged Jim Magrish, ourWindows guru, with half a dozen calls.Now I’ll focus on the source of theproblems. Soon, everybody’s going tohave an intimate relationship with theEnd User from Hell.

Addendum: Well, after working with theWEB network—see related articleelsewhere—and fooling around with theCONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC-.BATfiles some more, both FrameMaker andVentura 4.0 finally loaded on the CUI—but Ventura was twice as slow loadingon the CUI than on the Rice Rocket. Ihad time for dinner—mine and thedogs’. Here are the key lines in theCONFIG.SYS that did the trick: (seefigures this page)

Why those lines made everything work,I don’t know, but I think it has to dowith the final change I made, reducingthe EMM from 7168 all the way to 4096.This is on a 16 MB machine, mind you.Here’s a hint for Ventura for Windows:as long as the hourglass is still show-ing, no matter how long the load istaking, Ventura is eventually going toload. Probably.

Anyway, with these settings, every-thing runs on the CUI, including theWEB network. However, I’m angryenough with FrameWork not to do arevue until the release is out. It’s likeVentura—perhaps in one too manyways.

OS/2: The Movie

By TOM IVERS

Prologue

I was sitting in the Safari Wagon, a ’79jeep J20 with no roll bar, far past itsprime, with my three dogs, Goofy, Tarand Zeke. We were out on the turfracetrack at its highest point, lookingdown into the ravine and woods, sittingquietly, except for Zeke’s tail alternatelywhapping the metal tub of the jeep andslapping wetly into Goofy’s face—he’san exceptionally tolerant dog, thatGoofy, even though he did recentlyshred the ear of brother Bill’s Buster theboxer in an altercation over a parkingspace next to a small fragment of gristle.

The sun was long down, there was nobreeze, and the frogs and the lightningbugs were providing a soothing audio/visual prelude to the impending chase.

Key Lines in Config.sys:DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\HIMEM.SYS /MACHINE: 1DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\EMM386.EXE 4096 X=B000-B7FFDEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\SMARTDRV.EXE 4096 /DOUBLE_BUFFERDOS=HIGH,UMBDEVICEHIGH=C:\WINDOWS\RAMDRIVE.SYS 2048/EDEVICEHIGH=C:\CONNECT\CONNECT.SYSDEVICEHIGH=C:DOS\SETVER.EXEFILES=40BUFFERS=30SHELL=C:\DOS\COMMAND.COM/E:1024/PSTACKS=9,256DEVICEHIGH=C:\STACKER\STACKER.COM /EMS D:\STACVOL.DSK

Key Statements in theAUTOEXEC.BAT:

C:\WINDOWS\SMARTDRV.EXE /LMD E:\TEMPSET TEMP=E:\TEMPSET TMP=E:\TEMPC:\WINDOWS\MOUSE.COM /YC:\DOS\SHARE /F:2048 /L:20



By ALAN MONAGHAN

Read the manual. Probably the threemost feared words to a normal enduser. When we drop off a newmachine to a customer, they look inawe at the stack of manuals we alsoinclude with the little boxes. Mostpeople, including myself, don’t havethat much time to read every page ofevery manual to understand howsomething works. That is where thiscolumn comes in. I am going to givelittle snippets of information thatmight have slipped by the casualreader.

My first bit of information is aboutthe DIRECTORY command, otherwiseknown as “DIR”. If you are like me,watching page upon page scroll byyour screen as you are looking for aset of files is frustrating. There is,though, a way to control that and stillnot have to type a 20 character stringat each prompt to do it. To accom-plish this, two things must be inplace.

First, you must set an environmentalvariable in your AUTOEXEC.BATfile. This is much easier than it seems.

You can use any valid combination ofDIR parameters and switches with theset DIRCMD command. For example,to use this to stop the continuousscrolling as the default format eachtime you type DIR, include thefollowing in your AUTOEXEC.BATfile:

SET DIRCMD=/P

Then, every time you type DIR, youwill get one page of information andthe screen will stop and wait for youto hit any key to continue. Prettyslick if you ask me . . . .

Another small problem is finding a filein that mess called the hard drive. Ashard drives get larger and larger,finding a given file gets harder andharder. I know that there are some

Tips, Trials and Techniquesfrom the Mad Scientist

neat utilities like Norton Utilities andPC Tools out there, but you can’treally afford to buy these just to find acertain file. Well, DOS 5.0 comes to therescue again. By using the followingat the DOS prompt, a user can findany file on your hard drive.

DIR C:\ /S/B | FIND “COM” | MORE

Let me explain what this does. First, Iam asking the directory command tosearch the entire hard drive startingwith the root directory and working itsway down all of the sub directories. Iam also asking the directory commandto sort these in alphabetical order.Next I am doing what is called aredirection or piping into another DOScommand named FIND. What thismeans is that the entire contents ofthe DIR command will go to theprogram FIND instead of scrollingacross the screen. The “COM” istelling FIND that I am trying to find alloccurrences of those 3 letters. Thesecould be anything you are looking for(i.e.: “AUTOEXEC” or “CONFIG” oranything else that comes to mind).The final thing I am doing is to pipe itinto the MORE command. What thisdoes is if I have more than, say, 50occurrences of this word, it will onlyfill one page at a time and then wait forme to hit the famed “ANY KEY” andcontinue. This is just for looks but itdoes help on a 300 meg hard drivesearch.

One of the other problems that DOScan help a user with is copying a lot offiles from a directory to floppies forarchiving. I do this once a year for allof my source code so I have a backupbut its not in backup form. The realproblem is when the subdirectory hasmore than 2 or 3 meg of files in it andyou want quick access to these filesbut don’t want them on the hard driveanymore. TheContinued on page 15

Mad Scientist...

Soon the deer would come tiptoeing outof the ravine to wend their way throughthe tall grass up the hill and across theturf track for their nightly visit to thepond. Already, Zeke’s tail was acceler-ating, Goofy was acknowledging thelouder smacks with a polite deep rumblein his throat, and Tar had begun heranticipatory whimper. All three weredrooling with the vision of scaring thebejeezus out of a cluster of five darkshapes now cautiously moving out ofthe dark green shadows of the trees atthe bottom of the ravine.

It was at this point that my thoughtsturned to IBM.

I’ll bet you think I’m kidding. Let meexplain. The evening safari is routinearound here. Happens every night,except in the rain. Winter, spring,summer and fall. I’m an exercisephysiologist and attack dogs must bespecifically conditioned for bullet-likeacceleration, spine snapping turns, andblind obedience. So I make my dogsstay right where they are, leaning backon their haunches and shivering withpent-up and boiling muscle glycogen,until the deer are within messyourpantsrange. Then I say, “Okay,” and theworkout begins.

So, there’s some time between firstsight and the actual ambush. With youreyes fixed on shadows you can hardlysee, moving slowly as snails for aboutfifteen minutes, you simply have to dosomething with your mind. On thisparticular night, that’s where IBM camein.

