Subject: OS/2 2.1 Zhongwen ban

From: Marten Hiesboek <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 16 May 1994 12:28:27 +0800

Dear netters,

OS/2 2.1 Chinese is on the shelves and it does look promising. Following
IBM's latest effort to ease installation bugs and difficulties as
presented in the Chinese 0&1 BYTE of May 94, it will run not only English
Windows programs faster than Windows, but also claims unconditional and
straight compatibility with Chinese Windows programs, including input methods.

I'd like to get some feedback before I spend the NT3500 (although it is
cheap, isn't it, for 16 diskettes and 40MB on your HD).
Comments, outbursts of anger, hail and praise, and constructive critisim
appreciated. More conrete: Word 6.0, Hanin input method, Lotus Approch,
German, Spanish, French Windows versions -- how do they run on Chinese OS/2.

----------------------------------------------------------------
Marten Hiesboek
NTNU Taiwan
FAX: 886-2-363-2242 (363-0479)

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From: "Avron A. Boretz" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 16 May 1994 01:38:32 -0400

>German, Spanish, French Windows versions -- how do they run on Chinese OS/2.

Dear Marten and Fellow CCNetters:

I have OS/2 T2.1 (T for Taiwan), 3.5" disk version. I just spent the better
part of the weekend installing, fighting with, and finally deleting it from
my hard disk. I intend to reinstall it, but not as my primary operating
system. My warning to anyone considering buying it: Even if standard US OS/2
2.1 GA runs happily on your hardware, you may experience problems with the
Chinese version.

Installation is fairly straightforward (I'd previously installed OS/2 SE for
Windows) and not as bad as "16 disks" (not including drivers and add-ons)
might make it sound. The whole process takes less than an hour.

The problems begin if you want to use 3rd party *video* drivers. I have the
excellent beta OS/2 32-bit drivers for my #9 GXE card, but OS/2 T2.1 simply
wouldn't deal with them (might have something to do with screen fonts). This
entailed several hours of frustrating experimentation, repeatedly rebooting
using 2 floppies, and then restoring the original VGA drivers. Finally, I
succeeded in loading the IBM-supplied S3 video drivers, but with these I
could only run at 640X480 or 800X600, or my monitor would lose synch (my
monitor can do up to 1600X1280, and 1280X1024 at high refresh rate, and has
very wide bandwidth, so what gives?). Moreover, the refresh rate at 800X600
was unacceptable. After investing two months of my graduate student stipend
in the video card and Sony Trinitron monitor, I'm not too happy about this
state of affairs!

For the last year or so, I've been running Chinese Windows 3.1 (under DOS)
and OS/2 (English version, with Twinbridge running on top of Win-OS/2) with
beautiful results with this video system. I should note that the Windows
portion of T2.1 works fine with the #9 Windows drivers in full-screen mode.
But why not just just use plain Windows in that case?

The Chinese PM (Presentation Manager) interface is ok, the screen fonts are
acceptable (they use the Mincho typeface), and the text-mode OS/2 stuff is
actually quite well done--sort of like a 32-bit ETen or Kuochiao.
Unfortunately, only a few input methods are available, including Cangjie and
zhuyin. No pinyin input is available at this point. Maybe the cxterm and
Mule folks want to take a stab at this?

One intriguingly weird item: when you install Windows support, there is a
dialogue box with a choice of English or Chinese Windows. But the Chinese
Windows choice is greyed out. One wonders about the history of this little
glitch...

Since there is no *true* Chinese Windows under OS/2T, IBM provides an add-on
somewhat like Twinbridge (in fact, it's called "TWin"<--caps and lower case
as in the manual). The one advantage it has over Twinbridge (which I believe
you could also run in this configuration, although I haven't tried it yet)
is that it allows you to use the MS Chinese Windows TrueType fonts (or any
compatible TT fonts, presumably including the freeware TT CWIN fonts at
ifcss.org). This, and the ability to run the DBCS versions of AmiPro, Word,
Excel, etc.  is possibly what was meant in the Taiwan BYTE article by
"compatibility with MS Chinese Windows." In the settings for Win-OS2, one
can also enable or disable support for DBCS--I guess this setting enables
support for DBCS-specific programs. In any event, most of use are not using
DBCS-aware applications, just regular US applications that don't mess up
double-byte input too much... and again, input methods in this version of
Win-OS/2, as in PM, are limited. As far as I understand the architecture of
this particular way of doing things, one cannot use any of the available
CWIN input programs (e.g.,  Hanin pinyin input program for MS Chinese
Windows). Please correct me if I'm wrong about this.

