Re: XYWRITE digest 1388

["J. R. Fox" jr_fox@xxxxxxxxxx]

Patricia M Godfrey wrote:

> Jordan: Does your OS have anything akin to Windows' Control
> Panel-->Resources listing?

Hi, Patricia. And thanx for your reply. Yes, OS/2 has something called the
Hardware Manager, but it is a status report screen only -- no modifiable
settings that are actually useful. Also, I'm told it is rather dated in its
reporting capabilities. For example, it does not detect -- or does not show
-- the resources allocated to one's NIC, or most latter day sound cards. It
is possible to run a util. called RMVIEW that can generate a textfile
offering more detail, in technicalese. But even that is incomplete. (I've
been accumulating some good DOS-based freeware utilities, and expect that one
like PCISNIFF will provide a true and complete picture.)

> Because if this kind of thing were happening
> in Win, I'd suspect a wrong driver causing a memory "conflict" for some
> board.

I don't think that's the case here, because I have very stable boot options
for two other versions of OS/2. A resource conflict would surely wreak havoc
with them as well. True, they don't have the same os kernels, but they also
aren't using these "universal" video drivers. That strikes me as too much of
a coincidence.

> Windows thinks they're living in sin or something and
> reports a conflict. Some techs say that since it's just a phantom
> conflict (it doesn't always even cause a yellow question mark),

Well, I also have two W2K partitions (replacing the two NT-4 partitions I had
previously, but still very much under construction). One of them will be a
Maintenance partition for the other. I'm finding that W2K is similar to but
far more stable and forgiving than was NT. (In Windows, such things are
strictly relative. ) Anyway, the Resources portion of Control Panel in
W2K shows *every* device using IRQ-9 !! And everything seems to be working
fine over there. So I don't know if this is another reporting deficiency,
not to be believed, or it just doesn't matter due to the design of W2K. But
I'm not getting any better info from those quarters.

> I've found that apps that date back to DOS days (and
> probably make calls direct to memory) will get confused by this setup and
> crash.

That sounds plausible. Does Xy make such direct calls ? XyDOS is working
for me in W2K, though I think there may be some unresolved configuration
issues to get it to the point where it works just the same as I've been used
to under OS/2.

>     About XyWrite being a "Windows" application or not: The yo-yos at
> Lexmark have short memories, and apparently have forgotten that there
> once was something called Windows 3.x (AKA 16-bit Windows).

The state of nearly all Tech Support today (for most anything) is appalling.
Try talking to someone at the phone or cable company about your DSL or cable
modem issues. Then, escalate your problem a couple of supervisor levels,
and hope you've reached someone slightly more capable than your average
airport security screener.

I still like the older model LexMarks. My no-longer-on-the-market Xerox C-20
-- actually a Lexmark Optra 45 inside a superior housing -- is the best
business-level inkjet printer I've ever seen. Built-in Level 2 PostScript,
takes either the appropriate Lexmark or Xerox cartridges (which last quite
awhile), wide-carriage printing, network-ready, great paper handling, and all
sorts of user control without recourse to software or drivers. I think it
originally retailed for around $800. I got it as a closeout for about $135.

Jordan