I’ve been reading some favorablepreliminary reviews of OS/2 2.0, and I’dsuggested to Jack and Bob that I do areview for the newsletter. The new

OS/2: The Movie...Continued from page 14

OS/2 requires 31MB of drive space tosettle in, so discussions had gone on asto whether I needed a third 200 meggerfor the CUI—and just how hard it wouldbe to get the machine to becomefriendly with three SCSI drives.

Bob wasn’t concerned about thescuzzies. “Tom, don’t put it on your



crash. And, of course, IBM andComputerLand would blame theproblems on “mysterious forces” ratherthan hardware and software, and you’dhave another set of guys out testingpower lines and current fluctuations,peddling your filters, UPSs, and surgeprotectors on the side.

I was there two years. The accountingsystem never worked. The System/36never talked to the PCs. And IBM andComputerLand never, ever hinted thatsomething just wasn’t right about thehardware, the software, and the humanexpertise they were selling at a premium.As I was leaving, the big boss had justbought a Compaq. Little did any of us

know that hewas in for evenbigger trouble.We thoughthe’d finally seenthe light.

The Setup

So now, having uttered the fateful wordthat launched three furry black missilesat the unsuspecting clump of white-flagged deer crossing the racetrack insublime ignorance, I fantasized aboutthe joys that would soon be mine, therewarding toil that would lift me bodilyinto the cockpit of the loftiest of IBMtechnology: OS/2 2.0. As the deerstopped dead still for an instant, thenwhirled and bolted off in five differentdirections with the Hounds of theBaskervilles in hot pursuit trailing little

Continued on page 19

OS/2: The Movie...Continued from page 15

yips of joy, my heart soared. I beganplanning an extra bedroom for Bob.

The loaner is a 386/33 clone with 8MBof RAM and a 126MB ISA hard drive—Bob was afraid that a SCSI drive wouldcomplicate matters sing OS/2’s SCSIdrivers are either imperfect or nonexist-ent at this point. The box didn’t have abrand name stamped on it, but Bob saysit’s a Rice Rocket—quite a popularbrand I guess. Anyway, it works fine.


BACKUP command will work for this,but you need to run RESTORE whenyou want a file and you are never surewhere the file really is. Well, DOS has acommand called XCOPY that will do thetrick. Type the following line in thesubdirectory that you want the files tobe saved from:

XCOPY *.* A: /M

This can be changed to suit yourparticular needs but basically what thisdoes is it will copy each file, one byone, to the A Drive and it will rememberit did the copy. When your floppy isfull, you remove that disk, put in ablank, formatted disk, and type it inagain. Do this until all the files arecopied off. Now, all of those files canbe deleted from the hard drive, and ifyou need one of the files, you can justcopy them from the floppy that theyreside on. What this does is allow theuser DOS access to the files on thefloppies and fills the floppies one byone until the entire subdirectory isdone. This is very handy for officeassistants who have a lot of correspon-dence and want to keep the originals onfloppy for reference.

software and hardware as Goofydelicately and deftly placed four smallincisions in Zeke’s left semitendinosusand things got real quiet inside thesafari wagon. Zeke always takes hispunishment quietly, never complaining,never explaining.

I once worked for a $10M racehorsetraining operation that was a True Blueoperation. I guess most of you are tooyoung to remember what True Bluemeans. It means that you buy all IBMequipment and then build a small villagefor the IBM techs and systems engi-neers—and their expanding families,who will have to move in to get thesystems up and keep them running.This outfit had aSystem/36 andhalf a truckloadof PC XTs andATs scatteredaround thefacility. The ideawas that we’dget them all tiedtogether with theSystem/36.

This was back when IBM ATs wererunning at 8 MHz, and only the bosseshad them. Compaq was building hotmachines but was having troublecracking True Blue organizations. Oursupplier was ComputerLand, and therewas no truer blue retailer thanComputerland at the time. So on anygiven day we had half a dozen three-piece suits wandering around ponder-ing and pontificating and crashingsystems—I learned all my good stufffrom them!

The sophisticated IBM software I’mtalking about was an accountingpackage that would do everything—that is, if you ever got it running. Itworked like this: you bought thesoftware at a phantasmagoric price,hired an accountant and a softwareengineer to get the package installedproperly for your business, and then,weekly, IBM would send out 20 disks ofbug fixes that required a completereinstall. Not infrequently, the bug fixeswere themselves buggy and would getmidway through an install and then

working machine. Are you reallyinterested in completely rearrangingyour life for a couple of months?” Hethought it might be better if he broughtout a loaner clone and let me play withOS/2 on a machine I could blow updozens of times without interfering withmy work. So that’s what we decided.

I told Bob to make sure he brought thedisks and the docs for OS/2. “Oh, youwant the complete installation experi-ence,” he said, as if I were talking aboutchemotherapy or something akin. Bob,what do you think I am, some kind ofdilettante? I want to get my hands dirty,touch and taste, give my readers thereal view from the street.

Flashback

So I was thinking about my previousexperiences with IBM and complex

I want to get my handsdirty, touch and taste, givemy readers the real viewfrom the street.



NeXTINTRODUCING

Why NeXT?By JACK IVERS

It is 11:52 p.m. on a Saturday night inlate July. I’m too fired up to sleep. I’lltry to burn off some of my excessenergy by writing about the source ofmy restlessness: NeXT.

Why am I fired up tonight? Goodquestion. Hell, we’ve been a NeXTdealer for 60 days already, and I’vebeen “excited” about NeXT for evenlonger. But tonight I invested 59minutes and 39 seconds watching avideotape—Keynote Presentation,NeXTWORLD Expo, 1/23/92. Someguy named Steve Jobs presenting.Talking about NeXT in general, andNeXTstep 3.0, which will be shippingby the time you read this.

I’m not easily impressed. I tend to hosedown new ideas with mental ice water,just to see what crawls shivering fromthe deluge. Not a real popular habitamong my MarketWare co-workers, butit does cut through the bullshit.

But this NeXT stuff is unbelievable.Astonishing. Mind boggling. And it’sreal—we’ve talked to NeXTstep 3.0beta testers who say it’s the most solidpiece of beta code they’ve ever seen.Having seen this video, I’m no longersurprised that the president of a majorcorporation based in Cincinnati—andthis guy is not a tech-head—is makingcopies of the tape to spread the gospelof NeXT among his peers.

The future is a little scary. NeXTstep3.0 hits, say, in late August. The NeXTcolor printer becomes available at thesame time. NeXT’s 10:1 developmentadvantage is also kicking in—super-powerful NeXT-based applications in

critical market niches are arriving indroves—new products like RightBrain’s PasteUp publishing package,and updates like Boss’ DocumentManager 2.0. Throw in NeXTstep486—due out before year-end—andyou’ve got an explosion coming.Windows can NT itself, Apple canQuadra all over the place, Sun can hot-glue sound boxes to theirSPARCstations. All of these playerswill survive and even thrive, but itwon’t make any difference. Software isthe key, and NeXTstep is two to threeyears ahead of everybody.

