The opinions expressed in this section are those of the individual writer and do not necessarily represent the opinions of the editor or publisher of OS/2 CONNECT. NOTE: Letters may be edited for inappropriate or offensive language or clarity.
Question is, can I ask questions in this forum about loading OS/2 Warp 4 and Windows together using BootMagic or whatever? I really want to get back using OS/2.
Whilst this has been going on over the last two months, Mr. Gerstner has been banging on about Linux. What this has to do with differentiating IBM and boosting growth is not clear. However, it has sent a pretty clear message to the marketplace: IBM seems to be about to do to its loyal AIX customers what it is trying to do to its loyal OS/2 customers. Who would risk (sic) an RS/6000 now? And where will it all end?
I have stood these types of delays before, as anyone who chooses OS/2 inevitably must, but what really pushed me over the edge was the arrogance from IBM Tech support. "Do you own IBM equipment? No? Well, so sorry old boy, but we can't help you." (Read that, we might COULD help you, but we won't.)
I shortly thereafter sold my complete version of Warp 4 over EBay, and also sold WordPro 96. I miss them both. But even if IBM was so arrogant with regard to servicing OS/2, you would think they would be interested in maintaining a solid customer base with regard to Lotus products. No. They always offered poor upgrade breaks for their customers. They offer absolutely NO upgrade or transfer break for going from the OS/2 version to Windows versions. None. Are we STUPID HERE or what? Now I use Corel's Wordperfect 9. It is the only thing I have found that is close to WordPro. Certainly nothing from Microsoft will ever compete with the assembler code based line of Lotus.
I miss OS/2, but not the technical support. At least in Microland I KNOW I'm on my own, and the product at least PRETENDS to be compatible. If you write them with a problem (under the pretense, of course, that their Windows line really IS an OS...yeah, right), they at least pay passing homage to the concept that the customer is always right.
I went to the seminary in Boynton Beach, which, yes, is in Palm Beach County. I kept Duval County as my county of permenant residence, so I never was a Palm Beach voter. I mailed my punchcard absentee ballots back to Jacksonville and was always stricken by the mechanical flimsiness of the ballots. Unlike the cards which I fed through the 029 keypunches at the University of Florida years ago, these cards are prescored for punching with a stylus. It seemed that if I flexed the card too much the punches might work themselves loose. This made me nervous two ways about the manual recounts: not only the strong possibility of human error (heightened by the intense attention and the need for celerity), but also of the deterioration of the only artifacts we have of the vote.
I noticed two aspects of the election that haven't been noticed enough. First, it seems that in most parts of the country the elections supervisors and voters did not have to deal with such a long ticket. The human-factors people insist that we shouldn't present the user with more than a small number of choices; part of Bill Gates' success has come by obeying this principle. If people had been presented with the MS Bob Ballot, maybe there wouldn't have been so much confusion. When they have to cram the likes of the Socialists, the Socialist Workers, and the Workers' Worlders on the ballot, suddenly it becomes useful to be able to make one's way through a big list of choices. I'll bet the error rate among Floridians using OS/2 was pretty small.
Another thing that I think evades most people is the slippery area where the sample size becomes so large that the discrete turns into the continuous. Chemists could conceivably do their stoichiometry by counting the atoms involved in the reactions, but instead deal in the continuous quantities of moles, grams, and milliliters. We have to face the fact that this is a LARGE state--the fourth most populous state of the third most populous country. Insisting on six digits of accuracy when the systems guarantee only four is a recipe for failure.
I must say that I missed reading the December issue of OS/2 CONNECT when it came out, so I missed your editoral then. I did see the January editorial, about which I make some comments.
1. Actually, I think we do need to change the voting machines. I've always managed to punch the holes cleanly, but other people have complained of problems. Oh, to have a system that would stop this infernal whining! Of course, I've asked myself what kind of user interface would be best. Some have suggested voting on the Internet with clicks of a mouse. Oh, right! There are too many people who have trouble with that as it is. I like what my mother has to say about it though: if we are to have some kind of computerized voting, she doesn't want it to rely on a Microsoft product!
