OS/2 - Any known compatible versions?

[sliderule]

Just failed to install OS/2 Warp 4. It crashes halfway through, then kind of recovers but won't boot.

Has anyone had success installing OS/2 on the MiSTer?

[sliderule]

I got farther with OS/2 Warp 3. It completes the first half of the install, boots from the harddrive for the second half of the install, but the mouse doesn't work with PS2 selected. Sadly, the install procedure cannot be completed by keyboard alone.

[flynnsbit]

No, this is as far as I could get: https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/ao486_MiSTer/issues/25
It's been a while since I tried but the core hasn't changed so I wouldn't expect a different outcome.

[sliderule]

I, too, had better success after disabling the L1 and L2 caches, but no luck. Oh well

[throAU]

If os2 works on ao486 it would be pretty amazing and hats off to the devs if it ever works.

It even has major problems on real x86 hardware in a virtual machine; it’s doing some weird obscure low level stuff that pretty much almost nothing else for pc does.

[Zacpod]

I would love this. Used OS/2 extensively - was my first 'real' OS after DOS.
Was super-excited at the prospect of installing it after all these decades.

Has anyone tried the newer versions, like ecommstation or ArcaOS?

[ZigZag]

Has anyone tried the newer versions, like ecommstation or ArcaOS?

Newer ones are built to run on even newer hardware & likely even less compatible with aging hardware. Going older is the most rational approach.

[Zacpod]

Has anyone tried the newer versions, like ecommstation or ArcaOS?

Newer ones are built to run on even newer hardware & likely even less compatible with aging hardware. Going older is the most rational approach.

I wonder if getting OS/2 2.11 installed, and then upgrade to warp 4 would work. I'm gonna try, if I can find an ISO or my old 2.11 floppies...

[Zacpod]

I wonder if getting OS/2 2.11 installed, and then upgrade to warp 4 would work. I'm gonna try, if I can find an ISO or my old 2.11 floppies...

Nope. 2.1 doesn't work, either. :'(

Tried a bunch of prebuild VHDs as well - they start booting, but immediately fail when they try to mount root.
It's always trap 000d, so I think OS/2 is having issues with whatever IDE system AO486 has implemented.

[thera34]

Thanks to @friendly.joe, I've found out that OS/2 is somewhat running, so did some tests:

OS/2 ver. 2.0 works fine with mouse support, been able also to connect to a BBS with Softerm terminal client and UART in Modem mode. Installation works fine afaik.
Starting version 2.1, mouse is no longer detected and L1 cache should be turned OFF in order to get rid of errors/not booting. Sound however works fine. Further more, an error complaining about C:\OS2\MDOS\VMOUSE.SYS in CONFIG.SYS could not be loaded is thrown.
On the mouse issue, for version 3.0 Connect BlueSpine or Warp (both installed from floppy and CD each), I got the pointer appearing with Amouse 2.71 OS/2 driver, but still not moving, maybe there is a compatible driver somewhere.
I still have to play around with SLIP/PPP, as said UAR in modem mode seems to work fine.
As for DOS/Win programs, Dos Navigator, some DOS benchmarks and Castle of the Winds are the only ones I tried so far, worked without issues.
Will post when further progress is made Cheers !

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[thera34]

Update: got mouse working on OS/2 Connect ver 3.0:

1. Got Rodent 1.0.13 (rodent_1-0-13.zip) from https://www.os2site.com/sw/drivers/mouse/index.html
2. Unpack it and create a floppy with the archive contents (WinImage utility to rescue, then rename IMA to IMG)
3. Install OS/2 WITHOUT mouse support
4. At the "Advanced Options" screen, select "Install Device Support Diskette"
5. At the "Select Device Drivers" screen, select the appropriate mouse driver (down arrow to change current highlighted entry and space bar to select the current highlighted entry). Press <tab> to move to the "Ok" button and then press <Enter>. OS/2 will copy RODENT.SYS into the \OS2 directory and update your CONFIG.SYS file.
6. Most probably the order in config.sys is scrambled, so if you get any errors on "vmouse.sys" or other mouse related drivers, edit it like below (also copy RODENT.SYS from floppy to C:\OS2 if it is missing/not copied by OS/2 setup)
DEVICE=C:\OS2\BOOT\POINTDD.SYS
DEVICE=C:\OS2\RODENT.SYS
DEVICE=C:\OS2\BOOT\MOUSE.SYS TYPE =RODENT$
DEVICE=C:\OS2\BOOT\VMOUSE.SYS

