langlo@ireq.hydro.qc.ca (Luc Langlois 8159) (08/24/90)
Can PCSA for OS/2 from DEC, which runs on OS/2 v1.1, also run over OS/2 V1.2 ?
This sort of info is difficult to obtain from DEC or Microsoft. If anyone has tried it, any advice would be welcome.
Thanks in advance.
********************************************************************
Luc Langlois , Institut de Recherche d'Hydro Quebec
Varennes, Que. CANADA
e-mail langlo@ireq.hydro.qc.caCCMK@latvax8.lat.oz (Mark Kosten - Computer Centre, La Trobe Uni.) (08/26/90)
In article <2592@s3.ireq.hydro.qc.ca>, langlo@ireq.hydro.qc.ca (Luc Langlois 8159) writes: > Can PCSA for OS/2 from DEC, which runs on OS/2 v1.1, also run over OS/2 V1.2 ? > This sort of info is difficult to obtain from DEC or Microsoft. If anyone has tried it, any advice would be welcome. > I have just been to a DECUS Symposium here in Australia. Paul Houle (a DEC (U.S.) developer of device drivers for PCSA for OS/2) spoke about this. He said NO! PCSA comes with Lan Manager 1.0, which requires OS/2 1.1 ONLY. MS-OS/2 1.21 (i.e. the next release which IBM will hopefully have as well) will use Lan Manager 2.0, which PCSA for OS/2 1.0 does NOT run under. A new version of LanWorks for OS/2 (server and client) will be out as soon as possible which will work under LanMan 2.0, but note he said DEC only received it from Microsoft about two weeks ago. Since I am a cynical and untrustworthy bastard I will try it anyway with OS/2 1.2 (I have only 1.0 and 1.2, so have no choice). I received PCSA for OS/2 only a couple of days ago, so watch the net for further reports. Mark Kosten, phone: +61 3 479-2767 Computer Centre, ACSnet/UUCP/Bitnet: ccmk@latvax8.lat.oz La Trobe University, X25: 234730008 (ccmk@latrobe.edu.au) Bundoora, Victoria 3083 Australia
lowey@herald.usask.ca (Kevin Lowey) (08/27/90)
From article <2592@s3.ireq.hydro.qc.ca>, by langlo@ireq.hydro.qc.ca (Luc Langlois 8159): > > Can PCSA for OS/2 from DEC, which runs on OS/2 v1.1, also run over > OS/2 V1.2 ? > This sort of info is difficult to obtain from DEC or Microsoft. > If anyone has tried it, any advice would be welcome. I thought the information here would be general enough to post a followup instead of just a mail reply. I have been using PCSA (LANWORKS) for OS/2 for about a month now and am quite happy with it. It has most of the capabilities of the MS-DOS PCSA implementation, plus a few more. These include: - SETHOST VT320 terminal emulation (sort of DEC's version of TELNET) - NFT file transfer to other DECNET nodes (sort of DEC's version of FTP) - Mail interface that runs on the PC but talks to a VMS mail server (the PC is not a mail end node, just a front end to mail on a VMS account) - Disk and File services. I can connect my VAX/VMS accounts to my PC so that they look like local OS/2 and MS-DOS disk drives. File transfers between the VAX and the PC are as simple as the PC COPY command, or I could just leave my data files on the VAX and use them directly without copying them to the PC at all. - Print services. My PC can connect to any VAX/VMS print queue and treat the printer as a local printer. I currently am connected to both a Postscript printer and an HP Laserjet series II printer. on LPT2 and LPT3, as well as my local Colorjet printer on LPT1. In addition the OS/2 version can use the multitasking features to provide services not available in the MS-DOS version of PCSA. For example, My PC is a full DECNET node. From our VAX I can say DIR ADRIFT:: and get a list of the files on the PC (assuming I have set the permissions correctly). I can also set my printer up as a print queue that can be printed to from other DECNET nodes. I have created an OS/2 .CMD file that polls our VAX every minute to see if any new mail has arrived, and notifies me if it has. These things cannot be done on MS-DOS without some kind of multitasker. I have not tried the server features as I don't have the licence for it. I've just used the client features. There are some limitations: 1) I am currently running this under IBM-OS/2 1.1 SE on a PS/2 model 60 with 6M of memory and a 40M hard disk. I originally tried it with IBM-OS/2 1.2 SE. Under