NeXT is about to become a major playerin the computer universe. How major?To answer that question, you need toknow a little about NeXT—the com-pany, I mean.

NeXT consider itself a softwarecompany that also happens to makegreat hardware. NeXT’s automatedfactory (see another video, The Ma-chine That Builds the Machines) givesthem an extremely low cost of manufac-turing. Their NeXTstation systems aresignificantly less expensive thancomparably-powerful Sun and Macin-tosh products. But NeXTstep is whatreally sets NeXT apart, and NeXTstepis independent of the NeXT hardwareplatform. In fact, Open Systems Todayrecently touted NeXTstep as a darkhorse in the successor-to-DOS-and-Windows race—a race that includesheavy-hitters like Windows NT, OS/2,SCO UNIX, and UnixWare. IfNeXTstep grabs even a modestpercentage of this marketplace, NeXTComputer, Inc. will be a very successfulcompany.

So how major a player is NeXT likely to

become? My guess is somewherebetween an important niche player andthe next Apple. A pretty wide range,admittedly, but there it is.

Got 59 minutes and 39 seconds tospare? Give us a call, we’ll get you acopy of the Keynote Presentationvideo. Also worth viewing: NeXT vs.Sun: A World of Difference. This 20-minute video shows a real-life program-ming showdown between NeXTstepand Sun’s OpenLook-based develop-ment environment. This video does anexcellent job of answering the question:Why is NeXTstep such a high-produc-tivity development environment?

If you’re really interested, come to ourOctober seminar. You’ll get to see TylerGingrich, a Certified NeXT Evangelist(this is a new flavor of CNE . . .),present NeXTstep: Objects in Action.

Publisher's Note: I intended to publishthis issue of MarketWire on one of ourNeXT machines, but all of them wereout at customer sites serving asdemonstration machines. As I writethis, I am about half way throughpublishing this document usingWindows 3.1 and PageMaker 4.0 on aDOS 5.0 386/25. I've run into severalproblems that I know a NeXT computerwould have inherently solved.

First, all of our text was written inMicrosoft Word for Windows version2.0a. PageMaker 4.0 can't import thesefiles. I had to save files in 5 differentformats from Word for Windows to findone that PageMaker liked. Even theWordPerfect import didn't work (the



NeXT Dementiafault could have been with PageMaker,or Word for Windows export).

Second, I wanted to scan and importsome TIFF image files. I scanned theNeXT logo using an HP Scanjetscanner—it came out a little fuzzy, so Ihad to install a good editor (the onewith the HP isn't very good) so that Icould smooth-out the rough edges. Iinstalled Logitech's Ansel, because Iremembered it has a nice "smoothing"function. No luck. You can onlysmooth a rough edge on an imageoriginally scanned by a ScanManhand-held scanner—they must put alittle extra something in the file format.The scanner is sitting in front of me, itscables all wadded up in a ball,reminding me of the last time I used itand couldn't get a staight edge on thething to save my soul. Even if I wantedto use it, I would have to rip mymachine apart, install the card, and re-do my memory configuration. I'drather write this and complain aboutit.

Anyway, I then thought that I wouldconvert the TIFF image into anEncapsulated Postscript (EPS) file.Since EPS files are vector-based, theysmooth themselves when you re-sizethem. Because the original is so large, Icould shrink or stretch the image andit would retain the detail. HP's TIFF toEPS save made a huge EPS imagewhich made PageMaker barf when it'Placed" or imported it. Same sort ofthing with Ansel and Picture-eze—theconversions worked, but gave Page-Maker no screen images—I had noidea what the image was. Ah,CorelDraw would do what I wanted. Icould use its "trace" feature to read theTIFF and save it as EPS. I own a copyof it, and its already installed on mynetwork. I should be able to just clickand... Blamm! It blows up telling methat my WIN.INI needs a few thousandCorel modifications before it will work.

If I had my NeXT machine, convertingTIFF to EPS is a function built into thesystem. I could have said "Save thisTIFF image as an EPS" and been donewith it. Furthermore, I could have

By BOB FUGE

NeXTstep+ NeXTstation+ Document Manager+ FrameMaker

= Nice

First let me introduce each productindividually. The NeXTstation is acomputer that was designed from theoutset to be part of a high-perfor-mance, highly-connected workplace.The NeXTstation includes a fast 25MIPS processor, high-performance/high-resolution video, and 10MbpsEthernet, all built-in. The mostpowerful thing about theNeXTstation, though, is not hard-ware—it’s NeXTstep, theNeXTstation’s object-orientedoperating environment. NeXTstep isbased around the powerful MACHUNIX kernel, and therefore providestrue virtual memory multitasking.With the NeXTstation / NeXTstepcombination, you are connected toresources that are part of the networkwith the multitasking power of theUNIX operating system on a worksta-tion.

Now enter workgroup computing.Workgroup computing is the powerof two or more people being con-nected to each other’s work environ-ment and its content. The work thatyou do is connected in such a waythat any other members of yourworkgroup become aware of it. TheNeXTstation is the platform themakes this connectivity a reality.

Document Manager from Boss Logicis a document management packagedeveloped initially on the NeXT.Why initially on the NeXT? Theanswer is simple. With objectoriented programming and theNeXTstep operating system, imple-mentation was the fastest. With atrue multitasking operating, the

NeXTstation has the power to runsuch a feature-rich product. With theworkstation of the future ready today,it was a natural step. What doesdocument management do? Well,imagine working as a member of adocumentation team. You areresponsible for the product introduc-tion section of the documentation.There are four illustrations thatsomeone else is doing for you. WithDocument Manager in use, you arenotified automatically when thedrawings are ready for you. As youmake changes to your work, noticesof your changes are sent to the teamleader. As the finished document isassembled, a voting system isautomatically handled by DocumentManager with voting monitored bythe team leader. Workgroup process-ing in operation.

FrameMaker is a full-featured pagelayout software which integrates aWYSIWYG word processor withgraphics, tables, equations editing,spell checking, conditional text, andstructured document tools.FrameMaker adheres to the NeXTstepDesktop Environment so userinterface looks and feels like anyother application on the NeXTcomputer.

Now, put this all together. Because ofNeXTstep, FrameMaker integratesseamlessly with Document Manager.This seamless connection enablesyou to change a frame document andupon closing the document goautomatically into Document Man-ager for document check-in. ThenDocument Manager will do theautomatic notification as required byyour document management settings.In addition to the Document Mangerconnection, you can use NeXTmail tomail FrameMaker documents withinyour office or between cities. Youcan also access NeXT’s DigitalWebster and Thesaurus from within

Continued on page 18

NeXT Dementia...



copied the file across the network tomy Novell File Sever, onto a MACdiskette, or to a DOS diskette,without adding anything special,such as LAN cards and drivers, MACor DOS diskette drives, to thesystem—the machine just comes thatway out of the box. Better still, allapplication software on the NeXTplays together. There is no "I hopePageMaker can place this new filetype" phobias. Every application canread and deal with any otherapplication's data. If I write inWordPerfect, I can take that text andput it into anything. The applica-tions don't need translation utilities.The NeXT computer does all of thatfor you.