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I hope same method will work on OS/2 Warp as well, will get to that later.

[thera34]

And it does work in OS/2 Warp as well ! For this, I just copied the rodent.sys and the other mouse related files in the C:\OS2 folder and adjusted Config.sys as below screenshot:

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[thorr]

Awesome! Now I am wondering about actual DOS application compatibility. It would be interesting to see if it will run things that DOS currently can't in the ao486 core.

[Caldor]

Awesome! Now I am wondering about actual DOS application compatibility. It would be interesting to see if it will run things that DOS currently can't in the ao486 core.

Should be very limited what the AO486 core cannot run in DOS that is supposed to be supported by DOS at this point?

[thera34]

Small how-to (the way it worked for me)

1. First create the VHD file directly on MiSTer (either by F9 or SSHed on it)
cd /media/fat/games/ao486/
dd if=/dev/zero of=<nameofvhd>.vhd status=progress bs=1M count=400

I made 400 Megs ones, no reason for me to make them larger, as they are for testing

2. Set L1 cache to OFF (rest of the settings should be default ones)
3. Mount OS/2 Install floppy disk and ISO CD if necessary and reboot
4. Follow on-screen instruction but DO NOT install mouse support yet (set it to No Pointing device) for versions higher than 2.0
I used FAT instead of HPFS, as the HPFS will run into errors/stop booting
5. After first boot, copy the RODENT.SYS from https://www.os2site.com/sw/drivers/mous ... 1-0-13.zip on your C:\OS2 folder
I used a secondary VHD for fast file transfer, or you can mount it directly on Windows, or you can use MS-Dos from MiSTer to copy around etc...
Same thing can be accomplished by creating a floppy image with archive's content with WinImage utility, save as IMA then rename it to IMG
6. Modify the Config.sys file as follows (the mouse drivers order is important)

DEVICE=...POINTDD.SYS...
DEVICE=...RODENT.SYS...
DEVICE=...MOUSE.SYS TYPE RODENT$
DEVICE=...VMOUSE.SYS...
DEVICE=...COM.SYS...
DEVICE=...VCOM.SYS...

Mine looks like this (as I copied all mouse files to C:\OS2)
DEVICE=C:\OS2\POINTDD.SYS
DEVICE=C:\OS2\RODENT.SYS
DEVICE=C:\OS2\MOUSE.SYS TYPE=RODENT$
DEVICE=C:\OS2\VMOUSE.SYS

Have fun, hope it works the same for you
Still to-do: Find a proper SVGA driver, tried some Trident/Tseng with no luck yet.
Late edit: Use MiSTer unstable nightlies, doesn't seem to work with the stable one. Also both original and Trident boot1 roms are working without issues

[rhester72]

Awesome! Now I am wondering about actual DOS application compatibility. It would be interesting to see if it will run things that DOS currently can't in the ao486 core.

Back in the day, DOS VMs on OS/2 used to be really, REALLY slooooooooowwwwwwww....

[Malor]

That seemed to be hardware dependent. On the machine on which I ran Warp, I could run one DOS program at high speed and with minimal impact to the rest of the system. But if I tried to run two DOS programs, the system became extremely sluggish, just painful to use.

Other people have said that their systems didn't do that; I was using cheap hardware, so that may have been part of the problem. High quality boards apparently ran the OS better. Unfortunately, the AO486 is kind of the equivalent of the cheapest, crappiest imaginable 486-class machine, so I think OS/2 is probably going to stay troublesome for quite a long while, maybe permanently.

