I began using OS/2 in about 1988 and it was my primary operating system, both at home and work, until early 1998. After that time I no longer used OS/2 at work, and although I continued to use it regularly at home for another year or so, it became less and less frequent until I finally shut down OS/2 for the last time at home in August 2002. I started the Alex Chapman OS/2 Home Page in early 1994 when it was hosted with a free service offered by TurnPike. It moved to Digiserve in 1995, where in early 1996 it became http://budgetweb.com/os2/ and remained there until 2008, despite changing underlying web hosting service since to pair Networks. In November 2008 it moved to http://os2.sitesz.com/. In 1993 while I was living in London, England and connecting to the internet via Demon Internet Services, I wrote a suite of OS/2 REXX programs for sending and receiving email and downloading news for offline reading which were ka9q compatible and that I packaged as WARPDIS and released as freeware under the GPL. I've copied a local version here. It can also still be downloaded from it's original location. During this time I also published an OS/2 Meta Faq containing a list of useful links for OS/2 users. The last update to this appears to have been the 4th September 1995. I've copied a local version here, but it is currently still available from it's original location. It's just here for my amusement, and most of the links and email addresses are out of date. In late 1995, when I wanted to upgrade my computer, I did some research into places that I could buy a system with OS/2 preloaded. I later published this as the OS/2 pre-load list, and have maintained it since. I ended up buying a custom P133 ASUS SCSI system from one Venkat Thirumalai in January 1996 which I continued to use for many years, upgrading OS/2 several times. I eventually donated this computer to a local charity (TEAMing for TECHnology) in August 2002.. Unfortunately, like a great many other vendors that were on early versions of the OS/2 pre-load list, Venkat Thirumalai no longer sells OS/2 systems. It was particularly saddening to see that Indelible Blue closed their doors 5/31/2001. In 2002 there were no submissions to the list at all. When IBM and Netscape shipped Netscape Navigator 2.02 for OS/2 in 1996, they included a component designed to let OS/2 users run Win 3.1 Netscape Navigator plugins. But the OS/2 newsgroups rapidly filled with problems surrounding its use. After seeing the same questions asked and answered many times, I compiled this list of Hints and Tips for using Windows 3.1 plugins with Netscape Navigator for OS/2. Along the way I've had plenty of other OS/2 related adventures. Trying to get OS/2 device drivers for a particular sound card from Reveal Multimedia is one that sticks out. After being strung along for several months, Reveal Multimedia finally went out of business. I've had OS/2 web pages on a number of topics over the years. The survivors can be found on my current Alex Chapman OS/2 Home Page. |