Our next newsletter, I swear, will bedone on a NeXT computer. I'll put itto the test and let you know how itgoes. -Bob Ivers


FrameMaker documents, check nativeFrameMaker documents into DigitalLibrarian for keyword access, voiceannotate your documents using NeXTSound Kit and fax copies of yourFrameMaker document directly from theprint menu. All this may have hap-pened while other tasks where takingplace on the NeXTstation. What acombination.

NeXTstep Release 3.0 Notes

The NeXTstep Operating system is apremier graphical user interface anddevelopment environment for deliveringpowerful, integrated applications. Itsobject-oriented architecture not onlymakes creating custom applicationseasy, but also allows for quickerdelivery of significant new systemsoftware features.

Some of the details:

Novell client and AppleTalk client

capabilities for file and printeraccess

MS-DOS and Macintosh filesystem compatibility

NeXTlinks - sharing informationbetween documents

PostScript Level 2

ISDN Networking

Pantone Color

Multimedia compression

Support for NeXT, PostScript andseveral non-PostScript printers

Database Kit bundled for Oracleand Sybase

3D Graphics Kit based of Pixar’sRenderMan standard

Distributed objects enablingmessaging in other applications oron other computers

A graphical object editor forbuilding applications—InterfaceBuilder

Tools for storing, indexing andretrieving record-based informa-tion—Indexing Kit

Phone Kit with object classesinterfacing with analog telephoneservice and ISDN

NeXT Demo Software Update

Our collection of NeXT-based softwarepackages increases daily. Here is acurrent list:

Contact Manager from Boss Logic

Create from Stone Design

DataPhile from Stone Design

Draw from Appsoft

Document Manager from BossLogic

Electrofile from Economic InSight

FrameMaker from Frame Technol-ogy

Illustrator from Adobe

Improv from Lotus

OnDuty from Digital Instrumenta-tion Technology

PasteUp from RightBrain Software

Pixel Magician from Baachus

SoftPC from Insignia

Touch Type from Adobe

WordPerfect from WordPerfect

WriteNow from Appsoft

Technical Bits and Neat Pieces

Objective Technologies is shipping OTIProvide which lets you grab data fromSybase databases and stick it intoLotus Improv spreadsheets.

With the release of NeXTstep 3.0 willcome the connection to the NeXT ColorPrinter. This is a 360 x 360 dot-per-inch(dpi) printer with letter size up to 11" x17" utilizing PostScript Level 2. AnyPostScript font available on the NeXTcomputer is available for printing on theNeXT Color Printer, even in color. Thecolor ink cartridges are individuallyinterchangeable enabling you to replaceonly the cartridge that has beenexpended. I have seen output from thisprinter, outstanding!

SONG has come alive, SouthwesternOhio NeXT Group has been formed.Steve Mann of the IRS is President, BobFuge is secretary/treasurer, and ScottFrondorf of Sencorp is ProgramChairman with Tyler Gingrich ofSoftware Clearing House as TechnicalAdvisor. The meetings are held at 6:00p.m. on the third Tuesday of everymonth and are hosted at theMarketWare offices. You do not haveto own or use a NeXT computer toattend. A good opportunity to learnmore about the NeXT in a non-salescontext.

With a 21" color monitor, the work areacan be scaled to the size of a 8 1/2" by11" page. When you are working withpage layout, you can just hold thecurrently printed part against the newwork on the screen for a look-see.(Thank you Dan!)

Publish magazine in their August issuestated that RightBrain Software’sPasteUp page layout program has



DOS 5 was installed, as was theWindows A20 handler.

OS/2 2.0 comes in 16 3 1/2" disks(counting the installation disk) alongwith another five printer disks—installing any single printer meansswapping out three or four of the printerdisks, because OS/2 evidently needs allsorts of files to get a printer running.You let the computer boot to the OS2installation disk—which meant that Ihad to pop the top and exchange floppycables, making the 1.2 drive “B” and the1.44 drive “A.”

Now, Rick had told me some thingsabout installing OS/2 and I’d writtenthem down and promptly forgottenthem. Unfortunately, when I got home Icleaned out the pockets of my jeans—those annoying wads of paper hadmade the trip home uncomfortable. Ofcourse, except for the money, I emptiedall the contents into the kitchen garbagecan, and, of course, Edie doesn’t likestuff in the kitchen garbage can, so that,by the time I needed Rick’s info, it hadbeen completely processed out to thelarge trash cans in the garage and therewas a huge thunder storm raging—Ihad to operate on intuition alone. (Yes, Ido operate my computers in a lightningstorm—don’t you? Sure you do.)

You see, there are no real documentswith OS/2. A couple of pamphlets. Allthe real info is built into the system—ahuge text-base of important hints thatyou have access to when the system isup and running. By then, you’vealready made several installationmistakes—but I didn’t know that. All Isaw was the beautiful blue and whiteIBM logo appear on the screen—a sight

greater ease-of-use than PageMakerand the fine precision of Quark XPress,and should gobble up a huge chuck ofthe NeXT installed base.

Image processing and photo editingshops would be interested to know thatAppsoft will be shipping their Imagephoto retouch software shortly.

My NeXT Conversion

Let me set the stage for this process.Before I was introduced to the NeXTComputer, I was a strong supporter ofcustom programming in the DOSenvironment. I wrote programs incompiled dBASE code (Clipper). To me,programs are tools for the user. Pro-grams are not an end unto themselves.Therefore the user interface is veryimportant to me. I would spend extratime coding the program so that theuser would feel comfortable using theprogram. The user would be able tounderstand what to do next just bylooking at the screen or a list ofpossible functions. While to me theinterface was very important, to the userthe interface should taken for granted.

My first look at the NeXT Computerwas an hour long introduction to all ofits functions and features in summary.It looked interesting, but. The persongiving the presentation talked aboutobject oriented programming using thiswonderful graphical user interface asbeing the heart of the operating systemcalled NeXTstep. He went on to saythat not only did the system have thisgreat way to program but also theoperating system itself was writtenusing the same tools. Yeah, but how toyou program using this graphical userinterface? Where does all this code thatI am used to doing fit in? The presenta-tion was over and I did not understandwhat made this computer and itsoperating system so great. So much forthe first exposure the NeXT.

I kept saying to myself, “But how do Iwrite the code, where is the program?”So I borrowed a system over a weekend.I started playing with the system after a15 minute driver training course justbefore I walked out the door on thatFriday night. Well, the weekend with

computer made me feel comfortable withthe graphical user interface. But still, IAM a programmer and I do not see howI can use this thing to do my thing. Theweekend almost felt like a fling and nomore. Back the computer came and tome nothing had changed.

