olender@sor.CS.ColoState.Edu (Kurt Olender) (04/13/90)
A few of weeks ago, I solicited remarks about what works and what doesn't work in the DOS box so I could compile a listing that might be helpful to people trying to decide if dual boot was worth the effort. If your "critical" DOS applications run just fine, then it's probably not necessary. This is more of a factor for v1.2 since the HPFS has come along. Sorry for the delay in posting my summary, but other things have come up. Thanks to Roger Pao at UCI, Alan Ballard at UBC, Richard Edelman at American University, Douglas Baer at Univerity of Western Ontario, and Michel Biedermann at University of Oregon for their comments. Following is a summary of what they and I have found. Some of these may seem contradictory, people have had different experiences. If there is a discrepancy, it may be due either to different versions of OS/2, or to the fact that some specific setup, configuration, or initialization may be required that is not obvious. In general, if it works under 1.1, it also works under 1.2, unless otherwise noted. Some of these are run on an AST, an IBM PS/2-70E61, and a Dataworld 20 MHz 386. IBM OS/2 v1.1 SE: ---------------- Works in DOS Box ---------------- Qmodem PC Paintbrush (with mouse driver from Microsoft) Microsoft Word 5.0 (no mouse in graphics mode when run protected mode) WordPerfect 5.1 LISREL (a PC stat package) PC-SPSS (another PC stat package) Most PC Magazine utilities. Doesn't Work in DOS Box ----------------------- Tornado (a TSR. Won't unload.) Gofer (another TSR) DBDRVR.BIN device driver from Disk Manager Fastback 2.01 and 2.09 DesignCAD MS Excel ChessMaster SCHEDULE.COM (PC magazine utility) SNIPPER.COM (another PC magazine utility) General Comments: ---------------- In general TSR's and device drivers have problems. EGA games are usually OK as long as you exit the game before switching back. IBM OS/2 v1.2 SE (November update) ---------------- Works in DOS Box ---------------- CED (DOS command line editor) IBM DisplayWrite 3 IBM Personal Editor (PE II) Kermit 2.32 and 3.00 (with SETCOM40) MS C 5.1 (real mode programs) MS Fortran 2.0 NCSA Telnet PC Paintbrush (w/v1.2-specific mouse driver just now available) PC Scheme 3.0 Personal TeX Quattro QuickC 1.2 and 2.0 Quicken 3.0 Tapcis interface to CompuServe TaxCut '89 TurboC 2.0 Windows 286 Doesn't work in DOS box ----------------------- IBM FTTERM (hangs system when try to unload it otherwise OK) MS Windows 386 PC Tools Plus backup/restore and disk patching utilities Zenith OS/2 1.1 SE ------------------ Won't work ---------- WordPerfect 5.1