OS/2 1.2, I could use SETHOST and NFT, but not the file, disk, or printer services. I am not sure if the PCMAIL program worked or not, as the VAX end of it was installed after I switched to OS/2 1.1. Some of the 1.1 device drivers for providing disk services over RS232 lines instead of Ethernet lines ended up crashing the system bad enough that I had to re-format the disk. I decided at that point to go back to V1.1 of OS/2. Everything has worked fine since then. 2) The MAIL program is not perfect. The biggest problem is that it doesn't know about aliases set up on our VAX computer. For example, we have an alias defined for our workgroup called US (user support). I can send mail to US from our VAX and everyone in our group gets a copy of the message. When I send to the user US from the PCMAIL program, not only is the message not sent, but I also get no warning that the message is not sent. Everything looks like the message was delivered. Similarly I can't send mail off campus. I can set up distribution lists used locally by the PCMAIL program, but it should use the distribution lists already in place on the VAX too. I've decided only to read mail using the PCMAIL program, and to use the VAX for replying to and sending mail. 3) The programs are all full screen applications, although they will work together in "text windows" under OS/2. Not really a bug, just an inconvenience. 4) You can have multiple SETHOST sessions running. If they are run in a full screen, then everything works fine. However, if multiple SETHOST sessions are running in more than one text window on the desktop, then the extended keyboard functions are lost. For example, when only one session is going, the "/" key on the PS/2 keypad generates the PF2 key. However, if a second window is opened, then the "/" generates a "/" and my keypad keys are lost. It stays that way until I shut down all but one of the SETHOST windows. That greatly reduces the usefulness of having SETHOST in a window. There are also no cut and paste features. What is needed is a true Presentation Manager version of SETHOST. 5) SETHOST does not provide graphics support, as it does under the MS-DOS version. 6) I can make the files on my PC disk available to other DECNET nodes as read only, write only, read/write, or no access. I can also set up usernames and passwords so that different people can get different access. HOWEVER, the access is either ALL or NOTHING. Once they get access, they have access to ALL my disk drives, and ALL the directories on those disk drives. There should be a way to provide a list of directories people can have access to, and tailor that list to individuals so that different people can access different directories. Otherwise the feature which allows access to your system from other DECNET nodes is useless. Note I'm talking about DECNET access here. I haven't tried the server capabilities where your machine can act as a server for other PC's in a LAN. That has more security features then the DECNET access. 7) One of the options for the USE command under PCSA for MS-DOS is the SETDIR option. I use that on our MS-DOS machines to do automatic backups of the hard disk. First I connect to my account on our VAX computer. Then I use the /SETDIR option to change to a temporary "WORK" directory that has a lot of disk space (but only for a few hours at a time) I use "XCOPY" to copy my hard disk onto the VAX work disk, then use NFT to submit a VAX batch job that copies the WORK disk out onto tape. This works great for the MS-DOS version of PCSA. Unfortunately there is no /SETDIR option for the OS/2 version (or if it exists it is undocumented and the syntax is different than the MS-DOS version) so I cannot automate my backups as easily. 8) The connected disks and printers DO work under the MS-DOS compatibility box just fine. Unfortunately only 394K is left out of the 640K which is not really enough for some of the MS-DOS programs I still use (like Harvard Graphics) So the answer to your question is that parts of the PCSA for OS/2 system work under OS/2 1.2 (sethost and NFT) but the file, disk, and print servers do not work. - Kevin Lowey