Q's and A's - September 1994

by IBM

This quarter, we're answering some of your most commonly asked questions via the Internet, CompuServe, and our own DEVCON CFORUM (through IBM TalkLink).

Question:

Can you tell me how to install the Toolkit v1.3? I have the 7 diskettes and no install program on any of them.

Answer:

The Toolkit is installed in a bit of a different manner than some other programs. You will need to use the instaid OS/2 commmand, which can be found in your /OS2/INSTALL directory. The following is a list of instructions that will help you through the installation process.

1. Select OS/2 Full Screen from the Group-Main menu.
2. Insert OS/2 toolkit diskette number 1 into drive A.
3. Type the following at the command-line prompt:

    instaid a:toolkit.pip

4. Press Enter, and wait for the IBM Logo to appear on the screen. The OS/2 programming tools installation procedure consists of a series of menus and prompts. Your reponses to the prompts will move you through the installation.

Note: When all of the options are installed, the toolkit consumes approximately 22MB of disk space.

Question:

How do you create INF files from text files, and where can I get additional info on INFs in general?

Answer:

There is a Anonymous-FTP server that contains a lot of information about OS/2 and INF tools and documentation. The FTP site is ftp-os2.cdrom.com. Once connected type: user anonymous and then your Internet ID as the password. cdrom.com is the Internet's largest and most complete repository for OS/2 software. Files stored in the /os2 subtree are normally in the latest zip archive format (as binary files), although some information files are stored in ASCII. This zip format is compatible with PKWare's PKUNZIP Version 1.93 and later, and Info-Zip's UnZip Version 5.0 and later. An OS/2 version of UnZip (and the corresponding Zip utility) can be found in /os2/2.x/archivers (or /os2/all/archivers for the OS/2 1.x compatible version).

There is a file in the pub directory called 00index.txt that contains everything on the Public server. Get that file and do a search on IPF and you'll find everything you need on IPF creation, including available tools to convert text files to INF files.

Question:

I have a SoundBlaster 16 card and a internal CD-ROM. When playing the CD player (MMPM), I only get sound out of the headphone jack on the CD-ROM, no sound comes out of the output jack on the sound card.

Answer:

There is a analog cable, inside your PC, that runs from the CD-ROM to the Sound Card. If the CD-ROM and sound card were preinstalled, it probably was connected - but check it to make sure. The cable should be connected to an audio jack usually at the back of the CD-ROM next to the SCSI port. The connection on the sound card should be around the middle of the card near the top (opposite the plug-in slot) If that's connected and still no sound, you have a problem with the device driver setting the sound at level ZERO. What you need to do is to get the mixer from the Blaster forum on CompuServe. The file is SB_OS2.EXE, and I think it was uploaded on 7/15. This should fix your problem.

Question:

We can't seem to get OS2MEMU work properly with OS/2 2.11. Is there an updated copy that works with OS/2 2.11? If so, how can we get a copy?

Answer:

See 211MEM.ZIP in the OS2USER forum library. It's a replacement .DLL file for OS/2 2.11 to cooperate with OS2MEMU.

Question:

I recently subscribed to The Developer Connection for OS/2, but I have just moved. Can you tell me to whom I should send change of address details?

Answer:

Because our fulfillment/order center handles "change of address", renewals, and orders, please call the appropriate order number listed in the directory of this newsletter. They will update their records accordingly, and you will continue to receive your CD-ROM.

If you have a question that we did not answer, please write us; we'll do our best to answer it!