Then the “drink from the fire hose”, theMini Developers Camp. This eventmade the change and caused theconversion. I saw the light, possiblyanother doomed programmer has beensaved. What am I trying to say? First,the Mini Developers Camp was con-ducted by Tyler Gingrich, who hasworked with and programmed NeXTComputers for almost three years. Hepresented to me and several otherskeptics for three days the missingpiece . We wrote six programs. Whilethey were simple, they did look just likethe commercial shrink-wrapped ones.Why did the program user interfaceslook the same? We both used this neatNeXTstep operating system and theNeXT computer.

My conversion has taken place, I havebeen saved. I now see how easy it is toprogram with this great interface andoperating system. It has taken me sometime and varied looks to see what theNeXT Computer is. To see it, you mayhave to go through the same process. Ithink the time is worth spending if youwould like to truly know what the NeXTcomputer can do—especially theprogramming capabilities.

See Us At Info ExpoMarketWare will be represented at this year’s Business Expo / InfoExpo, held at the convention center 9/30 and 10/1. We’ll be in booths435 and 437, right next door to the big Apple booth. We’ll bedemoing a NeXTcube with the NeXTdimension true-color videosetup—figure it’ll be a show stopper when everyone is demoing same-old same-old. Come see us and the fancy NeXT machine.



I haven’t seen since, oh, 1988, I guess.I reflexively thought, “Lord help me!”,silently recited three Hail Marys andfour Our Fathers and made a somewhatimperfect Act ofContrition. Then Ibegan followingIBM directions.

With the first diskof the 15 there is arather long wait,with a “loading,please wait”message on thescreen. You wonder if the machine hasgone to sleep. Then there’s a blinkingcursor that hangs around for a while.Then a blank screen for a while—andsuddenly, “Welcome to OS/2”. I wasbacking up my main machine at the time,so the waits didn’t bother me.

The Sting

At some point early on arrived a screenthat told me that OS/2 was unable toinstall the Dual Boot feature becausethe shell statement in the DOSCONFIG.SYS files was incorrect ormissing. It gave me changes to make inboth the CONFIG.SYS andAUTOEXEC.BAT files. (After I madethose changes and tried the Dual Bootoption, bootup hung when the machinecouldn’t find the command interpreter. Ihad to get a DOS boot disk and copythe COMMAND.COM file into thedirectory I had specified has containingit—C:\DOS—while following IBM’srewrite instructions. Anyway, I had toreinstall all of OS/2—by then, my mainmachine had backed up 400MB ofsoftware and was waiting for furtherinstructions.

Anyway, after that disappointingmessage, OS/2 spent a long, long timedigesting its own system files beforebeginning to transfer files from diskette2 of 15. At diskette 5, it rebooted.Then it asked if I wanted to install thewhole ball of wax or just selectedoptions. Hell, I wanted the totalexperience. Diskettes 6 through 15 gaveme enough time to drink a couple ofPepsis and Windex my main computer’sscreen—it was starting to look like the

safari jeep’s windshield. I tried Pepsiingthe screen first, but that didn’t work—made things worse, actually. ThankGod I’m giving you these hints so that

you don’thave tomakethesekinds ofcomput-ingmistakes.

At theend of the

process, OS/2 asked if I wanted tomigrate applications, install a devicesupport diskette, configure Win-OS/2desktop, and/or migrate CONFIG.SYS,and AUTOEXEC.BAT. I’m using Win3.1 and OS/2 2.0 has only the Win 3.0kernel with it, so I decided not to playwith applications or the desktop for thetime being. I did migrate CONFIG.SYSand AUTOEXEC.BAT, though—don’task me why. Maybe I was thinking thatthe Dual Boot option would be madeavailable if I migrated those. Nope.Crashed again. Reinstall OS/2.

On this install, I decided that since I’dalready installed everything once and itwas all over there in my C: drive waitingto be awakened by the appropriateCommand Interpreter, there was no usegoingthrough allthose disksagain. So Iselected theminimalconfigura-tion—andIBM led methough all16 disksagain!

On a previous install, I’d put in place anApple LaserWriter printer because myTruepoint card called for a genericPostScript printer interface withWindows and other programs. But myTruepoint card was in the main machine,running into the HP Series II throughthe video port. I figured I could haveboth computers hooked up to theprinter if I ran the parallel interface to

the Rice Rocket. So I attempted toinstall a PCL driver. Unfortunately, bythat time, I had misplaced PrinterDiskette 3—one of four vital Diskettesfor the installation of a PCL driver.

So, halfway through setting up theprinter, I got locked into a dialog withOS/2: “put in Diskette 3.” “Sorry, can’tfind it.” “Put in diskette 3, please!”“What can I tell you—it’s gone!” “Putin diskette 3, you cretin.” “Listen, canwe just forget installing the printer forthe time being?” “Sure, look up in theInfo Directory how to back out of thissituation.” “But I’ll have to back outbefore I can look it up.” “Put in diskette3, moron—go look for it, it’s probably inthe garage garbage with the rest of yourbrains.” “I’m going to pinch your headoff [CtrlAltDel]”.

Held down the Alt/F1 during the bootand, yippie, that wonderful OS/2 logopopped up and the program began toload—I went for breakfast. When I gotback, OS/2 had already loaded! Notonly that, but it brought me right backto the menu that I’d gotten into troublewith—the printer install. Luckily, I’dfound the Printer 3 diskette—and hadwiped off most of Zeke’s drool, so I wassure it would work despite the halfdozen toothmarks. Sure enough, I gotthe PCL driver loaded—but the Apple

LaserWritericon stillappears inthe main OS/2 screen—I’ll probablynever printfrom theRice Rocketanyway.

The Chase

So on to the documentation, rewritingthe boot files, and copying theCommand.com into the DOS directory.First, README. It seems that while“IBM performed the most comprehen-sive testing ever done on any versionof OS/2,” including “extensive DOS,Windows, and OS/2 applicationcompatibility validation in addition tostress, usability, and performance

Diskettes 6 through 15 gaveme enough time to drink acouple of Pepsis and Windexmy main computer’sscreen...

“Put in diskette 3, moron--golook for it, it’s probably in thegarage garbage with the rest ofyour brains.”



testing” there are a “few useful tips andtechniques that might be helpful inspecific situations.” More than 90screensfull of useful tips. I’m going tostart reading . . . see you in a couple ofdays.

All told, there are about two megs ofhelp and readme files that come withOS/2—all very well organized andindexed, but quite terse—you have tolook around for a complete answer tomost questions. And you’re lookingthrough the equivalent of two fatnovels. The OS/2 screens are notintuitive—that is, you can’t just playwith the system and come up with allthe basic operations.

