bobo@hpcvra.CV.HP.COM (Bob O'Donnell) (05/02/90)
While IBM OS/2 may not run at first on a fair number of clones, comments I have seen by people indicate that with some effort and ingenuity they have succeeded. The most common problem I have heard of (which can even block installation) is related to the keyboard BIOS. A particular AMI BIOS version which is common in many clones does not work correctly. People get this ROM replaced and solve their problem. The other more difficult issue is hard drive support. A significant number of people who have SCSI drives have discovered that the presently available versions of OS/2 do not provide support for this drive. This may improve soon since I have heard that IBM has announced a SCSI drive option for one of their machines and people say that this means that they will provide SCSI support for OS/2. I am not sure whether SCSI is sufficiently etched in stone to assure that IBM's SCSI will work with other vendors SCSI. Regarding Hercules, there seems to be no support available and little enthusiasm from Hercules to provide it. I suspect that the majority of people going to OS/2 already stepped up (?) to EGA or VGA, so providing the Hercules support was not important. Regarding hardware requirments, a good reference with regard to OS/2 1.1 is an article called "The truth about Presentation Manager" in PC Magazine, Vol. 8 No 7. It is written by Charles Petzold and talks both about the minimum requirments and the desired configuration. He says that 1Meg RAM (yes, that is what he says) can work, if no DOS compatability box is used. When I first got 1.1, I ran it with 2 Meg and it worked with no crashes, albeit slowly with lots of swapping. I now have 4 Meg and find it much more responsive. But if you are apt to be running one of the new monster apps (i.e. Lotus 123/G) people say 6 Meg begins to make sense. Finally, on the matter of upgrades to 2.0, I have seen no mention of any prices on this yet. Since 2.0 seems to offer some real benefits over 1.x, for people with 386 machines of course, I would not be surprized if there is some sort of upgrade cost and the size and pain of it is mostly in the eyes of the beholder.