Now we interview Peter Piper. Assistant Director of Computer Services at Shimer
College and a Full-time student in his last semester of college.
VOICE> Can you please describe your current use of OS/2 at home? What kind
of hardware and software are you using for OS/2? Do you run DOS/Windows apps under
OS/2?
Peter Piper> My current use of OS/2 at home is: 1) creating my senior thesis
via Freelance graphics (presentation on how to integrate technologies in small liberal
art colleges) 2) Wordpro (wordprocessing) 3) surfing the web, 4) socks server for
my other warp machine, 5) Graphics manipulation, 5) web design, 6) gaming (entrepreneur,
etc.) 7) file & print sharing on my mini-net. (Object Desktop 1.5 installed)
I have this hardware on my first machine: 1) Cyrix PR 166+, plan to upgrade to
the Cyrix 266+ when it is available, 2) ASUS P/I-P55T2P4 board with USB and infared
support (disabled since os/2 can't use them effectively at the moment), 3) 64mb
Fast Page RAM, 5) Fujitsu EIDE-AT 3.5 gb hard drive, 6) mitsumi 16X cdrom (IDE),
6) Matrox Mystique 4mb video, 7) Intel Etherexpress 16 NIC, 8) USR Robotics 33.6K
internal modem, 9) Creative Labs PNP16 sound card. I have this hardware on my second
machine: 1) Intel 486 DX4-100 CPU, 2) standard VLB motherboard, 3) 16mb RAM, 4)
Fujitsu EIDE 2.5gb hard drive, 5) 4X Sony IDE cdrom, 6) STB 1mb VLB video card (cirrus
chipset) 7) Intel Etherexpress 16 NIC, 8) DTC LBA bios card (to support large hard
drive)
Yes I do run Windows and DOS apps in OS/2 and they are:....1) SimCity 2000 in
Win-os2, 2) Real Audio in win-os2 (gag), 3) Encyclopedia on CDROM in win-os2, 4)
Netscape Communicator in win-os/2 (back up browser to NS/2), 5) QPro 5.0 in DOS
(backup to Lotus 123), 6) CDROM based movies...don't ask...runs fine in win-os/2.
VOICE> How and when did you decide to use OS/2? What features attracted you
to try OS/2? What previous experience did you have with other operating systems?
Peter Piper> I was interested in OS/2 and bought ver 2.0...did dual boot with
DOS and windows then completely converted with OS/2 ver 3.0. I was completely astounded
when I didn't get any GPF's while running native os/2 apps..compared to running
windows and native windows apps. My previous experience is primarily DOS and WFWG
VOICE> What other operating systems if any do you use and if they are networked,
how well does OS/2 work with these other systems? What percentage of your time is
spent running OS/2?
Peter Piper> I use WIN95/NT server/workstation at work, I use Linux, win95,
os/2 at home. Both home and work are networked. OS/2 works fine with OS/2. I am
having a bit of difficulty with Linux reading my networked os/2 socks server (hope
to get that resolved soon). Windows and OS/2 work fine together. My boss won't let
me put os/2 on any of the machines at work so I can't test it with NT. I spend 95%
of my time with OS/2...at home...I spend 100% of my time with Windows products at
work. I work 8 hours a day.
VOICE> Do you think you will continue to use OS/2 at home, or move to another
platform in the future?
Peter Piper> I will continue to use OS/2 until I REALLY have to..which I doubt
will be in the next 5 years.
VOICE> Are there any changes that you would like to see to OS/2 that would
facilitate your continued use or expanded use of OS/2?
Peter Piper> Awareness to others so they will be willing to give it a try.
I have a hard time trying to convince, without any luck, my peers at work to use
OS/2.
VOICE> How have IBM's statements that they are targeting the medium to large
business sector affected your decision to continue using OS/2?
Peter Piper> I work in a school with about 100 machines, 22 staff, and 150
students. I think that is relatively small, and I can't get anyone to seriously
look at OS/2 unless they are MAC users. I can convince them when they get a GPF
in windows..then they just reboot and ignore me. I feel helpless when there isn't
any support other than the one I can provide. I wish IBM would back someone like
me up while dealing with these people.
VOICE> If IBM licensed another company to sell the OS/2 client to home/SOHO
users, would you support this product?
Peter Piper> YES.
VOICE> Have you tried to use OS/2 in your workplace? If so, what problems
did >you encounter that led you to stop using OS/2 or to fail to get OS/2 running
in your business?
Peter Piper> READ ABOVE.