For example, OS/2 is nothappy at all when yousimply hit the switch toturn off the computer. If,after having done so, youturn it back on and fail tohold down Alt/F1, OS/2retaliates by scramblingitself, necessitating acomplete reinstall. I’ve backed my C:drive onto a tape, because after aboutseven installs, those 20 or so disks looklike a stack of dirty dishes—from nowon, I’ll just reload the whole drive fromtape. It’ll take less time and I can workwith the main box while that’s going on.

Anyway, Rick had to tell me about Alt/F1 and I spent an hour trying to figureout how to actually shut down thesystem in a way that pleased OS/2.What you do is right-button-click on anempty part of the screen and a pop-upoffers a “Shutdown” choice. I don’tknow if OS/2 1.x was this sensitive, but Iknow that shutting down IBM main-frames and minis is a rather rigorousroutine that probably includes unscrew-ing all the office lightbulbs by hand andemptying the trash before you throwthe ultimate switch. OS/2 turns off thelights by itself, but one at a time—shutdown takes a while.

The Shootout

The Dual Boot option works like this:you boot into, say, OS/2. Then you goto the “Command Prompts” folder in theOS/2 System icon-thing and select Dual

Boot. At that point OS/2 asks if youreally want to do such a daring thing,you answer yes, and the machinereboots into DOS from the C: drive.When you want to reboot into OS/2,you type: BOOT /OS2 at the c: promptand the machine reboots back into OS/2. Some programs will require that youdo this (see later).

My problem was that I’d altered acouple of the wrong CONFIG.SYS andAUTOEXEC.BAT files and they’re stillout there bothering my machine—didsome renaming and such. The DualBoot option does some renaming of itsown, and after so many installs, I had alot of extra configs and autoexecs laying

around. Still getting “unrecognizedcommand in config.sys” as I write.

In fact, I fooled around a little morebetween this paragraph and the last andnow nothing boots but my A: DOS bootdisk—OS/2 gets all the way to its mainscreen, then drops out to a DOS c:prompt. I’ve tried my faithful tapebackup and I get “file creation error” onthe key files in the root directory. Somuch for backups, Jack!! Now I knowwhat clustermuck means.

Looks like another install of OS/2 isgoing to be necessary. (How many isthis? I forget.) This time, though, I’mgoing to erase all the files having to dowith OS/2 throughout the hard drive.Several of them are protected, butPathminder lets me crash that barrier.OS/2 is going to walk me through thewhole pile anyway—might as well makeit work for a living, too. Anyway,Letterman is on the little 5-inch TV, sothe reload will be painless—imagine,though, that I was on a network withthis program on the file server.

Okay, I’m reinstalled—with the Series IIas the printer, no less! Now I’m goingto see exactly what OS/2 does to the

DOS config and autoexec files. Call upa DOS session, run Pathminder and—hey, the DOS stuff is gone from the rootdirectory! All those other configs andautoexecs must have been the results ofthe multiple OS/2 installs. Aha! They’redown in a OS2/SYSTEM/ subdirectoryunder AUTOEXEC.DOS andCONFIG.DOS.

I’m temporarily out of ideas as to howto crash the system next, so let’s go onwith the review.

Blood and Guts

So the learning curve is steep and slowfor OS/2. And the operating systemdoes take over both your machine and

your life. You’re going tohave to dig out proce-dural info for every littlemove you want to make.The procedures aresomewhat klugy—three-key holddowns at certainspecific times duringbootup. And the resultscan be nasty. The Alt/F1

trick, for example, erases any desktopcustomization you’ve done and bringsyou back to the original default installa-tion desktop. This is not a very friendlyprogram. It’s very easy to get into big,lifestyle-altering trouble. I can’t imagineany but the tightest company shipattempting to navigate OS/2 waters—you think Windows 3.1 is tricky tosetup and maintain on a network? Hah,you ain’t seen nothin yet.

Take printers. In Windows, you can setup a lot of different printers and, fromwithin any application, choose the oneyou want to print to—Windows loadsthe appropriate drivers and you’re off tothe races. The OS/2 README sug-gests, “If you are going to install the HPLaserJet printer driver over an existingdriver, be sure to delete all the old*.FNT files FIRST.” Isn’t that conve-nient?

There are other complications. AnyWindows 3.1-specific programs will notrun in OS/2 at this time. Any programsthat use Windows Enhanced mode willnot run—just Standard and Real modeprograms. Don’t exceed 9600bps in

The procedures are somewhat klugy--three-key holddowns at certain specifictimes during bootup.



DOS communications. Several faxprograms and boards contain timing“sensitivities” that confound OS/2.Some programs require full-screensession, others must run in a “specific-DOS” or DOS booted session. Win-dows programs can’t start DOSsessions.

Pagemaker, Persuasion, Arts & Letters,Autocad DOS and OS/2, PC Tools 7.1,Corel Draw, dBase IV, Designer,Fastback Plus, Formbase, Form Pub-lisher, Framework III,Harvard Graphics forWindows, Harvard Draw,Intel SatisFAXtion,LANtastic, Laplink III,Lotus 123 for Windows,Lotus Freelance, LotusMagellan, Mathematica,Microsoft Excel 2.1 (DOS),Microsoft Excel 3.0 (OS/2),Microsoft Excel 3.0 (Windows), NortonBackup, Utilities 5.0, and Desktop,Paradox 3.5, Peachtree Complete III,Perform Pro, PFS: First Choice, PFS:WindowWorks, Photostyler, PublishersPower Pack, Quattro Pro 3.0, Quickenfor Windows, SideKick, Soft Term,SoundBlaster, Windows MultimediaExtensions, Winfax Pro, WordPerfectfor Windows, WordPerfect Office, XtreePro Gold: all these applications and araft of games and programmingpackages require special attention,will not work, or have some featuresthat will not work or may crash thesystem.

Otherwise we’ve got “better DOS thanDOS” and “better Windows thanWindows,” as far as IBM is concerned.And remember, every time you reinstall,all the alterations you’ve made willprobably have to be made again. If Iknow IBM the way I think I do, thesenotations in the README file representcomplaints that workarounds have beendeveloped for—other complaints will be“nonexistent” until IBM developsworkarounds for them as well. I wonderhow OS/2 likes Ventura Publisher, forexample. Or, for that matter, Novell—when the drivers finally come out. OrWindows 3.1.

OS/2 isn’t as fast as proclaimed early

on—Windows 3.1 beats it and DOSprograms running in straight DOS aresignificantly faster (these facts fromseveral tests performed by other, moreprofessional, reviewers). Many hi-resvideo drivers are going to have to berewritten for OS/2. And there areprobably hundreds of problems wehaven’t even heard of or encounteredyet.

Aftermath

OS/2 does offer true multitasking andcould bring a lot of power to standaloneand networked systems alike. But nowis not the time, my friends, unless youwant to become an OS/2 guru by livingthrough the growing pains right alongwith IBM and every software andhardware vendor who must find a wayto cooperate with the operating system.For the most part, you’re going to bethe unpaid R&D lab.