All in all, I'd say that were it not for the annoying video problem, I'd be
running under OS/2 T now anyway (I've become a fan of OS/2 lately, and was
REALLY looking forward to the Chinese version). On the other hand, it seems
that this is *not* the next-generation Chinese operating system we've all
been waiting for. Hardware compatibility problems aside, OS/2 seems a
somewhat clumsy pastiche of operating and interface features. MS-Chinese
Windows, for all it's shortcomings, provides a much more aesthetically
pleasing interface, and with 3rd-party fonts and input programs, it is the
more flexible of the two.

I hate to say it--I've been a die-hard x86 person all along--but if you're
going to switch operating systems or platforms at this point, OS/2 isn't the
way to go. Get a Mac instead.

Chinese Chicago and NT (and Unicode-based OS/2T 2.2) are all due out next
year, according to an article on the nsysu gopher--but that's a long way
off, even it it's for real. For now, if you can get your hands on OS/2 T2.1
and have nothing better to do some weekend, check it out. But don't expect
too much.

Avron
*******************************************************************************
                                     Avron Boretz

              Cornell University, Department of Anthropology
  CU Chinese-Japanese-Korean Computing and Database Facility
                                [email-masked]

*******************************************************************************

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From: Marten Hiesboek <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 16 May 1994 19:58:33 +0800

> Windows choice is greyed out. One wonders about the history of this little

The IBM ad in BYTE says: Even though the featured Windows version is
English, thanks to the program TWin , one can make use of Truetype fonts
and input methods designed for CWindows.
And a fax from IBM support says: So many files of C OS/2 and C Windows are
identical, that we choose to offer the simpler English Windows with a
"bridge" (jieqiao ?!).

Ain't that weird? If they are identical, . . . ????

Asked whether OS/2 T2.1 could sustain a say - Japanese TWINBRIDGE or a
German Windows version there is cold silence from IBM Taiwan.

> Windows). Please correct me if I'm wrong about this.

Please let's find out if you are wrong about this. I really depend on
Panasonic's Hanin Input Method. Who knows more?

> more flexible of the two.

Can you tell us more about the aesthetical aspect? Why is Windows much
more pleasing?

> way to go. Get a Mac instead.

One of the reasons to buy OS/2 would be stability. We are using Word 6.0,
Word 5.0 Chinese, Pagemaker, Corel Draw all on Chinese Windows 3.1, and
sometimes it's just enought to send me up the wall. Program crashes, files
currupted, import filters in Word 6.0 don't work as soon as you have
high-bit chars in a file, deng3 deng3 ...
Will I be happier with OS/2?

Marten Hiesboek
NTNU Taiwan

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From: "Avron A. Boretz" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 16 May 1994 13:32:48 -0400

>and input methods designed for CWindows.

I think IBM is trying to cover up for the fact that they couldn't get real
Chinese Windows support in OS/2T, either because of legal or technical
problems (like having to get the product out the door before it was ready
for the market).

So, the ad specifically mentions input methods?

>German Windows version there is cold silence from IBM Taiwan.

Again, although I haven't tried it, I imagine it should work. Twinbridge is
fairly friendly, it works in Win-OS/2 English versions, and on top of
Chinese MS WIndows 3.1...

>Panasonic's Hanin Input Method. Who knows more?

If I have time later this evening, I will reinstall OS/2T with dual boot
(i.e., just install it on the DOS FAT partition) and try this out. I'll
report the results as soon as I have them.

>Can you tell us more about the aesthetical aspect? Why is Windows much

Actually I like the IBM PM interface better than Windows, although I prefer
the simple elegance of xwindows or Motif over either of them. Specifically,
though, the screen fonts for OS/2T Presentation Manager are not as nice as
the Windows fonts. I'm not sure what species of font they are using, but PM
uses Adobe Type Manager (Type 1) fonts, not Truetype. I haven't printed from
PM yet, so that's another aesthetic area to be explored (if worst comes to
worst, there is an IBM version of TeX...).

Since at the moment I can't get OS/2T to run at anything greater than
800X600, this evaluation may not be entirely fair.

>Will I be happier with OS/2?

I'm in the same boat--Winword 6.0, Adobe Photoshop, Textbridge OCR,
AmiPro... and yes, crashing and trashing are part of the Chinese Windows
lifestyle! That's why I started experimenting with OS/2 a ways back, and why
I so eagerly antipated OS/2 T2.1. I think the final verdict is not in yet,
especially if OS/2T goes Unicode in 2.2. I'm not sure the system as it
stands today will make life easier than it is now with Chinese Windows,
though. At least when Chinese Windows crashes, you know what to do next!
(Being stubborn, however, I'm going to continue playing with OS/2T and see
what it can do).

Regards,
Avron