Even though a lot of expirimenting still goes on, I am glad to report you that Qemu (Version 0.7), and Bochs (2.2 Pre-Release 3) has a lot better x86 emulation support (Qemu is the closest thing to a open-source Virtual PC clone. OS/2 is a very complicated OS. It uses hardware differently than most other operating systems, which is why an emulator that can run an system as complicated as OS/2 would be comparable to a real machine. For a long time, Connectix VPC was the ONLY product that could run this system (Eventually, Connectix was absorbed by Microsoft). Don't get me wrong, Microsoft VPC is a very good product. I like it more than Office, but I got nightmares of what would happen if Mr. Clippit shipped with VPC saying "Where do you want to go today (Microsoft I hope)" (Humor intended). But for a open-source PC Emulator, this would be a giant feat, and both Qemu, and the Bochs 2.2 Pre-Release live up to the expectations (Keep in mind that I'm doing a lot of expirimenting and my findings will be done within a few weeks). Think of me as a software tester that thinks like a End-User and have way too much time on my hands. On the Qemu 0.7 Emulator, there is support for VPC hard-disk images now. I download the Win32 version, copied a VPC image that had Os/2 v2.1 installed with the Mutlimedia Presentation Manager with SoundBlaster support. I ran the VM with 32MB's of RAM and audio support enabled, and within a few a minute, I had the Workplace Shell, DOS, and Full-Screen and windowed Win-OS/2 Support, WITH sound playing through the emulated SoundBlaster. Now if that's not excellent PC compatiblity, then I don't know what is (My PC Clones can't even boot OS/2). My image of OS/2 Warp 4 that I made with Qemu 0.6.0 still runs without problems. On the Bochs front, I installed OS/2 Warp 3 for Windows (Even though I forgot to install DOS and Windows first, so I don't know how good the DOS and Win-OS/2 support is). Os/2 warp 3 installed without problems and the Workplace Shell started up. Both Qemu and Bochs are becoming comparabe to a actual machine. I will post more here at computing.net, I will send screenshots of the emulators in action for anyone who requst them. I hope that this message has been very informative, as I will be posting more information as the days go by. goodbye for now=).

Well...none can emulate the floppy version of OS/2 Warp 3... :( Bochs gets stuck at the "Insert disk #2" screen, and Qemu doesn't even get past the "OS/2 <gray spaces here>" screen... Is there ANY emulator AT ALL that can run this version of OS/2 in floppies?? :( Thanx!! ;) http://www.boredsource.com/eltrucha/ ftp://tsfc.ath.cx hotline://tsfc.ath.cx Little Johnny took a drink but he shall drink no more. For what he thought was H2O Was H2SO4.

The question is why??? PC's are so cheap why frig around with emulation and all the limitations. El-Trucha = trout Therefore I presume you new name is equivelent to SULPHURIC which is not much better: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sulphuric_acid

Well, I just wanted an emulator because it's like 100 times faster to install (disk images) and I'm lazy... :P But anyways, I discovered that one of my broken PC's wasn't broken, the hard drive was...so I stuck in a new one (240 MB) and I'm installing a dual boot between Windows NT WS 4.0 and OS/2 Warp 3... :P (setting up OS/2 now) And yeah, I know that "trucha" means "trout", but in the Spain dialect it also means "gay"... so that's why I don't like that name, "El-Gay"... :( Thanx!! ;) http://www.boredsource.c om/eltrucha/ http://tsfc.ath.cx ftp://tsfc.ath.cx hotline://tsfc.ath.cx Little Johnny took a drink but he shall drink no more. For what he thought was H2

Rkix is back (And always with a mouthful to say when I feeling inspired) There are several reasons why I would run OS/2 on Emulator (Sorry if I don’t respond to quickly enough). For starters, I would like to try out as many systems as possible, but not have a large number of machines neither. I like to keep my findings/experiments confined to one machine locally (and do you know how much power those machines consume!). Why should I keep my 200MHz Pentium running Windows 2000 when my current system (P3 at 700MHz) can run the same OS and run it a lot faster than my actual hardware. And you would also save space by dumping the PC (Now if you have a collectors PC like the IBM Model 5150 or the classic PC/XT’s, then keep them for novelty/collectors purposes, but I, for the most part, just have generic IBM clone PC’s that have no special purpose). Virtual PC on my machine can boot and run OS/2 v2.1 faster than my actual hardware (IBM 486 running at 50MHz with 7MB’s of RAM). And because Virtual PC can use more advance hardware through the actual hardware (a.k.a. resolutions greater than 640 by 480 and SoundBlaster Support, I can actually have sound and higher resolutions). You ask the questions why. I respond with why not! Qemu supports the SoundBlaster hardware (I tried my vhd image of OS/2 v2.1 and it played startup sound). Update: OS/2 Warp 3 does run under Qemu, but without the mouse, I installed it under Bochs and copied the image file into my Qemu directory. It runs, but without the mouse. Most Word-Processors do not run under any version of OS/2 (Tried IBM Works and Ami Pro). All OS/2 Images running under Qemu are using generic VGA drivers (Unless stated otherwise). About the floppy issue: OS/2 v2.1 installs fine under Qemu and Virtual PC with the disk images (Bochs 2.2 official will PROBABLY have better OS/2 Support in running v2.1(Haven’t tried) and Warp 4 (Currently crashes). Bochs (Win32) already has both direct floppy can CD-ROM access. Later versions of OS/2 (Warp 3 and above) use a different floppy format called XDF (Think of it as the OS/2 version of the Win95 DMF format). XDF is still not recognized by almost all of the emulators (Including VPC). I did a CD-ROM installation of OS/2 Warp 3(On Bochs and VPC). The Installation Floppy, Disk 1, Disk 1 CD, and Disk 2 are the 1.40MB format. I don’t know about Warp 4 (It’s been ages since I did a Warp 4 installation). I did the floppy installation, but I don’t remember with they were XDF or generic floppy. And like what Sulfurik said, Emulator (in a lot, and probably most cases), are a LOT faster than the hardware than people are migrating from, and it's safe(I've yet had Virtual PC/Qemu/ or Bochs crash on me). I did not know about the Spain dialect name (I guess you always learn something new everyday) and I guess that would be a good reason for a name change. Happy Emulation =).