The power of OS/2 won’t truly berealized until a raft of OS/2 applicationsare out there bug-free—three softwaregenerations from now. That is, if OS/2doesn’t get stopped in its tracks byother events.

For example, there’s Windows NTcoming up soon, with IBM left out inthe cold on that one. And then, if youreally want a sophisticated computerand operating system, you just might bemoving to a NeXT or to NeXTstep ‘486before IBM is able to get its acttogether. The NeXT is a wonder, so far.And Novell is fooling around withoperating systems—UnixWare could bea player.

I’m not going to leave you hanging,though. I fought my way throughWindows 3.0 and 3.1 and I’m going tohave it out with OS/2 2.0-2.5 as well.It’s my job. One after the other, I’m

going to start “migrating” applicationsacross just to see what happens. Sostay tuned. Just to be perverse, I thinkI’ll try Ventura for Windows first. And,hey, how about Stacker??!! See if I cancook this Rice Rocket.

On the other hand, somebody is goingto do 32-bit computing right someday,and OS/2 might just be the answer. Ifyou can eventually harness its power,and if IBM can clean it up to the extentthat it is stable and fail-safe, you’ll have

mainframe power combinedwith PC ease-of-use. Afterall, hardware is no longer thebottleneck—power is gettingcheap in hardware. We needa new operating system totake advantage of it. OS/2may eventually rise abovethe competition.

Everybody I know who’splaying with OS/2 is putting it on asecond machine—they’re justifiablyscared to death of it. That’s what Iwould recommend. In this review Ididn’t even get into OS/2’s high speedfile system—one that replaces DOS’sFAT table. Probably could have writtenfour more pages if I had.

Approach with caution—this dog bites!

Into the Sunset

Goofy, Tar and Zeke are out there onthe lawn staring at the huge (head’sbigger than my fist) snapping turtle wepulled, dead, out of the pond’s overflowpipe last night. But they keep glancingup at the front door to see if it’s time forsafari. It is, I’m afraid. The sun’sloafing on the horizon and everything’sgetting real green with an orange glow.Time to forget about IBM. Time forsome living.

VARBy TOM IVERS

We were in Friendship, Indiana havinglate lunch at the Friendship Inn—Bobdrinking Miller Light, me Budweiser,and Jack Diet Coke. We’d walked thehuge flea market back and forth, lookingfor our buddy, Russ, who was sup-



posed to be there selling his throw-away guns, raising money for a coupleof Golden Chickens—high-gradeBrowning skeet guns. This was beforewe’d found Russ, strapped the large,bloating snapping turtle I’d harvestedfrom the pond a few days before (SeeOS/2: The Movie) onto the front of thegolf cart and drew the curious frommiles around as Russ piloted us fromone gun vendor to the next, checkingprices and leaving a lingering, distinc-tive scent at each competing booth.

The subject was, would you believe it,computers. We were marveling over thechanges underway in the PC world.Competing chip makers giving Intel arun for its money and beginning a newrevolution in PC motherboards. Newconcepts like Local Bus Video (not yetready for prime time), optical technol-ogy, and RAID disk arrays. The NeXTwith its wondrous new technology andNeXTstep operating system about to beported to AT-bus PCs. OS/2 andWindows NT, and Novell 4.0 (going tobe a real big deal).

I was asking Jack, “Which way do youthink it’s going to go? Who’s going towin this war?”

His answer: “It doesn’t matter to us.”

“What?” I was thinking asan traditional retailer—youhad your product lines, GE,Whirlpool, IBM, RCA,Sony, Ford—and you livedor died with the capabili-ties of your franchisedmanufacturer to keep upwith the times. It was likethat in the computerindustry to begin with,when there was just IBMand Apple and a few odd-ball, off-standard manufacturers. But thesedays, thanks to open architecture,retailers like MarketWare, and ourcustomers, can have access to the bestof the new technology instantly. Brandloyalty is ephemeral—witness IBM andCompaq—while just a couple of yearsago, an IBM or Compaq franchiseagreement was worth a great deal ofmoney, today, both are struggling tostay alive in the PC business and their

franchisees are now selling a variety ofmachines, looking for the best value atthe best price.

Value is the key word, here. Themarketplace considers MarketWare tobe a Value Added Reseller (VAR). Morespecifically, we’d be considered a LANVAR, because our principal value to ourcustomers is our knowledge of how toengineer and install network systems.

When Jack and Bob began the busi-ness, MarketWare was named after asoftware product they’d written, acontact manager akin to ACT, but moresophisticated. In order to stay alivewhile polishing the software product,they began selling PCs and peripheralsand were lucky to get Everex early inthat company’s rise in the PC world.Somewhere along the line they came tothe conclusion that there was no moneyin being simple iron-mongers. Instead,survival depended upon being the verybest at something very complicated. SoJack pursued system engineering whileBob went to school at Novell.

MarketWare, the product, is nowintegrated into the systems atMarketWare, the company, but is nolonger a product for sale. Instead, theproduct MarketWare sells is expertise.

“As long as we stay on top of thetechnology,” Jack said over his secondCoke as I guzzled my third Bud and duginto Friendship fries—a kind of potatotempura, “it doesn’t matter who wins.We and our customers are the realwinners just so long as we know how tomake it all work.”

I had to remind myself again—we’re aVAR, not a retailer. It’s not our job topush tons of branded iron out the door;

instead, we solve customer problems bybringing the latest technologiestogether into a reliable, efficientcomputing environment. We’re acompany of specialists, each of whomcan solve problems the others can’t.Our profits come from small margins onthe hardware and software we sell andfrom service contracts and the like. Butwhat encourages our customers to dobusiness with us, more than $2 millionlast year, is the expertise we can musterin putting together complete complexsolutions for individual customers.

Under the influence, on that cool firstday of summer in Friendship, I began tomull over my own job at MarketWare.As the official End User from Hell, Iteach these guys almost everythingthey know. If I can’t crash a system,nobody can. Every minute of everyhour of every day they’re all thinking,“Now, what would Tom do to thissystem if we turned him loose on it?”“How would Tom attempt to deal withthis problem, that interface?” The BigPicture suddenly formed in my mind: I’mthe Super Glue at MarketWare, the trueorigin of the “value” in Value AddedReseller.

It’s funny. After all these years, untilthose three Buds atFriendship, I’d never reallyappreciated my owncontributions. I alwayswondered why these hotshots would bother to setup their latest boxes andsoftware at my house, whythey’d tolerate all mytelephone calls, why therewas always a smile oneverybody’s face when I’ddrop in for a chat. Now I

know. I’m an integral part of a snappy-sharp VAR. Makes me kind of proud—know what I mean?

Of course, all of you are helping, too.And we appreciate it. This Bud’s foryou!

Now I Are aNetwork Manager



By TOM IVERS

You’ll never believe it in a million years.I’m managing a network! I’ll pause hereto let that sink in.