2. I don't know that would could have a media blackout on early reporting without having a consistent poll-closing time from coast to coast. Therefore, I enthusiastically support such a thing. I especially like the idea of a 24-hour window where voting starts and ends simultaneously across the country. (Discount, if you will, any objection you might raise on the grounds that the Special Theory of Relativity holds that simultaneity is an absurd notion.) The polls might well close for the night sometime during the 24-hour interval, but the closing and reopening times could be staggered across the country without ill effect.
3. The Supreme Court long ago held that literacy qualifications for voting were unconstitutional, but this election does make us ask basic philosophical questions about the competence required to vote. Of all the issues surrounding election reform, this is the tough one. As an example, let me point out that many schoolchildren and felons are both literate and informed of the issues, why not let them have the franchise? What about people with physical disabilities, many of whom incurred these handicaps in the service of their country, people who might be well informed of the issues but unable to cast a vote without assistance? We would want to exclude crazy people, but how crazy? We say a woman can't be only a little pregnant, but most other judgements in life are, well, judgement calls.
I finally got eComStation, and when I get finished with my backup-everything-to-CD program I will do the backup and install eCS and see how it goes (I am also upgrading to a 40GB drive in the process). I am toying with the notion of also subscribing to Software Choice (under a second OS/2 license) just to keep my foot in the door with IBM. This keeps me following the news pretty intently.
So I will be looking forward to what you have to say about the Convenience Pak.
Keep warm and have a wonderful Christmas!
(now, about those "modified" de-bug Kernels we were shipping to Redmond...)
This violates "freedom of the press." You might get away with forbidding poll workers from disclosing results, but once the voter is off polling grounds, it is fair game for the press to ask and publish any results they can gather
This was tried once before and was declared blatantly unconstitutional in the late fifties or early sixties. Plus there is a history of "qualifications" tests and these have all fallen before the constitution.
It would be nice to get them to read it at least once in their life, but to sign an affidavit that they understand it, is asking too much of their intelligence. They (the politicians and judges) have been arguing over the meaning of the Constitution since it was written (e.g. the second amendment (seems strait forward to me); "No federal, state, or local government, nor any representative of said governments shall infringe on the individual citizen's right to keep and bear arms." Unfortunately, it wasn't worded this way.
The vote in Florida, and in many other states for that matter, was so close as to be within the statistical margin of error for any existing way to count the vote. This means that in those states the election count is essentially a lottery. All the courtroom battles and other shenanigans are really then just about whether or not the lottery was a fair one. To me that is neither here nor there, the essential point is that it was a lottery, and a lottery because our state legislatures have failed to carefully minimize the randomness in the balloting and counting. That to me says we are indeed a banana republic, not Florida alone, but the whole darn country.
Pretty clear George W. will win and we can go back to more interesting topics.
I will say that unfortunately most the residents of your state do not see how they are using them. I actually believed that Al Gore was not Bill Clinton and I could live through it if he won. Now I know that he is far worse than Clinton.
I also agree with you on which operating system is best.
Keep up the Good Work.
Thanks.
Regards,
Yes, we have deployed FixPak 14, on all our OS/2 systems, and it is working flawlessly. We suffered no problems with our C or JAVA compilers, no problems with our DB2/2 clients or servers, and no problems with our Domino v5 web server. FixPak 14 is highly recommended. I suggest, too, from experience, that the FixPak be installed from the OS/2 command line, using the new option FPINST WARP4. It works like a charm.
It is helpful to note, that prior to OS/2, our election systems were cumbersome and costly, requiring an MVS mainframe, TAPE processing, and CICS support. OS/2 was then, and is now, the perfect environment for this process. We in Miami-Dade county are proud of our accomplishments, and we stand by our efforts, 100 percent.
Thanks for a wonderful magazine, and good luck in the future.
Question: I have another product (a faster confuser) but it came with Windoze 98. So I installed using dual boot Mandrake Linux. Is it possible to take the stock version of Warp 3 and network it to Linux? If possible, are there any other capabilities I will need to download? I realize that Warp Connect is no longer available so I would still like to connect them.
Thank you for taking the time to look into this request.
Good luck on your Presidential elections. Coups are never good.
To submit a letter to the editor for this section, please complete the following form. NOTE: Some web browsers may not support e-mail protocols. In this event, e-mail or fax your message separately.