Yeah, I HATE that stupid XDF format... :@ Hmm...I got an idea, how about passing all of the data in the XDF disks to regular 2.88 MB images? :D I'm gonna go try that!! :| http://www.boredsource.c om/eltrucha/ http://tsfc.ath.cx ftp://tsfc.ath.cx hotline://tsfc.ath.cx Little Johnny took a drink but he shall drink no more. For what he thought was H2

I think I'm the first person to get this to work... --- Installation of OS/2 Warp 3 under Virtual PC is most easily accomplished using the CD version, but if all you have is the floppy disks, it's still possible to install it, with a little trickery: 1. Make images of all of your OS/2 Warp disks. The Installation Disk and Disk 1 can be handled in the normal way (WinImage, "dd" under Linux, etc.). All of the other disks are in XDF format; you can make images using the XDFCOPY program found on the Installation Disk, which works under OS/2 or DOS, and also worked in a DOS box under Windows 2000 when I tried. There's also a Linux 'xdfcopy' program available that does the same thing. Making these images is not only a good idea for backup purposes; it's necessary because Virtual PC can use XDF disk images but cannot read XDF disks directly from the floppy drive (this feature isn't documented anywhere; I only know it thanks to Ben Armstrong mentioning it on his blog!) 2. Make a copy of the Disk 1 image, because you'll need to make some changes to it. 3. Overwrite the file IBM2SCSI.ADD on the Disk 1 image with blank or very small contents. You can do this by booting DOS / Windows / OS/2 under VPC, inserting the disk image, and then at a command prompt, type "COPY CON A:\IBM2SCSI.ADD", type a few random letters (this may or may not be necessary), then press CTRL-Z then Enter. This will leave enough free space on the disk for the next step. It will also, of course, make the SCSI driver unusable, but it's not usable under Virtual PC anyway (Don't actually delete any files; the installer will complain if you do.) 4. Optionally, remove the line "BASEDEV=IBM2SCSI.ADD" from CONFIG.SYS; this isn't necessary, but if you're a perfectionist, it'll remove an annoying error message that appears for about 1 second :) 5. Overwrite the files IBM1FLPY.ADD, IBM2FLPY.ADD and XDFLOPPY.FLT with newer versions. If you already have OS/2 Warp 4 installed under Virtual PC, you can find suitable versions in \OS2\BOOT. I took the files from an already-installed Warp 4.5.2; files from Warp 4.0 or eComStation will probably work but I haven't tested them. If you have a newer version of OS/2 but it's not installed, the files can probably be found on the installation disks or CD. If you don't have a newer version of OS/2, maybe these drivers can be downloaded from IBM's web site somewhere... and maybe versions from Warp 3 with a late FixPak will work... but I only know about what I tested :) 6. Install OS/2 Warp 3 from the disk images, using the newly modified Disk 1 in place of the original, and installation should proceed as normal. If it doesn't, try different versions of the files in step 5. Once it's installed, follow Ben Armstrong's instructions (http://blogs.msdn.com/virtual_pc_guy/archive/2004/12/07/277467.aspx) for video drivers etc. Note that if you're using the red version of OS/2 and want WIN-OS/2 support, you'll need to either install Windows 3.1 before OS/2, or have a copy of DOS on the same disk to install it under; the Windows 3.1 installer doesn't work under OS/2. I'm still having a problem with this... it crashes when it tries to display a Truetype font. Thanks to: * Ben Armstrong (http://blogs.msdn.com/virtual_pc_guy/) for mentioning that Virtual PC supports XDF - which prompted me to test an XDF disk image under Warp 4.5 and find that it worked there - otherwise I would have assumed that the problem was XDF itself, when it's actually Warp 3's drivers for it. * Michal Necasek (http://pages.prodigy.net/michaln/) - his report of replacing IDE drivers with those from the Device Driver Pak to make OS/2 2.1 install inspired the idea of doing something similar with the floppy disk drivers.