[dmckean]

Well, considering we have to turn of L1 cache for OS/2 to run, everything is probably going to be slower than under DOS.

[thorr]

Should be very limited what the AO486 core cannot run in DOS that is supposed to be supported by DOS at this point?

Really? If so, that is great news! I haven't checked lately, but the Top 300 DOS pack is a good example of a bunch of games that don't work that have been identified with the ! flag. Also the dos4gw games don't just work. I saw that there was a fix to the vga scroll bug. I haven't tested Second Reality yet since that fix came out, but it would be cool if the right side looks correct now during the intro part. Also, enabling the cache is causing issues in some situations such as breaking the joystick detection in early Sierra games (and apparently making OS/2 not work). My guess is there is a way to fix the cache issues eventually.

[Caldor]

Should be very limited what the AO486 core cannot run in DOS that is supposed to be supported by DOS at this point?

Really? If so, that is great news! I haven't checked lately, but the Top 300 DOS pack is a good example of a bunch of games that don't work that have been identified with the ! flag. Also the dos4gw games don't just work. I saw that there was a fix to the vga scroll bug. I haven't tested Second Reality yet since that fix came out, but it would be cool if the right side looks correct now during the intro part. Also, enabling the cache is causing issues in some situations such as breaking the joystick detection in early Sierra games (and apparently making OS/2 not work). My guess is there is a way to fix the cache issues eventually.

The DOS4GW games might still not work, but that is usually fixed by replacing DOS4GW with DOS32A. DOS32A does what DOS4GW does, but usually much better as its coded in assembly and has fixed many of the bugs in DOS4GW. Like not being able to support more than 16MB RAM.

Some games are not supported simply because they are too high end though and needs a faster CPU, an FPU or something like that.

[thorr]

The DOS4GW games might still not work, but that is usually fixed by replacing DOS4GW with DOS32A. DOS32A does what DOS4GW does, but usually much better as its coded in assembly and has fixed many of the bugs in DOS4GW. Like not being able to support more than 16MB RAM.

Some games are not supported simply because they are too high end though and needs a faster CPU, an FPU or something like that.

Thanks. Yes, I knew all of those things, but I am talking about the fact that you need to jump through hoops to get things to run such as replacing dos4gw with dos32a, turning off the cache, etc., and also there are still a large number of games that don't work that aren't too high end, such as The Incredible Machine (I think this can be fixed by using a Trident video bios, if I recall correctly). I am not complaining, but looking forward to when everything just works for the most part like it would on an Intel 486 machine with a real Tseng Labs video card, AMI BIOS, etc. back in the day. The good news is that people are finding work-arounds that are getting things working like alternate drivers, etc. which gives clues about where to focus the efforts to fix things in the core itself.

[bbond007]

Well, considering we have to turn of L1 cache for OS/2 to run, everything is probably going to be slower than under DOS.

OS/2 2.0 runs with L1 cache and HPFS.

It also boots amazingly fast.

[thera34]

Add-on for OS/2 2.1 - how to get CD-ROM and Soundblaster working

Inspired and adapted after this : https://gekk.info/articles/os2.html

Install OS/2 2.1 from floppy images, see above mini-how to get a working VHD with mouse support.

After you get the mouse working using above RODENT.SYS driver, get this floppy image with CD-ROM drivers: https://gekk.info/articles/files/cdrom.ima
Also, very important: for obscure reasons, all OS/2 2.1 distributions are missing the CDFS.IFS file on disk1 image.
To get around this, you need OS/2 2.11 ISO version which contains CDFS.IFS as well (the only one found by me was the German one, it is good enough).
So get the 2.11 ISO, extract and copy "Diskette 1.img" to your MiSTer, we will get back to it later