Yes, the End User From Hell has hisown peer-to-peer WEBnetwork upand run-ning—withWindows 3.1,Stacker onboth ma-chines!, andVentura forDOS stillavailable. And with the ConnectionCoprocessor, the Truepoint card, twoColorado Jumbo tape drives, a Microtekscanner, a 9600 baud modem, and 800MB of hard drive available to bothmachines, simultaneously. It wasn’teasy, but it wasn’t a 4-24 hour-dayaffair, either.

Jack and Bob thought that even a klutzlike me could install and run the newWEB network—a rather insulting pointof view, but I took it in stride, alongwith the two 8-bit Everex NICs, thecable, and the WEB Demo software. AsI went out the door, Bob whined,“You’re not using Stacker, are you?”When I told him that Stacker was juston the Rice Rocket, he shook his headsadly. What he should have beenworried about is whether I was runningVentura, and whether those 8-bit NICswould leave me with enough interruptsto bring the whole ball of wax upwithout a meltdown (16-bit cards doublethe number of available interrupts).Anyway, the WEB network was fareasier to install and use than OS/2. AndStacker didn’t bother anybody, Bob.

But first there was the interrupt prob-lem. Usually interrupt 2 is free, but inmy case my tape drives were using it.Interrupt 5 is another likely location fornew cards, but on the CUI, theMicrosoft mouse card had that stationoccupied. These facts came to me thehard way, and a $25 tape was eatenalive by the Jumbo—didn’t matter; thebackup was from a year ago, my secondmost recent.

The solution, it turned out, was to bringthe NIC cards it at interrupt 2 on theCUI and interrupt 5 on the RiceRocket—but booting to straight DOS,then .BATting in to the network. In thatway, on the infrequent occasion of

backup, Icould godirectly to“Tape.bat”beforepopping intothe networkwith“Net.Bat”.(Actually, as

it turns out, the B: drive on the CUI getsconfused with the network interrupt setat 2—but, hey, who needs a B: drive?I’ll just switch cables and get rid of that5 1/4" drive altogether.)

Then there was Ventura’s memoryhogging problem—again solved by theseparate Net.Bat file. I can come coldinto DOS to run Ventura when it’s timeto produce my horseracing newsletter.But I had to play around a lot beforecoming to that conclusion, playingaround with DEVICEHIGH statements,remming out some excess baggage frommy Autoexec and Config.sys, playingaround with EMM memory settings,and even doing some of Rick’s tricks—using Include statements in the EMMline, like I=B000-B7FF. Boy, did I getinto trouble there.

In one instance I’d put in the above “I”statement and another, I=D000-D7FF,then attempted to boot into the newlyinstalled WEB network. The CUI nevergot past the EMM line. Instead, it wenttotally insane,forgetting itsdrives, evenrefusing to runPathminderfrom DOS afteran emergencyboot from thefloppy,claiming somefile or another was corrupted (it waslying, turns out). Since I’ve never usedEdlin in my life, I couldn’t rewrite theCONFIG.SYS to take out the offendingline. Instead I renamed my CONFIG and

AUTOEXEC to C.FU and A.FU, andfound some old .BAK files lying aroundthe C: root to resuscitate. Moved meback in time to 1991, but the machinebooted onto C:—there was even aBootcon statement in there. Man, thatwas a long time ago.

Pathminder ran after I’d corrected theEMM line, but Ventura wouldn’t. So Itook the network commands out of theAUTOEXEC and dropped them intotheir own .bat file. Ventura ran, but then,after I’d .batted in the network andpopped into Windows, none of theDOS programs would run. No mes-sages from Windows, the machine justhung. I found the trouble to be anotherpart of the EMM line—asking for 7168Kof EMS. When I dropped the request to6144, the DOS programs ran underWindows.

In a peer-to-peer setup, any machine onthe network can use any othermachine’s resources. In a client/servermode, the clients are the active ma-chines while the server just sits thereserving. Since I have only two ma-chines in my office, and limited diskspace—800MB just barely gets the jobdone here—the peer-to-peer setupseemed the appropriate way to go.Now, each of my machines has a dualpersonality—both are simultaneouslyclients and servers.

Getting Windows to run was quitesimple. I went into Setup and toldWindows I now had a network (WEBsays it’s an IBM PC LAN as far asWindows is concerned). Windowsasked me to pop in Disk 2 so it could

pick up thenetworkdriver. Butthe driver wasactually ondisk three, sothere wassome time lostthere—neverbelieve what

your computer, your software, or yourdocumentation tell you; dishonestysurrounds you in the computer world.Go by your finely honed instinctsinstead. Or call Rick or Alan or Bob or

I’m the Super Glue atMarketWare, the true originof the “value” in ValueAdded Reseller.



Jim—that’s what I do.

But I did all of this network installationon my own over the 4th of July week-end. No help at all. And I’ve got asmall miracle on my hands. I’m revolu-tionized. For one thing, I can storesome programs on the CUI, others onthe Rice Rocket, and both computershave access to all the programs. I canmove files from one machine to theother in the blink of an eye. I can use allavailable peripherals from eithermachine. I can have Windows runningWinWord on the CUI and sneak in fromthe Rice Rocket and run Corel Drawright out from under its nose—that’swithout having 20-30 MB occupied onthe Rice Rocket with a duplicate copy ofCorel. I can mail the CUI a letter: “Yourotten pig of a sand pile.” (I don’t knowwhy, but the CUI is a whole lot slowerthan the Rice Rocket, with or withoutStacker, with or without the 80387/33). Ican sneak in and alter the AUTOEXECon the CUI, bring up OHBOY on bootand give visitors a thrill.

All this while reading only a single pageof the WEB manual and another page ofthe NIC docs. But I am going to readthat WEB manual, especially the partsabout redirecting drives. Bob’s beenacting like the Maytag Repairman lately,so he needs a little stimulation from theEnd User From Hell. Wonder howredirection will work with Stacker.

Meanwhile, if your Fortune 1000company is looking for an expensive,but talented and intuitive, networkmanager, tell them that I’m now quali-fied and available. Jack and Bob aren’tin the market presently, so I’m sellingmy expertise to the highest bidder.They’ll be sorry in the long run.

(Editor’s Note: We learned after thisarticle was written that Tom Ivers hadachieved a networking first. Inextending his Web network to servicethe entire enterprise, Tom managed toget Ethernet running over TV-gradecoax cable, the best that he could findat the downtown Vevay Radio Shack.We particularly appreciated the screwconnectors. Tom can now writearticles on his downstairs La-Z-Boywhile accessing files on his upstairs

server. Our hats off to the End UserFrom Hell and his continuing efforts toredefine the state of the art.)

(Tech Staff’s Note: That Radio Shackcoax turned out not to be such a goodidea, Tom. We think it might be relatedto all those failed file copies you’vebeen having. We’re sending our bestBelden RG-58 by dogsled. Good luck.)







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