1. Go to System Setup and run Selective Install
2. Check the box next to the CD-ROM and hit Next
3. From the list, select "Other"
4. Complete the install process, inserting the disk it requests, and restart afterwards.
5. Insert cdrom.ima
6. Open C:\OS2 in a browser window, and A:\ in another
7. Select all files on A: and drag (with the RIGHT button!) to C:\OS2
8. Let it overwrite
9. Edit C:\CONFIG.SYS
10. At the bottom, add: BASEDEV=IBMIDECD.FLT and save.
11. Insert that "Diskette 1.img" from 2.11 ISO (or Disk1.img if you have EN version)
12. Drag CDFS.IFS from A: drive to C:\OS2

Restart the machine, after reboot you should be able to see the CD-ROM drive

Mount OS/2 2.1 ISO
Open MMPM2 folder and run MINSTALL.EXE
Choose Software Motion Video and Soundblaster, you won't need the rest
When asked, select Sound Blaster Pro 16 from drop-down menu, hit several OKs and reboot

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Enjoy !

[p2mate]

Small how-to (the way it worked for me)

1. First create the VHD file directly on MiSTer (either by F9 or SSHed on it)
   cd /media/fat/games/ao486/
   dd if=/dev/zero of=<nameofvhd>.vhd status=progress bs=1M count=400

I made 400 Megs ones, no reason for me to make them larger, as they are for testing

1. Set L1 cache to OFF (rest of the settings should be default ones)
2. Mount OS/2 Install floppy disk and ISO CD if necessary and reboot
3. Follow on-screen instruction but DO NOT install mouse support yet (set it to No Pointing device) for versions higher than 2.0
   I used FAT instead of HPFS, as the HPFS will run into errors/stop booting
4. After first boot, copy the RODENT.SYS from https://www.os2site.com/sw/drivers/mous ... 1-0-13.zip on your C:\OS2 folder
   I used a secondary VHD for fast file transfer, or you can mount it directly on Windows, or you can use MS-Dos from MiSTer to copy around etc...
   Same thing can be accomplished by creating a floppy image with archive's content with WinImage utility, save as IMA then rename it to IMG
5. Modify the Config.sys file as follows (the mouse drivers order is important)
   
   

   Code: Select all

          DEVICE=...POINTDD.SYS...
          DEVICE=...RODENT.SYS...
          DEVICE=...MOUSE.SYS TYPE RODENT$
          DEVICE=...VMOUSE.SYS...
          DEVICE=...COM.SYS...
          DEVICE=...VCOM.SYS...

Mine looks like this (as I copied all mouse files to C:\OS2)
DEVICE=C:\OS2\POINTDD.SYS
DEVICE=C:\OS2\RODENT.SYS
DEVICE=C:\OS2\MOUSE.SYS TYPE=RODENT$
DEVICE=C:\OS2\VMOUSE.SYS

Have fun, hope it works the same for you
Still to-do: Find a proper SVGA driver, tried some Trident/Tseng with no luck yet.
Late edit: Use MiSTer unstable nightlies, doesn't seem to work with the stable one. Also both original and Trident boot1 roms are working without issues

I tried this with os/2 warp 4 on ao486 v221217. However the installation fails with:

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Any idea?

[thera34]

I tried this with os/2 warp 4 on ao486 v221217. However the installation fails with:

Any idea?

I got that error usually if not setting L1 cache to off. Be sure to double check that
Or maybe a bad/corrupt image ?

[Bas]

OS/2 remains elusive on MiSTer but by ways of a service announcement: the famous Hobbes archive is about to sunset in a few months. There are a few initiatives to keep it alive, one of which is my tiny contribution. You can find what I could pull from it on ftp://ftp.area536.com/mirrors/hobbes for the foreseeable future. It's about 18GB's of misc. Java, DOS, Windows but mostly OS/2 utilities, old newsletters and device drivers and seems to be complete. The device drivers are particularly important to preserve I'd say. So to those into this kind of thing.. enjoy.

[rhester72]

RIP Hobbes. It's almost as famous as Aminet.

[NathanW]

Hobbes Archive lives on at www.hobbesarchive.com